"_Father_," said I last night to him--we were us two alone that minute--"_Father_, do you love _Christmas_?" He looked on me and smiled. "I love to see my childre glad, dear maid," saith he: "and I love to feast my poor neighbours, that at other times get little feasting enough. But _Christmas_ is the childre's festival, _Edith_: for it is the festival of untroubled hearts and eyes that have no tears behind them. For the weary hearts and the tearful eyes the true feast is _Easter_. The one is a hope: the other is a victory. There are no clouds o'er the blue sky in the first: the storm is over, and the sun is out again, in the last. `We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.' But we are apt to believe in the resurrection the most truly when the grave hath been lately open: and the life of the world to come is the gladdest thought to them for whom the life of the world that is seems not much to live for." SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER THE XXVIII. "Well, _Edith_," quoth Aunt _Joyce_ to me last night, "thou hast had a rare time of it!" "I have, _Aunt_," said I: "yet I warrant you, I was not sorry to have _Sunday_ come at after." Eh, but I was weary when I gat me abed on _Christmas_ night, and it were ten o'clock well told ere I so did. _Helen_ and _Milisent_ were later yet: but _Mother_ packed me off, saying that growing maids should not tarry up late: and when I found me withinside the blankets, I warrant you, but I was thankful! I reckon, being now something rested, I must set down all that we did: and first for _Christmas_ Eve. _Hal_ and _Anstace_ came early (their childre were bidden to _Keswick_ unto a childre's gathering): then about three o' the clock, Master and Mistress _Lewthwaite_, with _Alice, Nym, Jack_, and _Robin_ (and by the same token, _Nym_ played the despairing gallant that I could not choose but laugh, his hat awry and his ruff all o' one side, and a bombasted [padded] doublet that made him look twice his own size). And methought it a sore pity to miss _Blanche_, that was wont to be merriest of us all (when as she were in a good humour) and so _Alice_ said unto me, while the water stood in her eyes. A little while after come Doctor and Mistress _Meade_, and their _Isabel_: then old Mistress _Rigg_, and her three tall daughters, Mrs _Martha_, Mrs _Katherine_, and Mrs _Anne_: then Farmer _Benson_ and his dame, and their _Margaret_ and _Agnes_; and Master _Coward_, with their _Tom_ and _Susan_; and Master and Mistress _Armstrong_, with their _Ben_, _Nicholas_, and _Gillian_. Last of all come Master _Park_ and Master _Murthwaite_, both together, and their mistresses, with the young folk,--_Hugh_ and _Austin Park_, and _Dudley_, _Faith_, and _Temperance Murthwaite_. So our four-and-thirty guests, with ourselves, thirteen, made in all a goodly company of forty-seven.