Thus the autumn passed, the winter came, and with it that joyous time, which, for the sake of the dear child born long ago in Bethlehem, makes children of us all. But no news of the absent ones; only the intelligence from the capital that the count had sold his castle of R——, and that the new lord would take possession at Christmas. “Well, well,” said the pastor, “the new lord can hardly be worse than the old one, and very easily better and more generous, so we may in future have a merrier Christmas than this will be, for this time, children, affairs look rather gloomy.” “Ah! we know, father,” cried the joyous children. “You always say so—you always try to frighten us with the idea of no Christmas, but it always turns out well. Didn’t Ursula slip in yesterday evening, at the back-door, with a splendid Christmas tree? We didn’t see it, to be sure, but we heard it. And didn’t mother and Dora gild the apples and nuts, and cut out the stars yesterday evening? You thought we were in bed, but we peeped.” “Well, well,” laughed their father; “to-morrow will be Christmas-eve, and of course you will go to bed bright and early, that you may be up in time the next morning.” “No, no,” shouted the children; “to-morrow evening is just the time when the Christ-child comes to us. Have we not just seen Ursula making our Christmas-cake? Oh, dear, angel of a father, we will be so good.” The next day all without was dreary and stormy; the heavy snow-flakes fell all day long, but within it was bright and cheerful. Ursula had swept and dusted every nook and corner of the house, and the fires all burned brightly. In the study the father and mother were busy all the morning; the children, meanwhile, looked wisely at one another, and tried to keep back the smiles that would dimple out every moment. At three o’clock, according to the custom of the house, the holyday began. The fragrance of the fresh Christmas-cake was wafted through the house, mother and children were all dressed in their holyday attire, and the father, easy and happy that the morrow’s sermon was prepared, sat and smoked in his arm-chair. At four o’clock Theodora came in from the gardener’s, where she had been in all the storm to carry a slice of the Christmas-cake, with the intelligence that strangers had arrived at the village inn. This news made the good pastor restless, and after pacing up and down the room, he went to the window, and rubbing the moisture from the pane, looked out. And there, just round the corner, crept the old man in the gray coat, with his hands behind him, as formerly, and he walked up the steps and knocked at the door. “Courage,” said the pastor to himself, and hastened out to meet him. “Here I am,” said the old man, in a hollow voice, his looks bent on the ground, “I have fortunately arrived here at last, but I am weary and ill, and I have no one to pity me. Do you remember your kind words; will you take me in? What! No reply?”