“Beautiful weather for Christmas, Lady Dasher,” hazarded I. She evidently did not agree with me, for she looked about her mournfully, with a down-drawn visage, just as if we were all attending a funeral, of which she was the chief mourner.

“Really, Mr Lorton, do you think so?” came her answer at length. “Don’t you find it very cold?”

“Dear me, ma! why you said last Christmas that it was too warm!” said her daughter Bessie.

“Ah! Mr Lorton,” continued her mother, not noticing her remark, “we never have those good, old-fashioned Christmases that we had when my poor dear papa was alive!”

“No, I suppose not,” I answered; “people say that it is because of the vast American forests being gradually cut down, admitting freer currents of air all over the world; while others put the change down to the influence of the Gulf Stream. Still, I dare say, it will all come right again at some time or other.”

“Ah, Mr Lorton,” said Lady Dasher, “I’m afraid it will never come right again. You are too sanguine, like all young people.”

“Oh, ‘never’ is a long day,” I said; “we should all be hopeful and merry, I think, at least on this one day in the year.”

“I could never be merry again, Mr Lorton,” she said, with a prodigious sigh, which seemed to come from the depths of her heart, “since poor dear papa died;” and she then passed on mournfully homewards, with Bessie and Seraphine in her wake. Their cheerful faces, as they nodded back and smiled at Horner and myself, contrasted strongly with their mother’s lugubrious visage. I wonder if anybody ever saw her laugh? I’ve got my doubts about it.

Then came out Miss Pimpernell, her kind old face beaming with smiles as she bowed here and there, and gave a cordial greeting to us young fellows, who still stood around the church porch. She did not forget me, you may be certain. “God bless you, Frank, my boy!” she said, in her affectionate, purring way; dismissing me home with a light heart to eat the traditionary roast turkey and plum-pudding, at peace with all mankind, and in love with all womankind for her sake.

What a happy, happy day it had been!

That night I passed and repassed Min’s house a dozen times at least, only that I might see her shadow on the blinds, weaving luxurious castles in Spain the while. I would be a great general, a distinguished 

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