What if it were the last?
What if, when another comes, and another, one voice, the kindest and cheerfullest then, shall never say "Happy Christmas" to us again?
Let us be thankful for that day the more,--accept it the more as a sign of that which will surely come.
Holmes, even, in his dreary room and drearier thought, felt the warmth and expectant stir creeping through the land as the day drew near.
Even in the hospital, the sisters were in a busy flutter, decking their little chapel with flowers, and preparing a fete for their patients.
The doctor, as he bandaged his broken arm, hinted at faint rumours in the city of masquerades and concerts.

Even Knowles, who had not visited the hospital for weeks, relented and came back, moody and grum.
He brought Kitts with him, and started him on talking of how they kept Christmas in Ohio on his mother's farm; and the poor soul, encouraged by the silence of two of his auditors, and the intense interest of Lois in the background, mazed on about Santa-Claus trees and Virginia reels until the clock struck twelve, and Knowles began to snore.
Christmas was coming.

As he stood, day after day, looking out of the gray window, he could see the signs of its coming even in the shop-windows glittering with miraculous toys, in the market-carts with their red-faced drivers and heaps of ducks and turkeys, in every stage-coach or omnibus that went by crowded with boys home for the holidays, hallooing for Bell or Lincoln, forgetful that the election was over, and Carolina out.
Pike came to see him one day, his arms full of a bundle, which turned out to be an accordion for Sophy.
"Christmas, you know," he said, taking off the brown paper, while he was cursing the Cotton States the hardest, and gravely kneading at the keys, and stretching it until he made as much discord as five Congressmen.

"I think Sophy will like that," he said, looking at it sideways, and tying it up carefully.
"I am sure she will," said Holmes,--and did not think the man a fool for one moment.
Always going back, this Holmes, when he was alone, to the certainty that home-comings or children's kisses or Christmas feasts were not for such as he,--never could be, though he sought for the old time in bitterness of heart; and so, dully remembering his resolve, and waiting for Christmas eve, when he might end it all.

Not one of the myriads of happy children listened more intently to the clock clanging off hour after hour than the silent, stern man who had no hope in that day that was coming.
He learned to watch even for poor Lois coming up the corridor every day,--being the only tie that bound the solitary man to the inner world of love and warmth.