had
always been the fond father to Art! and had never rightly overed the
boy's quitting off the way he did! Oh, if only they had Art there again!
To have him going off with the father of a morning, cutting turf, or
making hay, or doing a bit of ploughing! and the two of them in to their
dinners and off again!... Why, to have that good time back, she'd even
welcome the poor-lookin' little scollop of a thing, and give her share
of the old home!...

Poor Michael! He that loved the Christmas! Like a child, he was! Most
men are, if they have any good in them; and God help them if they get a
woman that doesn't understand that, and can't make allowances when they
don't grow up!

Mrs. Moloney was as quick as Michael was slow. So, while he'd be
thinking about it, she had a stool over at the dresser and was up on it,
feeling for the Crib on the top shelf.

It was there, safe enough, and it wrapped in a newspaper. A small little
contraption of a thing it was, that she had bought off Tommy the Crab,
the peddling man, years before. Paid sixpence for it, too; and cheap he
told her it was at that money.

To see it first, it was no more than a middling sizeable Christmas card.
But it was really in three, or maybe four, halves that drew out like a
telescope. The first part showed the Kings kneeling with their offerings
and crowns upon their heads; then you could see the Shepherds, with
their crooks and they kneeling too; and in the middle of them all, the
Mother herself, with the Holy Child upon her knee. St. Joseph was at one
side, and the ox and the ass at the other; all complete, even to a grand
Star of silver paper, shining on the top of it all.

Mrs. Moloney put the Crib into one of the small square windows and drew
it out. Then she went back to the dresser for the candles to light it up
with. It looked nothing wanting them.

Not common candles she was going to use, but what had been blessed at
Candlemas, and that she had kept put by very carefully.

"I mustn't take them all," she thought, "the way, if one of us was to
take and die sudden, there would be a Candle ready to put into the dying
hand, to light the soul on its way! But there's a good few, and so ..."

Four she took for the four evangelists, and was just lighting them up,
when suddenly the door burst open, and with a rush and a laugh in came
... Art!

[Illustration: THE MOTHER WITH HER CHILD LYING VERY STILL]

"Mother!" he said; and in a moment had his arms r