The New Year was always welcomed with all honors. Just before twelve o'clock everybody would assemble in the hall, and he would open the door and stand in the entrance, watch in hand—how many of his friends must remember him thus, and think lovingly of the picture!—as he waited, with a half-smile on his attentive face, for the bells to chime out the New Year. Then his voice would break the silence with, “A Happy New Year to us all.” For many minutes there would be much embracing, hand-shaking, and good-wishing; and the servants would all come up and get a hearty shake of the hand from the beloved “master.” Then hot spiced wine would be distributed, and good-health drunk all round. Sometimes there would be a country dance, in which the host delighted, and in which he insisted upon every one joining, and he never allowed the dancing—and real dancing it was too—to flag for an instant, but kept it up until even _he_ was tired and out of breath, and had at last to clap his hands, and bring it to an end. His thorough enjoyment was most charming to witness, and seemed to infect every one present. One New Year's Day at breakfast, he proposed that we should act some charades, in dumb show, that evening. This proposal being met with enthusiasm, the idea was put into train at once. The different parts were assigned, dresses were discussed, “properties” were collected, and rehearsing went on the whole day long. As the home visitors were all to take part in the charades, invitations had to be sent to the more intimate neighbors to make an audience, an impromptu supper had to be arranged for, and the day was one of continual bustle and excitement, and the rehearsals were the greatest fun imaginable. A dear old friend volunteered to undertake the music, and he played delightfully all through the acting. These charades made one of the pleasantest and most successful of New Year's evenings spent at Gad's Hill. But there were not only grown-up guests invited to the pretty cheerful home. In a letter to a friend Charles Dickens writes: “Another generation begins to peep above the table. I once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. Finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change in myself, I bear it like a man.” But as he so disliked the name of grandfather as applied to himself, those grandchildren were taught by him to call him “Venerables.” And to this day some of them still speak of him by this self-invented name.