Time wore away; Andrew Morris went home to engage in business, and I returned no more to school, for the management of my father’s affairs now devolved in a great measure upon me. The spring time came, with its songs of birds and perfume of flowers; the glad summer sunshine played upon the murmuring waters of Marantby; the red leaves of autumn fell in gorgeous showers, and the silver traceries of frost sparkled in the wintry nights, but still our home was desolate; and so it came to pass that Christmas Day became a day full of painful memories. Six years passed, and time, the great physician for the wounded heart, had taken the sting of our sorrow away. Our good Father in heaven never allows a sorrow to come into this world unless He sends a joy to counterbalance it; life would be a stunted and deformed thing, if, when the night enveloped it, the bright sunshine of morning did not as surely follow; and the law which regulates the outer world has its counterpart in the inner, that “while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.” Well, Christmas Day was coming round again, and we determined that we would spend it in London, with Andrew Morris. It was a cosy little party we made on Christmas Eve—I and my mother, and Captain Wray, Mr. and Mrs. Morris, sen., and Andrew and Nelly, and the baby. Whose baby? Why Nelly’s, to be sure, and never was there a prettier and prouder little mother, or a handsomer and happier young husband, than Nelly and Andrew Morris. There was no boisterous fun or merriment, but there was a great deal of quiet enjoyment amongst us as we sat at the table after dinner and played round games, or as Nelly and Andrew sang duets, while baby crowed a chorus. There was an air of homeliness, too, and comfort about the house, and that was increased tenfold from the fact that the night was bitterly cold. The wind roared along the streets, and every now and then the hail came down in a perfect cataract. The evening slipped rapidly away, and, as Martha came in at about ten o’clock to lay the cloth for supper, a pause in the rattle of the conversation within, and a pause in the rattle of hailstones without, enabled us to hear voices somewhere along the street joined in very good harmony, singing a Christmas carol. By-and-bye they came opposite our window, and struck up that fine old carol— “When Christ was born of Mary free, In Bethlehem, in that fair citie, Angels sang then with mirth and glee, In Excelsis Gloria.”