Once within the church, however, with the organ pealing out the music she had heard the night before of the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks, she ceased to feel aggrieved and with deep emotional happiness entered into the service. As Hertha Ogilvie she had at once gone to the Episcopal Church. To enter its portals and take part in its ritual seemed to her as much in keeping with her new character as sitting down at table with white men and women. But her nature so swiftly responded to beauty, there were so many sensitive chords of the spirit that vibrated to the chant of the service, or to the moments of silent prayer within the darkened church amid the multitude of throbbing souls, that she grew to love the church of her adoption. "How glad I am to be white," she thought as she stood up and heard the Te Deum ring through the softly lighted spaces. "And yet how queer it is to be glad, for I've always been just the same." The snow began to fall at one o'clock, and when Applebaum appeared for dinner at three (he had not been allowed to help in its preparation) he made much ado of standing in the hall and shaking off the flakes. "I especially ordered a white Christmas for you, Miss Hertha," he called as he stood in the open doorway. She smiled in reply and asked him to come in. "Could I have a word with Kitty?" he stammered. Leaving him still in the hall, clutching nervously at his umbrella, she went into the kitchen and sent out Kathleen. Applebaum was much embarrassed. "Would you mind, Kitty?" he said. "There's a little boy downstairs that was in the street a minute ago, yelling loud enough to drown a whole orchestra because they were taking his mother away to the hospital. He was pounding and kicking the doctor until I promised him a turkey dinner, when he stopped as if his mouthpiece was broken. Do you mind if I bring him up?" "Why, of course not," she answered, "it's only you that would mind, for you're not used to children." When he appeared in the hall again he was accompanied by a singularly unattractive boy of eight with a colorless face and incredibly dirty hands. "We hadn't time to fix up," Applebaum said with forced cheerfulness, endeavoring to make proper connections between a very shabby pair of trousers and a soiled shirt. "There, that's better." "Come this way," Hertha called, and to the surprise of the others the boy followed her down the hall into her bedroom. Getting some hot water, she helped him roll up his sleeves and then, handing him her soap, told him to wash. At this point he shook his head vigorously. "I can't, Miss," he explained; "it would chap 'em. Yer don't wash yer hands in winter." "Just try," she suggested. With a great splash he plunged in his hands, found the warm water pleasant, the soap agreeably slippery; and while he scowled as he rubbed, under Hertha's silent supervision, he made a thorough job. "Now, look," she said when he had finished with her towel.