's grave! It would have saved all; all the awful
consequences of the journey here, which only dire extremity of need
forced upon me. On the fatal day I started South, I went at the last
moment, hoping that some tidings from my card would come on angel
wings. The decision had been made, but the awards were not yet
published, and so my doom was sealed. To-morrow, happy women, no more
innocent than I am, will smile at my Christmas card, and give it with
warm kisses and loving words to their dear ones; and to-day, my white
dove of hope, flies back in my face, with the talons of a harpy, to
devour me with maddening reminders of 'what might have been'. My
coveted three hundred dollars! Three hundred taunting fiends! to jeer
and torment me. The Christmas sun will shine on a pauper's empty cot in
a charity hospital; on a disgraced, insulted, forsaken convict. Take
away this last mockery, it is more than I can bear. There on the back
in gilt letters--Prize Card--Three Hundred Dollars! Yet a stranger paid
for my mother's coffin, and--. Three hundred furies to lash my heart
out! Too late! Take it away! too late! oh, too late! This is worse than
the pangs of death."

CHAPTER XV.

The Christmas Sabbath dawned cold and dim, and along the eastern sky
gray marbled masses of cloud with dun, stratified bases, built
themselves into the likeness of vast teocallis to Tonatiuh, over whose
apex the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by the stained
glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular chapel at "The
Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair sacristan held a taper
over the tall wax candles on each side of the altar, whence a mellow
radiance soon streamed over all; flashing along the golden letters
under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes of the little organ. On the
marble steps in front of the altar were two baskets filled with white
camellias, and great spikes of pink and blue hyacinths, that seemed to
break their hearts in waves of aromatic incense. The family Bible of
the Gordons lay open, on the reading desk, and upon its yellow pages
rested a Maltese cross of snowy Roman hyacinths. Looping back the
purple velvet portiere over the arch leading into the library, Leo sat
down on the organ bench to await the coming of the family, leisurely
arranged the stops, and marked in her prayer-book the Collect for
Christmas. In her morning robe of crimson cashmere, with its cascade of
soft rich lace foaming