The party had been there but a few days, when, on Christmas morning, while the family and their guests were assembled in the old, oak-paneled, front parlor, before breakfast, and Colonel Compton was standing at a side table, presiding over an immense old family punch bowl, from which he ladled out goblets of frothy eggnog to the company, the door was quietly opened, and without announcement Marguerite De Lancie entered, saying, “A merry Christmas! friends.” “Marguerite! Marguerite!” exclaimed--first Cornelia, and then all the young ladies that were present, pressing forward to meet her, while the matrons and the gentlemen of the party, with less vehemence but equal cordiality, waited to welcome her. “My lost sweetheart, by all that’s amazing!” cried Colonel Compton, who, in his engrossment, was the very last to discover the arrival. “Why, where upon the face of the earth did you come from?” inquired Cornelia, scarcely restrained by the presence of others from seizing and covering her friend with caresses. “From Loudoun street,” answered Miss De Lancie gayly, as she shook hands right and left. “From Loudoun street? that will do! How long have you been in Loudoun street, sweetheart? You were not there when we passed through the town in coming hither.” said Colonel Compton. “I arrived only the day before yesterday, rested a day, and hearing that you were at the Lodge, came hither, this morning, to breakfast with you.” “Enchanted to see you, my dear! truly so! But--you arrived the day before yesterday--whence?” “I may be mistaken, yet it seems to me that Colonel Compton’s asking questions,” said Marguerite, with good-humored sarcasm. “Oh! ah! I beg pardon, ten thousand pardons, as the French say,” replied Colonel Compton, bowing with much deprecation, and then raising a bumper of eggnog. “To our reconciliation, Miss De Lancie,” he continued, offering to her the first, and filling for himself a second goblet. “_Paix à vous_,” said Marguerite, pledging him. “And now to breakfast--_sortez, sortez_!” exclaimed the Colonel, leading the way to the dining-room. Cornelia was, to use her own expression, “dying” to be alone with Marguerite, to hear the history of the last seven months absence. Never before was she more impatient over the progress of a meal, never before seemed the epicureanism of old folks so tedious, or the appetites of young people so unbecoming; notwithstanding which the coffee, tea and chocolate, the waffles, rolls and corn pone, the fresh venison, ham, and partridges were enjoyed by the company with equal gusto and deliberation. “At last!” exclaimed Cornelia, as rising from the table, she took Marguerite’s hand and drew her stealthily away through the crowd, and up the back stairs to her own little bedchamber, where a cheerful fire was burning.