"This thing must be stopped," said Mrs. Marchmont, most emphatically; at which her brother chuckled louder than ever, and said, "Stopped, indeed! As if it could be, or ever had been 'stopped,' since Adam and Eve first cast sheep's eyes at each other in the Garden of Eden." His sister left the room with a gesture of annoyance. Suddenly the little man's queer, cackling laugh ceased, and his wrinkled face grew sad and thoughtful as he sighed: "I'm the only Dimmerly who was ever 'stopped,'--fool that I was. His mother, sister Celia, would marry a poor man; and her life, in spite of all her toil and privation, has been happier than mine"; and he shook his head pathetically over "what might have been." The marble clock on the mantel chimed out the hour of twelve, and the young people came flocking in from the dining-room, their noisy mirth hushed as they remembered that the sacred hours of the Christmas Sabbath had begun. "I have induced Miss Martell to give us a Christmas hymn before parting," said Harcourt; and he led Alice to the piano, as if there had been some preconcerted arrangement. Lottie went to her uncle's side, and took his arm in a sort of wheedling, affectionate way. She was beginning instinctively to recognize that she had an ally and sympathizer in him. As he looked down upon her fair face in its dewy freshness and bloom, he vowed that, as far as it was in his power, she should have her own way. Time and the inevitable ills of our lot might dim that face, but it should not become withered by a lifetime of vain regret. "What were you laughing at so, uncle?" she whispered. "At my nephew's painful conscientiousness and stern performance of duty. What a martyr he made of himself, to be sure!" "Now, uncle, I half believe you think I stepped under your old mistletoe on purpose. It's no such thing." "O, no, my dear. The mistletoe is haunted, and has been for a thousand years or more, and viewless elves draw under it those who are to receive kisses,--prophetic of many others from the same lips." But here he found Lottie's hand upon his lips for a second, and then she stood at Miss Martell's side, who was now playing a prelude. In some surprise, Lottie noticed that, instead of there being a printed sheet upon the piano-rack, both the words and music were written by hand. As Miss Martell sang, in a sweet but unfamiliar air, the following words, her surprise and interest deepened: At midnight, in Judean skies, There dawned a light whose holy rays Not only cheered the shepherds' eyes, But filled with hope all coming days. At midnight, o'er Judea's plain Was heard a song unknown before; The echoes of that sweet refrain Are reaching earth's remotest shore. 'Twas not the sun o'er Eastern hills, That shed a transient radiance round; Nor a feeble heir of earthly ills The shepherds in the manger found.