Be not incredulous of this dawn of reason, wonderful as it may seem to you, so soon becoming morn—­almost perfect daylight—­with the “Holy Child.”—­Many such miracles are set before us; but we recognise them not, or pass them by, with a word or a smile of short surprise.  How leaps the baby in its mother’s arms, when the mysterious charm of music thrills through its little brain!  And how learns it to modulate its feeble voice, unable yet to articulate, to the melodies that bring forth all round its eyes a delighted smile!  Who knows what then may be the thoughts and feelings of the infant awakened to the sense of a new world, alive through all its being to sounds that haply glide past our ears, unmeaning as the breath of the common air!  Thus have mere infants sometimes been seen inspired by music, till like small genii they warbled spell-strains of their own, powerful to sadden and subdue our hearts.  So, too, have infant eyes been so charmed by the rainbow irradiating the earth, that almost infant hands have been taught, as if by inspiration, the power to paint in finest colours, and to imitate with a wondrous art, the skies so beautiful to the quick-awakened spirit of delight.  What knowledge have not some children acquired, and gone down scholars to their small untimely graves!  Knowing that such things have been—­are—­and will be—­why art thou incredulous of the divine expansion of soul—­so soon understanding the things that are divine—­in the “Holy Child?”

Thus grew she in the eye of God, day by day waxing wiser and wiser in the knowledge that tends towards the skies, and as if some angel visitant were nightly with her in her dreams, awakening every morn with a new dream of thought that brought with it a gilt of more comprehensive speech.  Yet merry she was at times with her companions among the woods and braes, though while they all were laughing, she only smiled; and the passing traveller, who might pause a moment to bless the sweet creatures in their play, could not but single out one face among the many fair, so pensive in its paleness, a face to be remembered, coming from afar, like a mournful thought upon the hour of joy!

Sister or brother of her own had she none—­and often both her parents—­who lived in a hut by itself up among the mossy stumps of the old decayed forest—­had to leave her alone—­sometimes even all the day long, from morning till night.  But she no more wearied in her solitariness than does the wren in the wood.  All the flowers were her friends—­all the birds.  The linnet ceased not his song for her, though her footsteps wandered into the green glade among the yellow broom, almost within reach of the spray from which he poured his melody—­the quiet eyes of his mate feared her not when her garments almost touched the bush where she brooded on her young.  Shyest of the winged silvans, the cushat clapped not her wings away on the soft approach of her harmless footsteps to the pine that concealed her slender nest.  As