ornament as they pleased. The flowers and shrubs were God’s handiwork, he said, so why should they not be used in God’s service, to do honour to “the Giver of the feast?”

This year was no exception to the general practice. On my going down to the school-room on the first day that the work of “the decorations” began, which was the very morning after my return from the continent, I found things just as they had been in previous years, save that some half-a-dozen panes of glass had been smashed in the oriel window at the eastern end of the room, through the incautious manipulation of a bunch of holly by some “green” hand.

There were the usual number of young ladies, all of whose faces I knew so well, engaged in the pious work; with Horner, Mr Mawley the curate, and one or two other attendant male aides, to minister to their needs—such as stripping off leaves for wreath making—and help them to flirt the dull hours away. Dear little Miss Pimpernell, our vicar’s maiden sister and good right hand, presided, also, to preserve order and set an example for industrious souls to follow, just as she had been in the habit of presiding as far back as I could recollect.

She was not there merely as a chaperon. Oh no! If Lady Dasher, sitting on an upturned form in a corner, like a very melancholy statue of Patience, was not sufficient to prevent the prudent proprieties from being outraged, there was, also, the “model of all the virtues” present—Miss Spight—a lady of a certain age, who, believing, as the kindly beings of her order do, that there was too large a flow of the milk of human kindness current in the world, deemed it her mission to temper this dispensation by the admixture of as much vitriol and vinegar as in her lay: she succeeded pretty well, too, for that matter, in her practice and belief.

Little Miss Pimpernell was quite a different sort of body altogether to Miss Spight. Every one who knew her, or ever saw her kindly face, loved her and venerated her.

She was the very impersonification of good-nature, good-will, and good action. Did any misfortune chance to befall some one with whom she was acquainted, or any casual stranger with whom she might be brought in contact, there was none of that “I told you so” spirit of philosophy about her.

No; she tried to do her best for the sufferer as well as she was able; and would not be contented until she was absolutely satisfied that matters had somewhat mended.

Young and old, rich and poor, alike 

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