The boys were comparatively very unimportant members of the Randolph household. Mrs. Randolph was what is called an excellent mother, and brought up her boys very strictly, and without petting or indulgence. Therefore they were best described collectively, at least in her presence, where there was little to distinguish them, except that Frank had taken a line of his own in being fair and blue-eyed. For the rest, both were painfully shy, silent, and awkward, though well-looking and well-dressed. Little Louis, on the other hand, was perhaps too young to be shy, or perhaps had lived too freely and happily with his father to dread the criticism of his elders. At all events, as he sat on the doctor’s kind knee, and heard of the dragon Nidhug and the beautiful Nornas, and the golden and silver fruit of the great world-tree, there was nothing in his sparkling eyes, nothing in his sweet, childish face and neat, becoming dress, to indicate that the Nornas had been otherwise than kindly disposed at his birth. Freddy and he had taken to each other at once. “Can’t you walk one bit?” “Haven’t you any mamma at all?” they had asked; and then the fair, rosy face and the pale, dark one had met and kissed each other. After the gifts had been distributed and compared, there was singing of Christmas carols; for all the Randolphs had fine musical and artistic talent, and the boys forgot themselves and their mother’s presence more readily in music than in any other employment or amusement. Harry, indeed, was the leading soprano of the choir to which both belonged; and as all gathered around the piano, where Alice presided, they were a perfect picture of a happy, united, and religious family. And these are some of the words that they sang:— “It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold. ‘Peace on the earth, good-will to men, From Heaven’s all-gracious King,’ The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing. But with the woes of sin and strife The world has suffered long, Beneath the angel strain have rolled Two thousand years of wrong; And man at war with man hears not The love-song that they bring; Oh! hush the noise, ye men of strife, And hear the angels sing. And ye, beneath life’s crushing load Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow, Look now! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing. Oh, rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing!