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the hearth? And who knows if it will not bring us bad fortune? And
how shall we tend it?" And she was wroth against him.
"Nay, but it is a Star-Child," he answered; and he told her the
strange manner of the finding of it.
But she would not be appeased, but mocked at him, and spoke
angrily, and cried; "Our children lack bread, and shall we feed the
child of another? Who is there who careth for us? And who giveth us
food?"
"Nay, but God careth for the sparrows even, and feedeth them,"
he answered.
"Do not the sparrows die of hunger in the winter?" she asked.
"And is it not winter now?" And the man answered nothing, but
stirred not from the threshold.
And a bitter wind from the forest came in through the open
door, and made her tremble, and she shivered, and said to him: "Wilt
thou not close the door? There cometh a bitter wind into the house,
and I am cold."
"Into a house where a heart is hard cometh there not always a
bitter wind?" he asked. And the woman answered him nothing, but
crept closer to the fire.
And after a time she turned round and looked at him, and her
eyes were full of tears. And he came in swiftly, and placed the child
in her arms, and she kissed it, and laid it in a little bed where the
youngest of their own children was lying.
And on the morrow the Woodcutter took the curious cloak of
gold and placed it in a great chest, and a chain of amber that was
round the child's neck his wife took and set it in the chest also.
So the Star-Child was brought up with the children of the
Woodcutter, and sat at the same board with them, and was their
playmate. And every year he became more beautiful to look at, so
that all those who dwelt in the village were filled with wonder, for,
while they were swarthy and black-haired, he was white and delicate
as sawn ivory, and his curls were like the rings of the daffodil. His
lips, also, were like the petals of a red flower, and his eyes were like
violets by a river of pure water, and his body like the narcissus of a
field where the mower comes not.
Yet did his beauty work him evil. For he grew proud, and cruel,
and selfish. The children of the Woodcutter, and the other children of
the village, he despised, saying that they were of mean parentage,