CHAPTER XIX.
UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN Ronnie laid down his bow, and put his right arm round his wife.
He still held the precious Infant of Prague between his knees, his left hand on the ebony finger-board.
"My darling!" Helen said.

"So we shall be at home for Christmas after all.

How glad I am!" He looked at her dumbly, and waited.
He felt like the prodigal, who had planned to suggest as his only possible desert, a place among the hired servants, but was so lifted into realisation of sonship by the father's welcome, that perforce he left that sentence unspoken.
So Ronnie looked at her dumbly, reading the utter love for him in her eyes.
Back came the words of his hymn, replete with fresh meaning.
"O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant!" They were such faithful eyes--Helen's; and now they seemed filled with triumphant joy.
"Ronnie," she said, "do you remember how I wrote to you at Leipzig, that this Christmas we would have a Christmas-tree?
Did not you wonder, darling, why I said that ?" "Yes," answered Ronnie.

"I thought of it this evening when I saw a Christmas-tree at the lodge.

I had meant to ask you the night I reached home, but I did not remember then." "Ah, if you had," she said, "if you only had!" "Well ?" he questioned.