use he cared for gold
really, but because, owing to a false social system which perverted the
moral sense, it seemed necessary to happiness. Yet he had proved it to
be the very last thing that could make a man happy. The more money, the
less enjoyment of it--the greater the wealth, the less the content. Was
this according to law?--the spiritual law of compensation, which works
steadily behind every incident which we may elect to call good or evil?
He thought it must be so. This very festival--Christmas--how thoroughly
he had been accustomed by an effete and degenerate "social set" to
regard it as a "bore,"--an exploded superstition--a saturnalia of beef
and pudding--a something which merely served as an excuse for throwing
away good money on mere stupid sentiment. "Stupid" sentiment? Had he
ever thought true, tender, homely sentiment "stupid"? Yes,--perhaps he
had, when in the bold carelessness of full manhood he had assumed that
the race was to the swift and the battle to the strong--but now, when
the shadows were falling--when, perhaps, he would never hear the
Christmas bells again, or be troubled by the "silly superstitions" of
loving, praying, hoping, believing humanity, he would have given much
could he have gone back in fancy to every Christmas of his life and seen
each one spent cheerily amid the warm associations of such "sentiments"
as make friendship valuable and lasting. He looked up half vaguely at
the sky, clear blue on this still frosty morning, and was conscious of
tears that crept smartingly behind his eyes and for a moment dimmed his
sight. And he murmured dreamily--

"Behold we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all--
And every winter change to spring!"

A tall, athletic figure came between him and the light, and Angus Reay's
voice addressed him--

"Hullo, David! A merry Christmas to you! Do you know you are standing
out in the cold? What would Miss Mary say?"

"Miss Mary" was the compromise Angus hit upon between "Miss Deane" and
"Mary,"--considering the first term too formal, and the last too
familiar.

Helmsley smiled.

"Miss Mary has gone to church,"--he replied--"I thought you had gone
too."

Reay gave a slight gesture of mingled regret and annoyance.

"No--I never go to church,"--he said--"But don't you think I despise the
going. Not I. I wish I could go to church! I'd give anything to go as I
used to do with my