In former years the lady of the Castle had thrown them alms.  But times had changed.  Now the gentle lady was gone, and the seigneur sulked in the hall.

With the dawn Charles the Fair took himself to bed.  And to him, pattering barefoot along stone floors, came Clotilde, the child of his disappointment.

“Are you asleep?”

One arm under his head, he looked at her without answer.

“It is the anniversary of the birth of our Lord,” she ventured.  “Today He is born.  I thought—­” She put out a small, very cold hand.  But he turned his head away.

“Back to your bed,” he said shortly.  “Where is your nurse, to permit this?”

The child’s face fell.  Something she had expected, some miracle, perhaps, a softening of the lord her father, so that she might ask of him a Christmas boon.

The Bishop had said that Christmas miracles were often wrought, and she herself knew that this was true.  Had not the Fool secured his voice, so that he who had been but lightly held became the village troubadour, and slept warm and full at night?

She had gone to the Bishop with this the night before.

“If I should lie in a manger all night,” she said, standing with her feet well apart and looking up at him, “would I become a boy?”

The Bishop tugged at his beard.  “A boy, little maid!  Would you give up your blue eyes and your soft skin to be a roystering lad?”

“My father wishes for a son,” she had replied and the cloud that was over the Castle shadowed the Bishop’s eyes.

“It would not be well,” he replied, “to tamper with the works of the Almighty.  Pray rather for this miracle, that your father’s heart be turned toward you and toward the lady, your mother.”

So during much of the night she had asked this boon steadfastly.  But clearly she had not been heard.

“Back to your bed!” said her father, and turned his face away.

So she went as far as the leather curtain which hung in the doorway and there she turned.

“Why do they sing?” she had asked the Bishop, of the blacksmith and the others, and he had replied into his beard, “To soften the hard of heart.”

So she turned in the doorway and sang in her reedy little voice, much thinned by the cold, sang to soften her young father’s heart.

    “The Light of Light Divine,
    True Brightness undefined. 
    He bears for us the shame of sin,
    A holy, spotless Child.”

But the song failed.  Perhaps it was the wrong hour, or perhaps it was because she had not slept in the manger and brought forth the gift of voice.

“Blood of the martyrs!” shouted her father, and raised himself on his elbow.  “Are you mad?  Get back to your bed.  I shall have a word with someone for this.”

Whether it had softened him or not it had stirred him, so she made her plea.

“It is His birthday.  I want to see my mother.”