and reverence for the divine idea enclosed in her ignorance, for her
childish wisdom, and her calm seeking--until at length he would have
been horrified at the thought of training her up in _his_ way: had she
not a way of her own to go--following--not the dead Jesus, but Him
who liveth for evermore? In the endeavour to help her, he had to find
his own position towards the truth; and the results were weighty.--Nor
did the child's influence work forward merely. In his intercourse with
her he was so often reminded of his first wife, and that, with the
gloss or comment of a childish reproduction, that his memories of her
at length grew a little tender, and through the child he began to
understand the nature and worth of the mother. In her child she had
given him what she could not be herself. Unable to keep up with him,
she had handed him her baby, and dropped on the path.

Nor was little Sophy his only comfort. Through their common loss and
her husband's tenderness, Letty began to grow a woman. And her growth
was the more rapid that, himself taught through Phosy, her husband no
longer desired to make her adopt his tastes, and judge with his
experiences, but, as became the elder and the tried, entered into her
tastes and experiences--became, as it were, a child again with her,
that, through the thing she was, he might help the thing she had to
be.

As soon as she was able to bear it, he told her the story of the dead
Jesus, and with the tale came to her heart love for Phosy. She had
lost a son for a season, but she had gained a daughter for ever.

Such were the gifts the Christ-child brought to one household that
Christmas. And the days of the mourning of that household were ended.