One afternoon before Christmas, a man with bowed head and aimless step walked the crowded streets of a city. The air was clear and cold, the blue sky was dazzlingly beautiful, the sun shone brightly upon his way, yet in his face was unspeakable pain.

His thoughts were with the baby daughter whom he had seen lowered into the snow, only a few hours before. He saw it all,—the folds of the pretty gown, the pink rose in the tiny hands, and the happy smile which the Angel of the Shadow had been powerless to take away.

"You will forget," a friend had said to him.

"Forget," he said to himself again and again. "You can't forget your heart," he had answered, "and mine is out there under the snow."

Through force of habit, he turned down the street on which stood the great church where he played the organ on Sundays and festival days. He hesitated a moment before the massive doorway, then felt in his pocket for the key, unlocked the door and went in. The sun shone through the stained glass windows and filled the old church with glory, but his troubled eyes saw not. He sat down before the instrument he loved so well and touched the keys with trembling fingers. At once, the music came, and to the great heart of the organ which swelled with pity and tenderness, he told his story. Wild and stormy with resentment at first, anger, love, passion, and pain blended together in the outburst which shook the very walls of the church.

"God gives us hearts—and breaks them," he thought and his face grew white with bitterness.

Beside himself with passion, he played on, and on, till the sun sank behind the trees and the afternoon shaded into twilight.

As the shadows filled the church, he accidentally struck a minor chord, plaintive, sweet, almost sad.

He stopped. With that sound a flood of memories came over him—an autumn day in the woods, the trees dropping leaves of crimson and gold, the river flowing at his feet, with the purple asters and goldenrod on its banks, and beside him the fair sweet girl who had made his life a happy one;—and insensibly he drifted into the melody, dreaming, on the saddest day of his life, of the day which had been his happiest.

He remembered the look in her eyes when he had first kissed her. Beautiful eyes they were, brown, soft, and tender, with that inward radiance which comes to a woman only when she looks into the face of the man she loves.

"I will go to her," he whispered, "but not yet, not yet!" And still he played on in that vein of sadness, the sweet influence stealing into his heart till the pain was hushed in peace. Conscious only of a strange sense of uplifting, the music grew stronger as the thought of the future was before him. He was young, talented, he had a wife to live for, and a child—no, not a child—and the tears stole over his cheeks as he again touched the minor chord.

The crescendo came again. The child was safe in the white arms of the snow, and she was hidden away from the sorrows of the earth in the only place where we are ever safe from these—in its heart.

The moon had risen over the hill-tops, and the church was as light as if touched on every side with silver. The organ sounded a strain of exultation in which the minor chord was in some way mingled with the theme. He could face the world now. Any one can die but it takes a hero to live. Something he had read came back to him: "Once to every human being, God gives suffering—the anguish that cuts, burns and stings. The terrible 'one day' always comes and after it our hearts are sometimes cruel and selfish—or sometimes tender as He wishes them to be."

And the strong soul rose above its bitterness, for his "one day" was over, and it could never come again. His strength asserted itself anew as he came down from the organ loft and went toward the door. A little bundle in one of the pews attracted his attention, and he stooped to see what it was. A pale, pinched baby face looked up at him wonderingly, the golden hair shining with celestial glory in the moonlight. The hair, the eyes, the position of the head were much like those of the child he had lost.

Back came the rush of infinite pain—he was not so strong as he had thought—but only for an instant. Hark! was it an echo or his own soul playing upon his quivering heartstrings the minor chord? Again the new strength reasserted itself and into his consciousness rose the higher duty to the living over the love and faith for the lost.

"Was it you played the music?" said the sweet child voice. "I heard it and I comed in!"

"Dear," he said, "where is your home? Are you all alone?"

"Home," she said wonderingly. "Home?"

Without another word, he took the child in his arms and hurried out of the doorway. Along the brilliantly lighted avenue he hastened, till he reached the little cottage in a side street. It was dark within except for the fitful glancings of the moonlight, and he deposited his burden in a big arm-chair while he went in search of his wife.

"Sweetheart," he called, "where are you?"

The sweet face came into the shadow before him, and she laid her hand upon his arm without speaking. He led her to the little waif saying simply: "I have brought you a Christmas gift, dear."

She put out her empty arms and gathered the desolate baby to her breast. The eternal instinct of motherhood swelled up again and for a moment, in the touch of the soft flesh against her own, the tiny grave in the snow seemed only a dream.

"Theodora—Gift of God," he said reverently. Then as the clouds parted, and the moonlight filled every nook and corner of the little room: "Dearest, we cannot forget, but we can be brave, and our Gift of God, shall keep us; shall it be so?"