Even so, on that memorable Christmas night, did the ice in the North Estabrook church break up. _Crack!_--George Tomlinson and Asa Fraser, old friends but sworn foes, had shaken hands. _Crack!_ Mrs. Tomlinson and Mrs. Fraser, tears running frankly down their cheeks, had followed the example of their husbands--and glad enough to do it, for their homes lay side by side, and each had had a hard time of it getting along without the other. Miss Jane Pollock, seeing Mrs. Maria Hill's fruitless search for her handkerchief, had long since drawn out one of her own--she always carried two--and had held it in her hand, ready to offer it, if she could just get to the point. But when she saw, upon the pulpit platform, those two gripping hands, somehow she suddenly reached the point. _Crack!_ --With no difficulty whatever Miss Pollock slipped the handkerchief into Mrs. Hill's hand, whispering commiseratingly: "I presume you've got one somewhere, Maria, but you just can't lay your hand on it. Don't take the trouble to return it--it isn't of any value." And Mrs. Hill, accepting the handkerchief, wiped away the unmanageable tears, and turning round answered fervently; "I guess I _will_ return it, Jane, if it's only so's to come to your house again--if you'll let me in, after all I've said." Even as they smiled, shamefacedly but happily, at each other, similar scenes were being enacted. All about them spread the breaking ice. Incredible, that it should happen in a night? Not so. The forces of Nature are mighty, but they are as weakness beside the spiritual forces of Nature's God. XI "Well, Billy Sewall, have you taken your young friend home and put him to bed?" The questioner was Ralph Fernald, sitting with the rest of the family--or those members of it who were not still attending to the wants of little children--before the fireplace, talking things over. They had been there for nearly an hour, since the service, but Sewall had only just come in. "I've taken him home," Sewall replied. "But there was no putting him to bed. I think he'll sit up till morning--too happy to sleep, the fine old man." They had saved the big armchair for him, in the very centre of the circle, but he would have none of it. He went over to a corner of the inglenook, and dropped upon the floor at his sister Margaret's feet, with his arm upon her knee. When somebody protested Guy interfered in his defence. "Let him alone," said he. "He gets enough of prominent positions. If he wants to sit on the fence and kick his heels a while, let him. He's certainly earned the right to do as he pleases to-night. By George!--talk about magnificent team-work! If ever I saw a sacrifice play I saw it to-night."