The midnight mass was ended. The worshipers
hurried away, anxious to enjoy the treats awaiting
them in their homes. The band of pupils, two by
two, following the schoolmaster, passed out of the
church.
Now, under the porch, seated on a stone bench,
in the shadow of an arched niche, was a child
asleep,--a little child dressed in a white garment
and with bare feet exposed to the cold. He was
not a beggar, for his dress was clean and new, and
--beside him upon the ground, tied in a cloth, were
the tools of a carpenter's apprentice.
Under the light of the stars, his face, with its
closed eyes, shone with an expression of divine
sweetness, and his soft, curling blond hair seemed
to form an aureole of light about his forehead.
But his tender feet, blue with the cold on this
cruel night of December, were pitiful to see!
The pupils so warmly clad and shod, passed
with indifference before the unknown child.
Some, the sons of the greatest men in the city,
cast looks of scorn on the barefooted one. But
little Wolff, coming last out of the church, stopped
deeply moved before the beautiful, sleeping child.
``Alas!'' said the orphan to himself, ``how
dreadful! This poor little one goes without stockings
in weather so cold! And, what is worse, he
has no shoe to leave beside him while he sleeps, so
that the Christ Child may place something in it to
comfort him in all his misery.
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