CHAPTER XLI

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS Christmas Eve in a little village of Northern New York--a white Christmas, clear and cold. In the dark, blue-black of the sky the glittering stars were spread thick; the brilliant moon poured down its silver light over the whiteness of the sloping roof-tops, and upon the ghostly white, silently drooping trees. A heaviness hung in the frosty air--a stillness broken only by the tinkling of sleigh-bells or sometimes by the merry laughter of the passers-by. At the outskirts of the village, a little …