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It was bitter, though, that Christht, beca was so wonderful, but in the afternoon and

evening the ecstasy perished like a nipped thing, like a bud in

a false spring Alas, that Christmas was only a domestic feast,

a feast of sweete their everyday hearts, and give way to ecstasy? Where was

the ecstasy?

How passionately the Brangwens craved for it, the ecstasy

The father was troubled, dark-faced and disconsolate, on

Christht, because the passion was not there, because the

day was become as every day, and hearts were not aflame Upon

the mother was a kind of absentness, as ever, as if she were

exiled for all her life Where was the fiery heart of joy, now

the coi's

transport, the thrill of new being that shook the earth?

Still it was there, even if it were faint and inadequate The

cycle of creation still wheeled in the Church year After

Christed Sunday followed

Sunday, trailing a fine movement, a finely developed

transfor with joy, that had seen the star and had followed to the

inner walls of the Nativity, that there had swooned in the great