their luminous forms through the trees. The monk saw them too; yet he went on thinking that behind this strange beauty lurked something evil.

For it was his opinion that it was Satan who wrought these won-ders on the night of the Savior's birth. At that moment the little birds began circling above Father Hans and around him, suffering him to take them and hold them in his hands. But they, being animals, feared the monk: not one bird of them alighted on his shoulder, and no serpent coiled at his feet. Yet one little dove, seeing the angels press on with their advance, took courage, fluttered her wings, and settled on the monk's shoulder, stroking his face with her small white head. The monk struck her away, thinking her a power of evil come to tempt him and corrupt him. And he cried in a loud voice, which the wood echoed back:

"Go back to the hell you came from!"

At that selfsame moment the angels had come so close to Father Hans that their great wings were playing upon his brow like fans. He bowed his head to the ground in greeting and reverence. But hardly had the monk uttered his words when the angels broke off their singing and vanished in the twinkling of an eye, as light and warmth flee before the darkness and the frost of the human heart.

And the place wrapped itself once more in the mantle of black, cold night. Father Hans felt his heart clenched in the grip of an unbearable pain, after it had brimmed over with gladness and happiness. He said to himself:

"I cannot understand what has happened. The angels of heaven were near, and then they were driven away... They wished to sing the hymns of Christmas before me, and they were forced to flee."

And he remembered the flower he had promised Bishop Absalon, and at the last moment he groped among the plants at his side, searching for a flower.

The robbers and the monk went back to the cave, feeling their way through that pitch darkness; and when they missed Father Hans they could not find him. So they took burning brands from the fire and set about searching for him... and they found him a lifeless corpse, stretched out on a bed of snow.

The monk wept, and his wailing grew loud. He knew that it was he who had struck down Father Hans, when he wrenched from him the cup of happiness he had thirsted to drain to the dregs.

The priest's body was carried to Övid cloister, and the monks gathered around it. At once they noticed that the priest's right hand was clenched fast upon something the dead man must have gripped in the hour his end came. They worked at the hand until they opened it, and found that what it held so tightly was nothing but two white bulbs of some plant, which the priest had pulled up in the forest. The monk who had been his companion on his journey took them and planted them in the cloister garden. He tended them with the greatest care through the length of the year, in the hope that one day they would flower. But he waited in vain all through spring and summer and autumn, till winter came with its gloom and

desolation, and the leaves scat-tered from the trees, and all the flowers vanished; and the monk gave the two bulbs up in despair.

Then came Christmas Eve, and the monk remembered Father Hans and went out into the garden to think of him a while. And no sooner had he come to the place where he had planted the two bulbs than he saw tall green stalks bearing beautiful flowers with petals of gleaming silver.

He called the monks to see these two bulbs that had flowered only on Christmas Eve. And when they beheld it — at the very season when flowers of every kind had vanished — it was plain to them that this flower was in truth the flower which the departed priest had plucked from the Christmas garden in Göinge forest.

The monk asked leave of his brethren to carry a bouquet of these flowers to Bishop Absalon, and set off to him. He presented him the bouquet, saying:

"Father Hans sends you these flowers, which he promised to pick for you from the Christmas garden in Göinge forest."

The Bishop's color paled when he heard the monk's words and saw the exquisite flowers the earth had brought forth in the season of winter. He sank a long while into silence, and then said:

"Father Hans has kept his pledge, and I in my turn shall keep my word."

And he ordered a letter drawn up granting release to the Robber who had been banished to the forest since his youth, and handed the letter to the monk, who hurried with it to the forest.

The monk entered the robbers' cave on Christmas Day, and the Robber Father met him, brandish-ing his axe in his face and saying:

"Ah, how I long to cut you down, you monks, however many you may be! You, past all doubt — you are the reason the forest stayed as it was last night and did not put on its joyous Christmas raiment."

The monk answered:

"No — I alone am the cause of it."

An Important Announcement to Our Subscribers in Palestine

Dar al-Kitab announces that it has withdrawn its confidence from its general agent in Palestine, Mr. Khazin Abboud. All subscribers to The Woman's Voice and Social Research, and all who have dealings with Dar al-Kitab, are requested to refrain from paying him or transacting business with him.

On this occasion Dar al-Kitab also announces that it has appointed a new general agent for Palestine and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Mr. Nazir al-Rifa'i, whose address is:

Jaffa – Palestine

Please rely upon him and ease his task.