“Did He have dood tings?” Lally immediately inquired, with the terrible perception of the incongruous, which makes it so difficult to talk to children on serious subjects in connection with their daily life. Altogether, it seemed to Bessie that she had better have left her religious instruction alone; but she had gone too far to recede, and accordingly she answered that “He had been poorly lodged, poorly fed, evilly treated while He remained on earth; that though He had done so much for men, men had used Him despitefully, and mocked and forsaken Him. But He loved little children, Lally,” finished Bessie, “and so, when you look at the holly berries, you must always think of Him. He was so good, Lally, that Child born eighteen hundred years ago. He was so good!” “Are you dood, Bessie?” asked the little creature. “No, my darling, I am not; I wish I were; oh! Lally, I wish I were!” “You are dood to Lally,” was the encouraging reply. “Bessie, I do love ’oo; thing to I, please; thing I to thleep.” But Bessie refused to sing at all till Lally said “sleep” properly. “Seep dere den,” Lally exclaimed in a tone of such triumph that Bessie was fain to kiss her a dozen times ere commencing one of those dear old Christmas carols that one never hears now-a-days, that went out of fashion with the Christmas frosts and snows. By the time the strain was ended, Lally had fallen asleep; but through the night she wakened and asked Agnes, who sat beside her bed, to tell her more about the Child. “What child, dear?” said Agnes, who thought she was dreaming or wandering. “It is His birthday, you know; the Child;” and then Agnes knew what she meant, and told her stories about Him and His goodness till Lally said plaintively, “I wis He was here now, Aggy.” “I wish He were, my darling, for He would make you better in a moment,” Agnes answered, sorrowfully. “Agnes!”—it was Heather coming into the room with a loose dressing-gown thrown around her that made Agnes turn at this point,—“He is here, and He will make my child well, if it seemeth Him good. I prayed for her all the time she was so very ill, as it would have been impossible for me to have prayed, had I not felt He was with me, standing near; but I tried not to pray too much, dear, lest in granting my petition He should punish me for it.” And so mother and aunt talked while the child dropped off into slumber once again, and so the Christmas morning dawned—fine, and clear, and bright; and the holly berries looked red and warm as the December sun peered through the windows of the Hollow, and found everything there in due order for a quiet, happy Christmas. The child was not well, but she was out of danger, and Heather felt she must that day go to church and thank God for delivering her darling from the lions—for giving her back from the very jaws of death, to life, and hope, to parents, and friends. CHAPTER VII. GONE.