“Hush, hush,” the mother said, “don’t ask questions.”

But the child persisted, until finally the mother said:  “Well, I am sure I do not know, my dear, but I will ask.”

She asked her neighbor, and the neighbor looked surprised and a little puzzled.

“Why,” she said, “it is a celebration, we are celebrating his birthday, and he is a guest in the house.”

Then the mother got interested and curious herself.

“But where is the guest?  Where is the man whose birthday it is?” And, this time she asked one of the family.  He looked startled at first, and then inquired of the rest of the family.

“Where is the guest whose birthday it is?” Alas I nobody knew.  There they were, all excited and trying to enjoy themselves by celebrating his birthday, and he,—­some of them did not even know who he was!  He was left out and forgotten!

When they had wondered for a little while they immediately forgot again, and went on with their celebrations,—­all except the little child.  He slipped out of the room and made up his mind to find the man whose birthday it was, and, finally, after a hard search, he found him upstairs in the attic,—­lonely and sick.

He had been asked to leave the guestroom, which he had occupied, and to move upstairs, so as to be out of the way of the preparations for his birthday.  Here he had fallen ill, and no one had had time to think of him, excepting one of the humbler servants and this little child.  They had all been so busy preparing for his birthday festival that they had forgotten him entirely.

This is the way it is with most of us at Christmas time.

Whenever we think of a friend, or even an acquaintance, we think of his various qualities,—­not always in detail, but as forming a general impression which we associate with his name.  If it is a friend whom we love and admire, we love, especially on his birthday, to dwell on all that is good and true in his character; and at such times, though he may be miles away in body, we find ourselves living with him every hour of the day, and feel his presence, and, from that feeling, do our daily tasks with the greater satisfaction and joy.

Every one in this part of the world, of course, knows whose birthday we celebrate on the twenty-fifth of December. if we imagine that such a man never really existed, that he was simply an ideal character, and nothing more,—­if we were to take Christmas Day as the festival of a noble myth,—­the ideal which it represents is so clear, so true, so absolutely practical in the way it is recorded in the book of his life, that it would be a most helpful joy to reflect upon it, and to try and apply its beautiful lessons on the day which would especially recall it to our minds.