"Your baby," John Fairmeadow whispered. "God's Christmas gift--to you." Pattie Batch--adorable, young mother!--reverently approached, and, bending with parted lips, eyes shining, and hands laid upon her trembling heart, for the first time gazed content upon the little face. She lifted, then--and with what awe and tenderness!--the tiny mortal from the warm basket, and pressed it, with knowing arms, against her warmer, softer young breast. "My baby!" she crooned, her lips close to its ear; "my little baby--my own little baby!" [Illustration] End of Project Gutenberg's Christmas Eve at Swamp's End, by Norman Duncan