Do you remember how Christmas came last year? how there was a waiting pause, when the great States stood still, and from the peoples came the first awful murmurs of the storm that was to shake the earth? how men’s hearts failed them for fear, how women turned pale and held their children closer to their breasts, while they heard a far cry of lamentation for their country that had fallen?  Do you remember how, through the fury of men’s anger, the storehouses of God were opened for that land? how the very sunshine gathered new splendors, the rains more fruitful moisture, until the earth poured forth an unknown fulness of life and beauty?  Was there no promise there, no prophecy?  Do you remember, while the very life of the people hung in doubt before them, while the angel of death came again to pass over the land, and there was no blood on any door-post to keep him from that house, how slowly the old earth folded in her harvest, dead, till it should waken to a stronger life? how quietly, as the time came near for the birth of Christ, this old earth made ready for his coming, heedless of the clamor of men? how the air grew fresher, day by day, and the gray deep silently opened for the snow to go down and screen and whiten and make holy that fouled earth?  I think the slow-falling snow did not fail in its quiet warning; for I remember that men, too, in a feeble way tried to make ready for the birth of Christ.  There was a healthier glow than terror stirred in their hearts; because of the vague, great dread without, it may be, they drew closer together round household fires, were kindlier in the good old-fashioned way; old friendships were wakened, old times talked over, fathers and mothers and children planned homely ways to show the love in their hearts and to welcome in Christmas.  Who knew but it might be the last?  Let us be thankful for that happy Christmas-day.  What if it were the last?  What if, when another comes, and another, some voice, the kindest and cheerfullest then, shall never say “Happy Christmas” to us again?  Let us be thankful for that day the more,—­accept it the more as a sign of that which will surely come.

Holmes, even, in his dreary room and drearier thought, felt the warmth and expectant stir creeping through the land as the day drew near.  Even in the hospital, the sisters were in a busy flutter, decking their little chapel with flowers, and preparing a Christmas fete for their patients.  The doctor, as he bandaged his broken arm, hinted at faint rumors in the city of masquerades and concerts.  Even Knowles, who had not visited the hospital for weeks, relented and came back, moody and grim.  He brought Kitts with him, and started him on talking of how they kept Christmas in Ohio on his mother’s farm; and the poor soul, encouraged by the silence of two of his auditors, and the intense interest of Lois in the background, mazed on about Santa-Claus trees and Virginia reels until the clock struck twelve and Knowles began to snore.