Read "One Christmas Time" by Eleanora H. Stooke online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
IT wanted but two days to Christmas, and it was intensely cold. For a few hours in the morning the sun had shone brightly in a cloudless blue sky; but now evening had come, and the keen, frosty air was cruelly biting to those who lacked thick garments and warm furs to shelter them from the severity of the weather. It promised to be a trying Christmastide for the London poor, but those who had cosy firesides to turn to, said it was healthy and seasonable.
To an onlooker, things would not have appeared very comfortable in the Blundells' home. There was scarcely more than a handful of coals in the little fire-place. Mrs. Blundell, as usual, was stitching away at her work, whilst the children held a whispered conversation together. Yet, cheerless though the garret looked, there was an atmosphere of quiet contentment about its inmates. Christmas was coming! That was the thought which cheered their hearts, that made the mother almost forget her misgivings for the future, as she hummed softly to herself the lines of the well-known hymn: