ght when Peter
Burkgmaeier had carried home the deformed child, and now all was bustle
and glad preparation in the stone-mason's household. Within three days
Kala was to be married, and Lisbeth, who felt that her reputation as
cook and housewife was at stake, spared neither time nor trouble in her
hospitable labors. Since early morning the great fires had roared in her
spacious kitchen, and all the poor who came to beg a Christmas bounty
tasted freely of her good cheer. With light heart and busy fingers Kala
assisted her mother, and doled out the bread and cakes--not too
lavishly--to the ragged children who clamored around the door; wondering
much in the meanwhile what trinket Sigmund would bring her with which to
deck herself on Christmas morning.

And in his little room Gabriel stood looking at his finished work, and
asking himself if his heart spoke truly when it whispered: "You, too,
are great." It was sweet to realize that his task was done and that he
might rest at last; it was sweeter still to see in the bit of carved
wood before him the fulfilment of all his dearest dreams. So, while
daylight faded into dusk and evening into night, he sat lost in a maze
of tangled thoughts that crowded wearily through his listless brain. It
was now too dark for him to discern the image by his side, but from time
to time he laid his hand upon it with a gentle touch, as a mother might
caress a sleeping child, and was happy in its dumb companionship.

How long he had been sitting thus he never knew, when suddenly out into
the frosty air rang the great bells of St. Lorenz, calling the faithful
to midnight Mass.

Clearly and joyfully they pealed, as if their brazen tongues were
striving to utter in words their messages of good-will to men. Gabriel's
heart leaped at the sound, and a great yearning seized him to kneel once
more within those beloved walls, and amid their solemn beauty to adore
the new-born Babe. Jubilantly rang the bells, and their glad voices
seemed to speak to him as old friends, and with one accord to urge him
on. Weak and dizzy, he crept down the narrow stairs and out into the
bitter night. The sharp wind struck him in the face, and worried him as
it had worried years before the baby abandoned to its cruel embraces.
Yet with the appealing music of the bells ringing in his ears he never
thought of turning back, but struggled bravely onward until the frowning
walls of St. Lorenz rose up before him. Through the open