She had a small, ugly, homely face, withered and gnarled hands; and
she was dressed that day in a little old bonnet of unheard-of age,
and in dingy, frowsy black clothes, shiny and creased, that came
out of their box perhaps half-a-dozen times a year.
But this morning she was in a festal mood. She had tidied up her
little room; she was going to have a bit of meat for dinner, given
her by a neighbour. She had been sent a Christmas card that
morning, and had pored over it with delight. She liked the stir and
company of the church, and the cheerful air of the holly-berries.
She held her book up before her, though I do not suppose she was
even at the right page. She kept up a little faint cracked singing
in her thin old voice; but when they came to the hymn "Hark, the
herald angels sing," which she had always known from childhood, she
lifted up her head and sang more courageously:
"Join the triumph of the skies!
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem!"
It was then that I had my vision.
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