It was Christmas Day. The church was filled with great and fashionable people. Among the gorgeous crowd were to be seen Miss Brand and Maggie Reed, the latter in a warm dress of grey cloth. Nearer the altar knelt George and his wife, his eyes often seeking the place where his friends were seated. Father Francis, assisted by two other priests, was officiating. George looked happier to-day. The presence of his hitherto forgotten companions had revived him, and the good father had spoken soothing words to him about his child's death. George had been overcome, and unaccustomed tears coursed down his face as he clasped the father's hand, and said,-- "Ah! one's early friends are true. Their love makes life worth having." While the choir sang the _Gloria in Excelsis_, the musician's thoughts had strayed to his early days. He was thinking of the sunbeam, and wondering whether its visit was a dream. If so, it must have been a dream straight from God, for that day had gained him his career. The golden flower had reared its head very near to the Sun-lands. Would it ever reach them? He remembered a secret drawer in his escritoire, in which there was a small plaster crucifix, a faded geranium leaf, and a silver compass. He had kept these little relics, and yet he had ceased to remember the friends who had smoothed the rough pages of his childhood and pencilled his name in the book of fortune. But Father Francis and Maggie and Miss Brand should be safe now; they should know no further sorrow! The sun burst forth in the winter sky, shone into the church, and brightened the gloomy corners. George knew well in his heart that it was not his care that had made the geranium thrive. The sunbeam which he pretended to treat as a dream had nourished it. However, if that chapter in his life was blurred and misty, to-day's was clear. The Mass that was being sung was his masterpiece. It was the outpouring of his soul. He would compose still greater religious works. What more wonderful theme could he have than a God's agony! "_Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!_" muttered the priest. The consecration drew near, the people bent their heads. Still the musician remained lost in his thoughts. All over the world the advent of the Babe of Bethlehem was being celebrated. What a wonderful story it was! The star in the East, the wise men, the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled in a manger. His unrecorded childhood, His love for little children, the more forsaken and forlorn, the greater His love. And he had been rich and prosperous, and yet had never given a thought to those poor little waifs whose life he himself had once lived. Happy in the love of his own child, he had forgotten the woes of others. God had taken her away; but he would accept the Divine warning, and follow in the Divine footsteps. He would open his heart to the children of the poor; he would clothe them and give them bread.