[Sidenote: Christmas Morning]
It was Christmas morning--an ideal Christmas morning. The frost had been
keen the previous night, and the branches of the trees had donned a
sparkling white livery. The sun shone brightly, but there was little
warmth in its rays, and the snow had crunched and chittered as "sunny
Miss Martyn" had made her way over it to the church, smiling and sending
bright glances to right and left of her, for there were few in Stourton
with whom she was not acquainted. And now, her lunch over--she was going
out to dinner that evening--she sat by the fire with a big pile of
envelopes and parcels beside her. Her pupils never forgot her, and the
day would have seemed incomplete to each one of them without a card
despatched to Miss Martyn.
Her bundle was a large one, and took some time to get through; and then
the cards had all to be arranged on the mantelpiece. But at length her
task was done, and as her custom was, she went to the brass-bound desk
standing on a table in the corner, and, taking out the now worn
envelope, resumed her seat by the fire.
She had gazed on its contents on many a Christmas day before, but on
this particular day--she never knew why--the memory of the sorrow it had
caused her seemed keener, and she found the tears were gathering in her
eyes, and that one of them had fallen on the edge of the satin medallion
bearing the verses.
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