cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours. Amidst it all Patrasche was
bidden with a thousand words of welcome to tarry there a cherished guest.
But neither peace nor plenty could allure him where Nello was not.

When the supper smoked on the board, and the voices were loudest and
gladdest, and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts to Alois, Patrasche,
watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was unlatched by a
careless new-comer, and as swiftly as his weak and tired limbs would bear
him sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He had only one
thought--to follow Nello. A human friend might have paused for the
pleasant meal, the cheery warmth, the cosey slumber; but that was not the
friendship of Patrasche. He remembered a bygone time, when an old man and
a little child had found him sick unto death in the wayside ditch.

Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it was now nearly ten; the
trail of the boy's footsteps was almost obliterated. It took Patrasche
long to discover any scent. When at last he found it, it was lost again
quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost and again recovered, a
hundred times or more.

The night was very wild. The lamps under the wayside crosses were blown
out; the roads were sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every
trace of habitations; there was no living thing abroad. All the cattle
were housed, and in all the huts and homesteads men and women rejoiced and
feasted. There was only Patrasche out in the cruel cold--old and famished
and full of pain, but with the strength and the patience of a great love
to sustain him in his search.

The trail of Nello's steps, faint and obscure as it was under the new
snow, went straightly along the accustomed tracks into Antwerp. It was