Child.” ;

A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN FRANCE.

. lights. Pierre’s little heart beat fast till it seemed to clatter in his bosom as

loudly as did his wooden sabots on the stone pavement. Presently he began to
find familiar objects among the city towers, the tower of Charlemagne, St. Mar-
tin’s tower, and finally, the Cathedral spires. Lifted black against the sky, they
were like hands outstretched to Heaven. Pierre’s eyes followed them and lo, the
fingers pointed to a bright star!
“But yes, my little man,” said
the mother Félicie, “the star
stands always over the manger to
lead the wanderers to the Holy

They turned at last into the
Cathedral Square, into which all
the narrow streets were pouring
throngs of people. Pierre clung
fast to his mother’s hand and they
mingled in the crowd pushing their
way through the doors.  Félicie
paused at the nearest bénitier to
dip her fingers in the holy water
and cross herself. Then advancing
a few steps along the central aisle,
she bowed her knee toward the
grand altar, Pierre gravely follow-
ing her example.

The boy had often been to the
Cathedral before, on bright Sun-
day mornings, and it had always
been with a lingering sigh of regret
for the sunny square, that he had
turned into the cold dark interior.
But as to-night he had found his AT THE BENITIER.
whole world changed, so too the
Cathedral on a Christmas Eve was totally unlike the Cathedral of a Sunday
morning. The mysterious gloom of the vast interior, illumined by glimmering
lights from the burning tapers seemed to the poetic child’s mind like the
solemn grandeur of the midnight through which he had just been led, and his
vague feeling of awe was quickened into genuine reverence. In the cathedral
of Nature he had learned how to enter the cathedral of stone. With a serious
air he walked by his mother’s side toward the manger which was the ultimate
object of this Christmas pilgrimage.

By the steps of an altar in the transept chapel was a rude wooden structure