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An Old-fashioned Christmas Eve.


and that the fingers pointed to half-past eleven. She had no idea what time it could be, so she went to the window and looked across to the church. The light was streaming out through all the windows. She must have overslept herself ! She called the girl and told her to get the cofifee ready, while she dressed herself. So she took her hymn-book and started for church. The street was very quiet ; she did not meet a single person on her way to church.

When she went inside, she sat down in her customary seat in one of the pews, but when she looked around her she thought that the people were so pale and so strange, exactly as if they were all dead. She did not know any of them, but there were several she seemed to recollect håving seen before, but when and where she had seen them she could not call to mmd. When the minister camd into the pulpit, she saw that he was not one of the ministers in the