Christmas at South Hill was not a period of exuberant mirth. Ever since his second wife’s death Sir Vernon Lawford had held himself as much aloof from county society as he conveniently could, without being considered either inhospitable or eccentric. There was a good deal done for the poor, in a very quiet way, by Madoline, and the servants were allowed to enjoy themselves; but of old-fashioned festivity there was none. Mr. and Mrs. Ferrers were asked to dine on Christmas Day. Aunt Rhoda suggested that they should be asked, and accepted the invitation in advance; in order, as she observed, that the bond of family union might be strengthened by genial intercourse upon that sacred anniversary. Gerald was of course to be at South Hill, where at all times he spent more of his waking hours than at Goring Abbey. Edgar had spoken so dolefully of the dulness of a Christmas Day at Hawksyard that Madoline had been moved by pity to suggest that Mrs. Turchill and her son might be invited to the family feast. ‘That will make it a party,’ said Sir Vernon, when his daughter pleaded for this grace, ‘and I am not well enough to stand a party.’ He was not well. Of that fact there could be no doubt. He had been given to hypochondriacal fancies for the last five years, but there was a certain amount of fact underlying these fancies. The effeminately white hand was growing more transparent; the capricious appetite was more difficult to tempt; the slow promenade on the garden terrace was growing slower; the thin face was more drawn; the aquiline nose was sharper in outline. There was a chronic complaint of some obscure kind, vaguely described by a London specialist, and dimly understood by the family doctor, which must eventually shorten the baronet’s life; but his mind was so vigorous and unbending, his countenance so stern, his manner so uncompromising, that it was difficult to believe that Death had set his mark upon him. To his elder daughter alone he revealed the one tender feeling left in him—and that was his very real affection for herself; a love that was chastened and poetised by his reverent and regretful memory of her mother. ‘Dear father, it need not be a party because of the Turchills. Edgar is like one of ourselves, and Mrs. Turchill is so very quiet.’ ‘Ask them, Lina, ask them, if it will be any pleasure to you.’ ‘I think it will please Edgar. He says Hawksyard is so dreary at Christmas.’ ‘If people had not set up a fictitious idea of Christmas gaiety, they would not complain of the season being dull,’ said Sir Vernon somewhat impatiently. ‘That notion of unlimited junketing doesn’t come from any real religious feeling. Peace on earth and goodwill towards men doesn’t mean snapdragon and childish foolery. It is a silly myth of the Middle Ages, which sticks like a burr to the modern mind.’ ‘It is a pleasant idea that kindred and old friends should meet at that sacred time,’ argued Lina gently.