The Ruggleses had finished a last romp in the library with Paul and Hugh, and Uncle Jack had taken them home and stayed a while to chat with Mrs. Ruggles, who opened the door for them, her face all aglow with excitement and delight. When Kitty and Clem shower her the oranges and nuts they had kept for her, she astonished them by saying that at six o'clock Mrs. Bird had sent her in the finest dinner she had ever seen in her life; and not only that, but some material to sew her a dress that must have cost a dollar a yard if it cost a cent!
As Uncle Jack went down the little porch he looked back into the window for a last glimpse of the family, as the children gathered about their mother, showing their beautiful presents again and again, and then upward to a window in the great house yonder. "A little child shall lead them," he thought. "Well, if - if anything ever happens to Carol, I will take the Ruggleses under my wing."
"Softly, Uncle Jack," whispered the boys as he walked into the library a little while later. "We are listening to the music from the church next door. The choir sang 'Carol, brothers, carol,' a while ago, and now we think the organist is beginning to play, 'My ain countree' for Carol."
"I hope she hears it,” said Mrs. Bird, "but they are very late tonight, and she may be asleep. It is almost ten o'clock."
The song was beautiful, and there were tears in many eyes, both in the church and in the big house next door, but not in Carol's. For you see, the "wee birdie" in that great house had flown to it's "home nest." Carol had fallen asleep, and the loving heart had quietly ceased to beat.
So sad an ending to a happy day! And yet Carol's mother was glad that her darling had slipped away on the loveliest day of her life, out of its glad content, into everlasting peace.
She was glad that she had gone as she had come, on the wings of song, when Christmas was brimming over with joy; glad of every grateful smile, of every joyous burst of laughter, of every loving thought and word and deed that the last day had brought.
Sadness reigned, it is true, in the little house behind the garden.
One day poor Sarah Maud, with a courage born of despair, threw on her hood and shawl, walked straight to a certain house a mile away, up the marble steps into good Dr. Bartol's office.
"Oh, sir," she cried, "it was me and our children that went to Miss Carol's last dinner party, and if we made her worse we can't never be happy again!" Then the kind old gentleman took her hand in his and told her to dry her tears, for neither she nor any of her flock had hastened Carol's flight - indeed, he said that had it not been for the strong hopes and wishes that filled her tired heart, Carol could not have stayed long enough to keep that last merry Christmas with her dear ones.
And so the old years, filled with memories, die, one after another, and the new years, bright with hopes, are born to take their place; but Carol lives again in every chime of Christmas bells that peal glad tidings and in every Christmas anthem sung by childish voices.
The End
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