CHRISTMAS Day dawned clear and bright. All prospects of a thaw seemed to be gone, for the frost had been very keen during the night, and every little twig on the trees glittered in the sunshine as if it were set with diamonds.

‘What a day for skating!’ said Ronald at breakfast-time, after good-mornings and good wishes had been passed round. ‘It almost makes one wish that Christmas had not fallen on a Sunday this year.’

‘Oh Ronnie!’ said little Dorothy aghast. ‘You touldn’t go skating to-day. Tink of the pudding, and we’s going to have ’sert. I saw muvver putting it out—oranges, an’ nuts, an’ ’nannas.’

‘Yes; but, Pussy, Christmas dinner is like the frost, it doesn’t last for ever,’ said Ronald, lifting his little sister into her place between his mother’s chair and his own, while everyone laughed at her remark.

‘Never mind,’ said Mrs Armitage, ‘even if it had been a week-day—what with church, and dinner, and presents—there would not have been much time for skating; besides,’ glancing out of the window as she spoke, ‘I do not think that it will last like this all day. I fancy we will have a fresh fall of snow ere night. Here comes father, so you may begin, boys.’

Dr Armitage was a pleasant-looking man, of about middle age, with a kind, open face, and keen gray eyes. The likeness between him and his eldest son would have told a stranger at once what relationship there was between them.

‘Well, boys,’ he said cheerfully, turning over a pile of letters as he spoke, ‘has mother told you the news yet?’

‘What news?’ they asked eagerly, while their mother shook her head in mock displeasure.

‘Oh Jack, you cannot keep a secret!’ she said, laughing. ‘I did not mean to tell them till after church. It will keep running in their heads all through the service. However, there is no help for it now.—How would you like to go to London, boys? To Aunt Dora’s, for a whole week by yourselves?’

‘To Aunt Dora’s, mother? Has she asked us? Oh yes, I remember, Vivian said’—— Ronald broke off abruptly.

Vivian’s remark of the previous afternoon about an invitation to Aunt Dora’s had flashed into his mind, and he was just going to ask him how he had heard the news when a frightened, warning look on his brother’s face checked him.

‘Oh, how jolly!’ he went on, in some embarrassment, after a moment’s hesitation; ‘we have never been away ourselves before. Will you let us go, mother?’

His mother did not seem to notice his confusion, nor the puzzled look which he wore as he relapsed into silence, and sat watching his brother, who was talking rapidly, his eager little face flushed and his eyes sparkling.

‘Yes, I think so,’ she replied, ‘if you promise to be very good boys. You are old enough now to be trusted away from home alone, so father and Dorothy and I must make up our minds to a quiet house for a week, for I wrote to Aunt Dora yesterday to say that you will be at Victoria at four o’clock on Monday afternoon.’

Breakfast was finished amidst much excited discussion as to what should be taken in the way of garments and portmanteau. A listener would have thought that the boys were going to America at least; but to lads of eleven and thirteen a first visit to London alone is a treat indeed.

As they were running upstairs to get ready for church, Mrs Armitage laid her hand on Vivian’s shoulder and drew him into her room.

‘What did Ronald mean at breakfast by saying that you had told him about Aunt Dora’s invitation, Vivian?’ she asked. ‘How did either of you come to hear of it?’

The little boy rubbed the point of his toe uneasily on the carpet.

‘Ronald is always thinking that I say things,’ he answered evasively, ‘and getting a fellow into a scrape. If he would only mind his own business.’

‘Nay, Vivian, that is unjust; you know Ronald would be the last person in the world to get you into a scrape; and in this case there is no scrape to get into, unless you choose to make one. If by any chance you found out anything about the invitation, as it seems you must have done, it probably was a mistake.’

‘Yes, mother, that was just it, it was a mistake,’ said Vivian, interrupting her eagerly. ‘There was a letter of Aunt Dora’s lying on your desk, and I saw a bit of it when you sent me to get those receipts.’

‘But you must have taken time to read it, did you not?’ said his mother gravely; ‘that could not be a mistake. I thought perhaps you had heard father talking to me about it; we sometimes hear things that are not intended for us to hear, but then the honourable thing to do is to say frankly that you did hear it. To read a letter that is not intended for you is quite a different matter. I did not think a son of mine would have done that.’

The tears came into Vivian’s eyes. He loved his mother passionately, and any appeal from her touched his proud little heart.

‘It really was a mistake at first, mother. When I was looking about for those receipts, I saw the letter lying spread out, and I could not help seeing one sentence. “I hope you will let the boys,” it began, and I did so much want to know what it was that Aunt Dora wanted you to let us do, so I took up the piece of paper and looked over on the other side. I was sorry in a moment, but I did not like to tell.’

‘No, that is just it,’ said his mother. ‘You did not like to tell, and so you were tempted at breakfast this morning to talk as if you knew nothing about it. That was not exactly telling a lie, Vivian; but do you not think that it was acting one? I think that is your besetting sin, my boy. You know that we all have a sin that we must specially fight against, and I want you to try and fight against yours. You have not the moral courage to confess when you have done something wrong, but you try to shuffle and explain things away, so as to hide what you have done. You have plenty of courage in other ways, quite as much, if not more, than Ronald. You have the kind of courage that would make you fight, or face danger; but there is a higher kind of courage than that, and I want you to try and gain it. I mean the courage that will tell the truth, even when the truth is not pleasant, and when you may get laughed at for telling it, and which will own up to a fault rather than try to hide it.

‘You are so quick and impulsive, you often do things without thinking, not because you do not mean to do what is right, but because you do not take time to see that it is wrong; and that leads to the worse sin of covering up the matter and telling half-lies to shield yourself. Now, as this is Christmas Day, we won’t say anything more about it; only, dearie, try and remember who came this day to help us—to save us from our sins. That is what His name means.’

‘Yes, mother,’ said Vivian, beginning to fidget with all a healthy boy’s dislike to a ‘sermon,’ and his mother let him go with a sigh.

‘Will I ever be able to train him to be a brave and honourable man,’ she thought to herself, ‘with his quick, ambitious nature, his love of being first, coupled with his moral cowardice and fear of being laughed at?’

They were a merry party as they walked across the snowy meadow to church. Little Dorothy, who looked like a white woolly ball in her fur coat and cap, clinging to her father with one hand and to Ronald with the other, as they gave her slides along the slippery footpath, while Vivian hovered round, now sliding himself, now threatening to snowball the others, all trace of the late conversation seeming to have vanished from his mind. But the good thoughts came back again in the old church, where there was an atmosphere of sober gladness, its gray stone pillars being wreathed with glistening holly, and brightly coloured banners hanging over the pulpit and choir-stalls.

The rector took for his text the very verse that his mother had spoken about; and as the old man talked simply to the congregation of the battle that each one of us has to wage against the sin in ourselves before we can hope to fight successfully against the sin that is in the world, and how the Bethlehem Babe came to help and save us, Vivian, sitting in his dark corner of the old-fashioned pew, gave his mother’s hand a little squeeze, and, crushing his face against her cloak, made more good resolutions for the future than ever he had done before in the whole course of his happy, careless, light-hearted life.