"This one" was a snow-white cross, and his mother"s heart ached with a strange thrill as she saw his choice; but she smiled as she placed it beside him, where it stood, ever in his sight, till his blue eyes could see it no more.
There came a morning on which the winter sun rose with a wonderful glory; gold and orange light seemed to fill the sky, as if in prelude to some splendid pageant. It was Sunday morning. Ted lay asleep, as if carved in marble, his little white face rested on the pillow, and as his mother turned from the marvellous beauty outside to the small figure that seemed to her, just then, the one thing in earth or sky, she whispered to herself what she felt to be the truth.
"It is his last Sunday with us. Before another my Ted will have entered that city where there is no need of the sun, of which G.o.d Himself is the light. My happy Ted! but oh, how shall we live without him?"
She was right. Ted did not live to see Christmas or his birthday.
Sweetly and peacefully, trusting G.o.d in death as he had trusted Him in life, the little fellow fearlessly entered the dark valley--the valley of the _shadow_ of death only, for who can doubt that to such as Ted what _seems_ death is but the entrance to fuller life?
So, children, I will not say that this was the _end_ of the simple life I have told you of--and in yet another way Ted lives--in the hearts of all that loved him his sweet memory can never die. And if I have been able to make any among you feel that you too love him, I cannot tell you how glad I shall be.
They laid him in a pretty corner of the little cemetery from which can be seen the old church Ted loved so well, and the beautiful chase, where he so often walked. And even in those midwinter days his little friend Gertrude found flowers for his grave. It was all she could do to show her love for him, she said, crying bitterly, for she might not see him to bid him good-bye, and her heart was very sore.
So it was with Christmas roses that the grave of our Christmas child was decked.