The Following of the Star Part 46

From an old church, just behind the hospital, where a midnight carol service was being held, came the sound of an organ, in deep tones of rolling harmony. Then, softened by intervening windows into the semblance of angelic music, rose the voices of the choristers, in the great Christmas hymn:

"Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King!"

And kneeling there, in those first moments of Christmas morning; kneeling in deepest reverence of praise and adoration, Diana's womanhood awoke, at last, in full perfection.

"Glory to the new-born King,"

the helpless Babe of Bethlehem, pillowed upon a maiden's gentle breast, clasped in a virgin mother's arms; the Babe Whose advent should hallow the birth of mortal infants, for all time;

"Born to raise the sons of earth; Born to give them second birth."

Diana hardly knew, as she knelt on, listening to the quiet breathing at her bosom, whether the rapture which enfolded her was mostly mother-love, or wifely tenderness.

But she knew that her heart beat in unison with the heart of the Virgin Mother in Bethlehem's starlit stable.

She had seen, in one revealing ray of eternal light, the true vocation of her womanhood.

And again the organ pealed forth triumphant chords; while the voices of the distant choir carolled:

"Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

HOME, BY ANOTHER WAY

Each Feast of Epiphany, Mr. Goldsworthy makes a point of asking David to preach the Epiphany sermon in Brambledene Church.

The offertory, on these occasions, is always devoted to the work of the Church of the Holy Star, in Ugonduma. The offertory is always the largest in the whole year; but that may possibly be accounted for by the fact that Diana invariably puts a sovereign into the plate. David smiles as he sees it lying on the vestry table. It calls up many memories. He knows it was dropped into the plate by the hand which has given thousands to the work in Central Africa. He wears on his watch-chain, the golden coin which, on that Christmas-eve so long ago, was Diana's first offering to his work in Ugonduma.

When David mounts the pulpit stairs, and appears behind the red velvet cus.h.i.+on, he looks down upon his wife, sitting in the corner near the stout whitewashed pillar, its shape accentuated, as is the annual custom, by heavy wreathings of evergreens.

She has become his Lady of Mystery once more; for the love of a n.o.ble-hearted woman is a perpetual cause of wonderment to the man upon whom its richness is outpoured; nor does he ever cease to marvel, in his secret heart, that he should be the object upon which such an abandonment of tenderness is lavished.

And before the second Epiphany came round, that most wonderful of all moments in a man's life had come to David:--the moment when he first sees a small replica of himself, held tenderly in the arms of the woman he loves; when the spirit of a man new-born, looks out at him from baby eyes; when he shares his wife's love with another; yet loves to share it.

Thus, more than ever, on that occasion, was the gracious woman, wrapped in soft furs, seated beside the old stone pillar, his Lady of Mystery.

Yet, as she lifted her sweet eyes to his, expectant, they were the faithful, comprehending eyes of his wife, Diana; and they seemed to say: "I am waiting. I have come for this."

Instantly the sense of inspiration filled him. With glad a.s.surance, he gave out his text, and read the pa.s.sage; conscious, as he read it, that he knew more of its full meaning than he had known when he preached upon it from that pulpit, four years before:

"When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.... And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto Him gifts--gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."

Diana, in her motor, awaited David, outside the old lich-gate.

As he sprang in beside her, and the car glided off swiftly over the snow, she turned to him, her grey eyes soft with tender memories.

"And when they had offered their gifts, David," she said; "when the gold, and the frankincense, and the myrrh had each been accepted--what then?"

"What then?" he answered, as his hand found hers upon her m.u.f.f, while into his face came the look of complete content she so loved to see: "Why then--they went home, by another way."

_Here endeth_ MYRRH.

MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

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_LAVENDER AND OLD LACE._

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper--and it is one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fas.h.i.+oned love stories, * * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity.

_A SPINNER IN THE SUN._

Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In "A Spinner in the Sun"

she tells an old-fas.h.i.+oned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance.

_THE MASTER'S VIOLIN,_

A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an apt.i.tude for technique, but not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the pa.s.sion and the tragedies of life and all its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his life--a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home, and through his pa.s.sionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakes.

Founded on a fact that all artists realize.

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