She came hobbling back every day to see him after she had gone, and would stay to make his soup, telling him, child-like, how many days it was until Christmas.

He knew that, as well as she, waiting through the cold, slow hours, in his solitary room.

He thought sometimes she had some eager petition to offer him, when she stood watching him wistfully, twisting her hands together; but she always smothered it with a sigh, and, tying her little woollen cap, went away, walking more slowly, he thought, every day.
Do you remember how Christmas came that year?
how there was a waiting pause, when the States stood still, and from the peoples came the first awful murmurs of the storm that was to shake the earth?
how men's hearts failed them for fear, how women turned pale, and held their children closer to their breasts, while they heard a far cry of lamentation for their country that had fallen?
Do you remember how, amidst the fury of men's anger, the storehouses of God were opened for that land?
how the very sunshine gathered new splendours, the rains more fruitful moisture, until the earth poured forth an unknown fulness of life and beauty?
Was there no promise there, no prophecy?
Do you remember, while the very life of the people hung in doubt before them, while the angel of death came again to pass over the land, and there was no blood on any door-post to keep him from that house, how serenely the old earth folded in her harvest, dead, till it should waken to a stronger life?
how quietly, as the time came near for the birth of Christ, this old earth made ready for his coming, heedless of the clamour of men?
how the air grew fresher above, day by day, and the gray deep silently opened for the snow to go down and screen and whiten and make holy that fouled earth?
I think the slow-falling snow did not fail in its quiet warning; for I remember that men, too, in a feeble way tried to make ready for the birth of Christ.

There was a healthier glow than terror stirred in their hearts; because of the vague, great dread without, it may be, they drew closer together round household fires, were kindlier in the good old-fashioned way; old friendships were wakened, old times talked over, fathers and mothers and children planned homely ways to show the love in their hearts and to welcome in Christmas.

Who knew but it might be the last?
Let us be thankful for that happy Christmas-day.