five
years old, and thought Christmas meant a big cake and nothing else.

"What will Santa Claus find for 'Gilda if she be good?" murmured
Dorothea over the child's sunny head; for, however hard poverty might
pinch, it could never pinch so tightly that Dorothea would not find
some wooden toy and some rosy apples to put in her little sister's
socks.

"Father Max has promised me a big goose, because I saved the calf's
life in June," said August; it was the twentieth time he had told them
so that month, he was so proud of it.

"And Aunt Maila will be sure to send us wine and honey and a barrel of
flour; she always does," said Albrecht. Their aunt Maila had a chalet
and a little farm over on the green slopes toward Dorf Ampas.

"I shall go up into the woods and get Hirschvogel's crown," said
August; they always crowned Hirschvogel for Christmas with pine boughs
and ivy and mountain-berries. The heat soon withered the crown; but it
was part of the religion of the day to them, as much so as it was to
cross themselves in church and raise their voices in the "O Salutaris
Hostia."

And they fell chatting of all they would do on the Christmas night,
and one little voice piped loud against another's, and they were as
happy as though their stockings would be full of golden purses and
jewelled toys, and the big goose in the soup-pot seemed to them such a
meal as kings would envy.

In the midst of their chatter and laughter a blast of frozen air and a
spray of driven snow struck like ice through the room, and reached
them even in the warmth of the old wolfskins and the great stove. It
was the door which had opened and let in the cold; it was their father
who had come home.

The younger children ran joyous to meet him. Dorothea pushed the one
wooden arm-chair of the room to the stove, and August flew to set the
jug of beer on a little round table, and fill a long clay pipe; for
their father was good to them all, and seldom raised his voice in
anger, and they had been trained by the mother they had loved to
dutifulness and obedience and a watchful affection.

To-night Karl Strehla responded very wearily to the young ones'
welcome, and came to the wooden chair with a tired step and sat down
heavily, not noticing either pipe or beer.

"Are you not well, dear father?" his daughter asked him.

"I am well enough," he answered, dully and sat there with his head
bent, letting the lighted pipe grow cold.

He was a fair, tall ma