It was Christmas Day. The church was filled with great and fashionable
people. Among the gorgeous crowd were to be seen Miss Brand and Maggie
Reed, the latter in a warm dress of grey cloth.
Nearer the altar knelt George and his wife, his eyes often seeking the
place where his friends were seated.
Father Francis, assisted by two other priests, was officiating.
George looked happier to-day. The presence of his hitherto forgotten
companions had revived him, and the good father had spoken soothing
words to him about his child's death. George had been overcome, and
unaccustomed tears coursed down his face as he clasped the father's
hand, and said,--
"Ah! one's early friends are true. Their love makes life worth having."
While the choir sang the _Gloria in Excelsis_, the musician's thoughts
had strayed to his early days. He was thinking of the sunbeam, and
wondering whether its visit was a dream. If so, it must have been a
dream straight from God, for that day had gained him his career.
The golden flower had reared its head very near to the Sun-lands. Would
it ever reach them?
He remembered a secret drawer in his escritoire, in which there was a
small plaster crucifix, a faded geranium leaf, and a silver compass. He
had kept these little relics, and yet he had ceased to remember the
friends who had smoothed the rough pages of his childhood and pencilled
his name in the book of fortune.
But Father Francis and Maggie and Miss Brand should be safe now; they
should know no further sorrow!
The sun burst forth in the winter sky, shone into the church, and
brightened the gloomy corners.
George knew well in his heart that it was not his care that had made the
geranium thrive. The sunbeam which he pretended to treat as a dream had
nourished it. However, if that chapter in his life was blurred and
misty, to-day's was clear.
The Mass that was being sung was his masterpiece. It was the outpouring
of his soul. He would compose still greater religious works. What more
wonderful theme could he have than a God's agony!
"_Sanctus! Sanctus! Sanctus!_" muttered the priest. The consecration
drew near, the people bent their heads.
Still the musician remained lost in his thoughts. All over the world the
advent of the Babe of Bethlehem was being celebrated. What a wonderful
story it was! The star in the East, the wise men, the Infant wrapped in
swaddling clothes and cradled in a manger. His unrecorded childhood, His
love for little children, the more forsaken and forlorn, the greater His
love. And he had been rich and prosperous, and yet had never given a
thought to those poor little waifs whose life he himself had once lived.
Happy in the love of his own child, he had forgotten the woes of others.
God had taken her away; but he would accept the Divine warning, and
follow in the Divine footsteps. He would open his heart to the children
of the poor; he would clothe them and give them bread.
The priest lifted the chalice. On the incense veiled altar the musician
saw a sunbeam dart into the Holy Cup, and he heard the well-remembered
voice breathe forth a glorious message,--
"Clothe them and give them bread. In that last vow the flower has
reached the Sun-lands."
[Illustration: "THOU SHALT CLOTHE THEM AND GIVE THEM BREAD"]