And very soon indeed Joseph appeared, with an expression at once haggard and ecstatic, his black hair and beard unkempt, his eyes glittering strangely in his flushed olive face, a curious poetic figure in his reddish-brown mantle and dark yellow cap. "_Pax vobiscum_," he cried, in shrill, jubilant accents. "Joseph, what drunken folly is this?" faltered Rachel. "_Gloria in altissimis Deo_ and peace on earth to all men of goodwill," persisted Joseph. "It is Christmas morning, mother." And he began to troll out the stave of a carol, "Simeon, that good saint of old--" Rachel's hand was clapped rudely over her son's mouth. "Blasphemer!" she cried, an ashen gray overspreading her face. Joseph gently removed her hand. "It is thou who blasphemest, mother," he cried. "Rejoice, rejoice, this day the dear Lord Christ was born--He who was to die for the sins of the world." Rachel burst into fresh tears. "Our boy is mad--our boy is mad. What have they done to him?" All her anticipations of horror were outpassed by this. Pain shadowed the sweet silence of Miriam's face as she stood in the recess of the window. "Mad! Oh, my mother, I am as one awakened. Rejoice, rejoice with me. Let us sink ourselves in the universal joy, let us be at one with the human race." Rachel smiled tentatively through her tears. "Enough of this foolery," she said pleadingly. "It is the feast of Dedication, not of Lots. There needs no masquerading to-day." "Joseph, what ails thee?" interposed the sweet voice of Miriam. "What hast thou done? Where hast thou been?" "Art thou here, Miriam?" His eyes became conscious of her for the first time. "Would thou hadst been there with me!" "Where?" "At St. Peter's. Oh, the heavenly music!" "At St. Peter's!" repeated Rachel hoarsely. "Thou, my son Joseph, the student of God's Law, hast defiled thyself thus?" "Nay, it is no defilement," interposed Miriam soothingly. "Hast thou not told us how our fathers went to the Sistine Chapel on Sabbath afternoons?" "Ay, but that was when Michel Angelo Buonarotti was painting his frescoes of the deliverances of Israel. And they went likewise to see the figure of our Lawgiver in the Pope's mausoleum. And I have even heard of Jews who have stolen into St. Peter's itself to gaze on that twisted pillar from Solomon's temple, which these infidels hold for our sins. But it is the midnight mass that this Epicurean has been to hear." "Even so," said Joseph in dreamy undertones, "the midnight mass--incense and lights and the figures of saints, and wonderful painted windows, and a great multitude of weeping worshippers and music that wept with them, now shrill like the passionate cry of martyrs, now breathing the peace of the Holy Ghost." "How didst thou dare show thyself in the cathedral?" whimpered Rachel.