"
She paid no heed to him other than by a deepening colour; the
clock, however, grew tired of the long soliloquy, and broke in
with an asthmatic warning as to the time of night.
"There is midnight," she said. "You shall go, now, Stephen
Holmes,--quick! before your sovereign lady fades, like
Cinderella, into grayness and frozen eyes!"
When he was gone, she knelt down by her window, remembering that
night long ago,-- free to sob and weep out her joy,--very sure
that her Master had not forgotten to hear even a woman's prayer,
and to give her her true work,--very sure,--never to doubt again.
There was a dark, sturdy figure pacing up and down the road, that
she did not see. It was there when the night was over, and
morning began to dawn. Christmas morning! he remembered,--it was
something to him now! Never again a homeless, solitary man! You
would think the man weak, if I were to tell yon how this word
"home" had taken possession of him,--how he had planned out work
through the long night: success to come, but with his wife
nearest his heart, and the homely farm-house, and the old
school-master in the centre of the picture. Such an humble
castle in the air! Christmas morning was surely something to him.
Yet, as the night passed, he went back to the years that had been
wasted, with an unavailing bitterness. He would not turn from
the truth, that, with his strength of body and brain to command
happiness and growth, his life had been a failure.
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