Christmas arrived, and with it, of course, the social merry-making that at this time was kept up with the greatest spirit in this part of the country; where every one gave a Christmas feast, which was attended by all the neighbours for several miles round. We were invited to the first. Some difficulty presented itself with respect to Mrs. Hunt's accepting the invitation, as our daughter was only two months old; but this impediment was soon removed. The little child was in excellent health, and the nurse, it was thought, would take great care of it in the mother's absence. This was settled as much to my satisfaction as to that of my wife: for I enjoyed little pleasure unless she was with me to partake of it. When the day came, we mounted our horses and she being an excellent horsewoman, we galloped off to meet our friends at a distance of four miles, and we reached the place without the slightest accident, though it was one of the most severe frosts I was ever out in. About three o'clock the next morning we returned in the same way. I shall never forget the look of my father, when he saw her come into the room, and involuntarily exclaimed "for God's sake, Mrs. Hunt, where is your child?" She answered it was at home. He turned his eyes up and said no more; but I felt this as a most severe rebuke, and for the, first time I began to think that a mother leaving her child was not quite so proper. He soon took an opportunity to speak to me aside, and having asked me whether I was mad, to bring my wife away from a young sucking child in such weather, he added, "you acted very prudently and firmly, I understand, when, your child was born, as to her suckling it, but now you are going to destroy the child by suffering the mother to remain from it twelve or fourteen hours at a time." I listened, indeed, to this wholesome advice; but, in the thoughtlessness of my heart, unfortunately, I passed it of without paying it that attention, to which, coming from one with such experience as my father had, it was so well entitled. What my father alluded to, about my firm conduct when my child was born, was this. My mother having always nursed her own children, I was bred up with the notion that it ought to be so, and I still entertained the greatest antipathy to my offspring sucking any other woman but its mother.[19] My father had, on his side, already guarded me against all the arts and tricks played off by gossips, upon such an occasion. Upon this subject, therefore, I had always expressed a strong and decided feeling to my wife, in which she appeared to participate.