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next Christmas Day found Mary with Seraphine, a tiny baby girl, in her arms. Mary herself was a new creature. Her heart was light, her eyes sparkled and her laughter rang out as gaily as anybody's. She had learned again how to enjoy waking up to see the sky and to work all day long without slackening her speed. Her blood was warm with new life. It was pleasant to walk along the roads, to go to the forest for fire-wood, to swing her ax like a man, driving its keen bright edge into the clean white wood of the trees. She could never be the same free-hearted girl she had been, for trouble had left a scar somewhere deep down in her breast.

But sin and Seraphine had agreed with her. She would have been completely happy except for Budda. He would not speak to her, so cross was he that she had brought a child into the world after her lawful husband had left her. Instead of coming to see her Christmas Day, he sat on the wood-pile cutting splinters, frowning and being as surly as he was on all the other days of the year. When she called a cheerful "Christmas