Christmas, too, the starry sky and the beauty of language and music caused a great surge of mystic yearning in her; then Mr. McConochie would harangue them, remind them of their unworthiness and guilt, the innocent babe born to die on their behalf. “Sighing, crying, / Bleeding, dying, / Shut in the stone cold tomb,” they sang, and the glory faded to heartbreak and desolation, the bleak light of afternoon.
