The old Doctor held out his hand to his son.

"Well, Doctor Ralph," he said huskily, "suppose we go tell mother."

So while the Doctor told Aunt Ellen, Ralph bent his knee to this excited
Christmas King enthroned in the heart of the fire-shadows.

"Rise--" said Roger radiantly, tapping him with a cedar wand, "I--I dub
thee first of all my knights--the good, kind Christmas Knight!"

"And here," said Ralph, smiling, "here's Sister Madge. What grand title
now shall we give to her?" But as Sister Madge knelt before him with
firelit shadows dancing in her sweet, dark eyes, Roger dropped the wand
and buried his face on her shoulder with a little sob.

"Nothing good enough for Sister Madge, eh?" broke in the old Doctor,
looking up. "Well, sir, I think you're right."

Now in the silence Aunt Ellen spoke and her words were like a gentle
Christmas benediction.

"'Unto us,'" said Aunt Ellen Leslie as she turned the Christmas log,
"'this night a son is given!'"

But Ralph, by the window, had not heard. For wakening again in his heart
as he stared at the peaceful, moonlit, "God-made" hills--was the old
forgotten boyish love for this rugged, simple life of his father's
dwarfing the lure of the city and the mockery of his fashionable
friends. And down the lane of years ahead, bright with homely happiness
and service to the needs of others--was the dark and winsome face of