out to church as regularly as I used to do, and I want you all to
help me to remember these absent ones and with them any of your own.
There is virtue in the holding up of many hands and the lifting up
of many hearts. Whether I see them again or not, that does not matter;
but for the assurance that they have not harmed each other, let us
pray Almighty God this night."

Ah! Sir Humphrey, there are those who would give their life for yours,
but they cannot bring you that assurance to-night. Can you wait?

"I can wait," says Sir Humphrey.




CHAPTER II.


It is Christmas day in the morning. At least, so Almanack says, and
Almanack ought to know, though he is given in those days to such
ornate and emblazoned titivation of himself outwardly, putting
himself in the hands of fair Mistress Kate Greenaway at the head of
a mischievous throng, that he causes one to seriously consider
whether his old head be turned or no. A scholar and statistician
buried in heaps of flowers, with a rope of daisies round his neck,
and a belt of primroses round his waist; a sunflower in his
buttonhole, and a singing bird upon his shoulder; and, worst of all,
the picture of a pink-frocked, pink-faced girl next his heart--can
he be relied upon? But he persists in his claim to be listened to,
and we must take his word for it that this is Christmas day in the