"The original meaning of Christmas has been overlaid in a good many minds," commented Christy, briefly.
"To their loss," said Jim, "and to the bitter loss of many besides."
He rose from his seat and began to pace back and forth over Christy's thick carpet. But he was weak; he soon came back to his old place.
"I have walked," he said musingly, "the swarming streets of heathen cities, I have gone into heathen homes, I have stood face to face with weary, heavy-laden, heathen souls, and I have been taught what Darkness is. But then, thank God, I have time and again seen the Star of Bethlehem break in the black sky and stand still over some place where the Christ was born, and I know, yes, I know, the brightness of its rising!"
There was another silence.
Again Jim was the first to speak. "No doubt," he said, "you give a number of Christmas presents."
"I don't think of them in September," said Christy.
"That is fortunate," responded Jim, tranquilly. "It will give you more leisure to think of this betimes."
He looked at his watch and said that he must go.
They walked together to the corner where he took the car, and then Christy hurried back to his work.
"That man will never go to China next September," he muttered to himself, as he rang up the elevator. "It will be another Celestial Kingdom for which he will start, unless the signs are wrong."
For the rest of the morning, Mr. Morton was not so
3
