before you fill them with the wine. We know not to whom your brother
bears the gifts of his handiwork to-night, but he knows who needs them
most, and naught must be lost or wasted.

"Where was I in the story, children?"

"The baby on the hay, sweet mother."

"Ah, yes, I mind me now. I took him in my arms. To me no child had ever
looked the same. But now, a marvel! The rock stable, which before had
seemed dark indeed, lighted only by our dim lamps, suddenly shone full
of light. I raised my eyes, and there, before and above me, seemingly
through a rent in the roof, I beheld a most large and luminous star.
Verily, I had not seen the opening in the roof when I had lain me down,
but now I could do naught else but look from my baby's face beside me,
along the floods of light to the star before.

"And now, without, rose a cry: 'We are come to behold the King. We are
guided.' And, entering the stable, clad in their coats of sheepskin,
with their slings and crooks yet in their hands, came shepherds, I
cannot now recall the number."

"I had wrapped my babe in his clothes, and had lain him in his manger.
And now it was so that as soon as their eyes fell upon his face, they
sank to their knees and worshiped him."

"'Heard you not,' spake a white-bearded shepherd to me; 'heard you not,
young Mother Mary, the angels' song?'"

"'Meseems I have long heard it, and can hear naught else, good father,'