The goat was baaing, the new-born child wailed, and the donkeys breathed loudly. There was something primitive and biblical about the whole scene. Without, in the violet light of the dawn, while a distant church-bell scattered its early notes through the air, one of the young apprentices, dancing in the snow to keep warm, sang out at the top of his lungs that old Christmas carol, which seemed then full of new meaning and poetry,-- "He is born, the little Child. Ring out, hautbois! ring out, bagpipes! He is born, the little Child; Let us sing the happy news." [Illustration] THE LOUIS-D'OR. From the French of FRANÇOIS COPPÉE. When Lucien de Hem saw his last bill for a hundred francs clawed by the banker's rake, when he rose from the roulette-table where he had just lost the débris of his little fortune scraped together for this supreme battle, he experienced something like vertigo, and thought that he should fall. His brain was muddled; his legs were limp and trembling. He threw himself upon the leather lounge that circumscribed the gambling-table. For a few moments he mechanically followed the clandestine proceedings of that hell in which he had sullied the best years of his youth, recognized the worn profiles of the gamblers under the merciless glare of the three great shadeless lamps, listened to the clicking and the sliding of the gold over the felt, realized that he was bankrupt, lost, remembered that in the top drawer of his dressing-table lay a pair of pistols,--the very pistols of which General de Hem, his father, had made noble use at the attack of Zaatcha; then, overcome by exhaustion, he sank into a heavy sleep. When he awoke his mouth was clammy, and his tongue stuck to his palate. He realized by a hasty glance at the clock that he had scarcely slept a half-hour, and he felt the imperious necessity of going out to get a breath of the fresh night air. The hands on the dial pointed exactly to a quarter of twelve. As he rose and stretched his arms it occurred to him that it was Christmas Eve, and by one of those ironical freaks of the memory, he felt as though he were once more a child, ready to stand his little boot on the hearth before going to bed. Just then old Dronski, one of the pillars of the trade, the traditional Pole, wrapped in the greasy worn cloak adorned with frogs and passementerie, came up to Lucien muttering something behind his dirty grayish beard. "Lend me five francs, will you, Monsieur? I haven't stirred from this place for two days, and for two whole days seventeen hasn't come out once. You may laugh at me all you like, but I'll bet you my fist that when the clock strikes twelve, seventeen will be the winning number."