Martha Yarrow's back was to the window. She turned sharply. The sickly white moon lighted up the snow-waste out there; some one might be out in those frozen fields,--some one who was coming home,--who had been gone for years,--years. Jem was watching her. "Leave the windows alone, Tom," he said. "It won't hurt the night to see my fire." He pulled his cricket close up to her, and took her hand to pet. It was cold, and her teeth chattered. However, they were all so snug and close together, and Christmas, that great warm-hearted day, was so near upon them, as full of love and hearty, warm enjoyment as the living God could send it, that its breath filled all their hearts; and presently Martha Yarrow's face was brighter than Catty's. They were noisy and busy enough. The programme for to-morrow was to make out; that put all heads to work to plan: the stockings to be opened, and dinner, and maybe a visit to the menagerie in the afternoon. That was Martha's surprise, and she was not disappointed in the applause it brought. It made the tears come to her eyes, an hour after, when she was going to bed, remembering it. "It takes such a little thing to make them happy," she said to herself,--"or me, either," with a somewhat silly face. She tried to thank God for giving them so much, but only sobbed. After the confusion about the show was over, and Catty had been wakened into a vague jungle of tigers and lions and Shetland ponies, and put to sleep again, they subsided enough to remember the winding-up of the day. Quiet that was to be; the children from Shag's Point were coming up, some half-dozen in all, for their share of Christmas. Poorer than the Yarrows, you understand? though but a little; in fact, there were not many steps farther down: peahens and cranberries were not for every day. Well, to-morrow evening Jem would tell them the story of the Stable and the Child, and how that the Child was with us yet, if we could only see. Jem was always his mother's spokesman, and put the meaning of Christmas into words: she never talked of such things. Yet they always watched her face, when they spoke of them,--watched it now, and looked, as she did, into the little room beyond the kitchen where they sat, their eyes growing still and brighter. There might have been a tinge of the savage or the Frenchman in Martha Yarrow's nature, she had so strong a propensity to make real, apparent to the senses, what few ideas she had, even her religion. A good skill to do it, too. The recess out of the kitchen was only a small closet, but, with the aid of a softly tinted curtain or two, and the nebulous light of a concealed lamp, she had contrived to give it an air of distance and reserve. Within were green wreaths hung over the whitewashed walls, and an altar-shaped little white table, covered with heaps of crimson leaves and bright berries, such as grow in the snow; only a few flowers, but enough to fill the air