light it? 'Tis never likely the young earl has come suddenwise at this time of the year; and if he had so done, the lights would surely shine from many a window, not one only. Cheerful, indeed, it would be to see them; and I would he indeed thought fit to come to the old place and stir up the love of his people! No, that star is a riddle to my understanding. Verily, they do tell strange tales about the castle, and maybe the gipsy witch would tell us that some unquiet spirit burns a lamp up there alone in some darksome chamber. 'Tis long since she last came wandering around, with her malicious rhymes. Ah, it is indeed well she is a woman, for I have at times found it hard not to lay my hands upon her. Well, Primrose, my darling, you must let the star shine by itself awhile, and come to your supper." "The star looks at me, dad," said Primrose, quitting the window seat lingeringly. "It looks straight in at me through the window. You look at it, dad, when I am in bed, and tell me if God puts it out." And when she was comfortably tucked up in her warm bed, and the long lashes had nearly fallen over the big grey eyes, she murmured sleepily; "Is my star put out yet, dad?" and fell fast asleep before Jack could answer. No, it was not put out, and when Jack himself went to rest, some hours later, it still shone through the gloom as brightly as ever. Little Miss Primrose awoke with her mind full of her new discovery, and Jack was much relieved to find the snow still falling thick and fast, when he found that her desire to climb the Castle Hill and look for the Holy Child's cradle had only revived with greater force in the morning light. He succeeded at last in persuading her that such an attempt was impossible, and consoled her with the promise that, if the snow cleared off, he would carry her in the afternoon to the little church on the hillside; "for," said he to himself stoutly, "I can verily never bring my mind to hear Master Jones discourse this morning at the chapel. He hath too much spoken, in my hearing, against the king and the Prayer Book; and though I would fain feel peace and goodwill towards him, as becomes a Christian on Christmas morn, I must needs close my ears to his doctrines." So Jack and his little charge spent a very quiet Christmas morning, watching the snow-flakes fall, and talking much of the star and its story; and in the afternoon, when the storm had ceased, he carried her, according to promise, to the tiny ivy-covered church, a mile away on the snowy hillside, where, since the day he had discovered from the Black Horseman to be her fourth birthday, he had taken her regularly Sunday after Sunday, in order that she should grow up a loyal church-woman and faithful subject to King James; "for I can at least train her up in the way she should go," he was wont to say to his neighbours. "And," he would add with a sigh and a certain vagueness of exact meaning, "if she should depart from it when she is