I bade Harry good night; took Lycidas to his lodgings, and gave his wife my Christmas wishes and good night; and, coming down to the sleigh again, gave way to the feeling which I think you will all understand, that this was not the time to stop, but just the time to begin.  For the streets were stiller now, and the moon brighter than ever, if possible, and the blessings of these simple people and of the grand people, and of the very angels in heaven, who are not bound to the misery of using words when they have anything worth saying,—­all these wishes and blessings were round me, all the purity of the still winter night, and I didn’t want to lose it all by going to bed to sleep.  So I put the boys all together, where they could chatter, took one more brisk turn on the two avenues, and then, passing through Charles Street, I believe I was even thinking of Cambridge, I noticed the lights in Woodhull’s house, and, seeing they were up, thought I would make Fanny a midnight call.  She came to the door herself.  I asked if she were waiting for Santa Claus, but saw in a moment that I must not joke with her.  She said she had hoped I was her husband.  In a minute was one of those contrasts which make life, life.  God puts us into the world that we may try them and be tried by them.

Poor Fanny’s mother had been blocked up on the Springfield train as she was coming on to Christmas.  The old lady had been chilled through, and was here in bed now with pneumonia.  Both Fanny’s children had been ailing when she came, and this morning the doctor had pronounced it scarlet fever.  Fanny had not undressed herself since Monday, nor slept, I thought, in the same time.  So while we had been singing carols and wishing merry Christmas, the poor child had been waiting, and hoping that her husband or Edward, both of whom were on the tramp, would find for her and bring to her the model nurse, who had not yet appeared.  But at midnight this unknown sister had not arrived, nor had either of the men returned.  When I rang, Fanny had hoped I was one of them.  Professional paragons, dear reader, are shy of scarlet fever.  I told the poor child that it was better as it was.  I wrote a line for Sam Perry to take to his aunt, Mrs. Masury, in which I simply said:  “Dear mamma, I have found the poor creature who wants you to-night.  Come back in this carriage.”  I bade him take a hack at Gates’s, where they were all up waiting for the assembly to be done at Papanti’s.  I sent him over to Albany Street; and really as I sat there trying to soothe Fanny, it seemed to me less time than it has taken to dictate this little story about her, before Mrs. Masury rang gently, and I left them, having made Fanny promise that she would consecrate the day, which at that moment was born, by trusting God, by going to bed and going to sleep, knowing that her children were in much better hands than hers.  As I passed out of the hall, the gas-light fell on a print of Correggio’s Adoration, where Woodhull had himself written years before,