‘I wish we could have old Spicer in to matronise the party,’ said Daphne. ‘She looks lovely in her Sunday evening gown. She would sit smiling benevolently at us till she dropped asleep; instead of contemplating us as if she thought the next stage of our existence would be a lunatic asylum, as Aunt Rhoda generally does when we are cheerful.’ ‘I’m afraid you must put up with Aunt Rhoda to-night, Daphne,’ answered Madoline. ‘She has suggested that she and the Rector should have the Blue Room, as the drive home might bring on his bronchitis.’ ‘His bronchitis, indeed!’ cried Daphne. ‘He appropriates the complaint as if nobody else had ever had it. So they are going to stay the night! Of all the cool proceedings I ever heard of that is about the coolest. And Aunt Rhoda is one of those people who are never sleepy. She will sit us out, however late we are. Never mind. The banquet will be all the more classical and complete. Aunt Rhoda will be the skeleton.’ Daphne contrived to be happy all day, in spite of Mrs. Ferrers, who was particularly ungracious to her younger niece, while she was lavish of compliments and pretty speeches to the elder. The faithful slave Edgar was absent on duty—going to church twice with his mother; dining with her; devoted to her altogether, or as much as he could be with a heart that longed to be elsewhere. But Daphne hardly missed him. Gerald Goring was in high spirits, full of life and talk and fun, as if he too had made up his mind that this great day in the Christian calendar should be a day of rejoicing for him. They all went to church together in the morning, and admired the decorations, which owed all their artistic beauty to Madoline’s taste, and were in a large measure the work of her own industrious fingers. They joined reverently in the Liturgy, and listened patiently to the Rector’s sermon, in which he aired a few of those good old orthodox truisms which have been repeated time out of mind by rural incumbents upon Christmas mornings.