"It is ordered that we remember it in special prayer and psalmody to the Lord, with thanksgiving on the anniversary of our landing; you heard that, Constantia?" her stepmother responded. "No, but that would be seemly, a natural course to follow," said Constance. "There is not one of us who is not reliving the voyage hither and the hard winter of a year ago, I'll warrant. And Christmas is nearing." "That is a word that may not be uttered here," said Dame Eliza with a gleam of humour in her eyes, though she did not lift them, and a flitting smile across her somewhat grimly set lips. "Oh, can it be harmful to keep the day on which, veiled in an infant's form, man first saw his redemption?" cried Constance. "There were sweetness and holiness in Christmas-keeping, meseems. If only we could cut out less violently! Stepmother, will you let me have my way?" "Your way is not in my guidance, Constantia," said Dame Eliza. "It is for your father to grant you, or refuse you; not me." "This is beyond my father's province," laughed Constance. "Will you let me make a doll--I have my box of paints, and you know that a gift for using paints and for painting human faces is mine. I will make a doll of white rags and dress her in our prettiest coloured ones, with fastenings upon her clothes, so that they may be taken off and changed, else would she be a trial to her little mother! And then I will paint her face with my best skill, big blue eyes, curling golden hair, rose-red cheeks and lips, and a fine, straight little nose. Oh, she shall be a lovely creature, upon my honour! And will you let me give her to Damaris on Christmas morning, saying naught of it to any one outside this house, so no one shall rebuke us, or fine my father again for letting his child have a Christmas baby, as they fined him for letting Ted and Ned play at a harmless game? Then I shall know that there is one happy child on the birthday of Him who was born that all children, of all ages, should be happy, and that it will be, of all the possible little ones, our dear little lass who is thus full of joy!" Mistress Hopkins did not reply for a moment. Then she raised the corner of her apron and wiped her eyes, muttering something about "strong mustard." "How fond you are of my little Damaris," she then said. "You know, Constantia, that I have no right to consent to your keeping Christmas, since our elders have set their faces dead against all practices of the Old Church. Yet are your reasons for wishing to do this, or so it seems to me in my ignorance, such as Heaven would approve, and it sorely is borne upon me that many worser sins may be wrought in Plymouth than making a delicate child happy on the birthday of the Lord. Go, then, and make your puppet, but do not tell any one that you first consulted me. If trouble comes of it they will blame you less, who are young and not so long removed from the age of dolls, than me, who am one of the Mothers in Israel."