“Ay, my poor heart!” My Lady was speaking truth there. Among the thousand millions born to suffer on this earth, there was not one upon that Christmas Eve in mental agony more deep than hers. The blow received had been so terrible and unexpected, that it had at first half stupified all feeling; the real torture was now commencing, when she was about to realise the full extent of her injuries. Lady Lisgard was not without courage; but she was no Indian warrior to desire a spectator of such torments. “I must be alone, dear Mary,” repeated she. “Be sure you breathe no word of this to any one. Say, however, that I am not very well. The cold when I opened that window to the Waits”--here she visibly shuddered--“seems to have frozen me to the marrow--you may tell them I have taken cold. I shall not be down to breakfast.” “And I should recommend you to stay indoors, my dear (as I hope to persuade Miss Letty to do), although it _is_ Christmas Day,” said Mary tenderly, as she made up the fire before leaving the room; “for the church is far from warm.” “I shall not go to church,” said Lady Lisgard, with a decision that reassured her attendant, and enabled her to wish her mistress “good-night” without much apprehension. “He will be in the choir to-morrow morning,” was the thought which was crossing the minds of mistress and maid at the same instant. CHAPTER IV. SIR RICHARD GAINS HIS POINT. |I DON'T know how it was in the Monkish times in England, but it appears that the keeping of religious days--always excepting the Sabbath--is not in accordance with the genius of this country as it exists at present. By general habit, we are devout, or certainly reverent; and yet the majority seem unable to discriminate between a fast and a festival. Christmas Day, for example, is kept by the evangelical folks exactly like Sunday, which is with them very much the reverse of a feast-day. With the High Church people, again, it is a Holiday, to be enjoyed after a certain peculiar fashion of their own; while the great mass of the population outrage both these parties by treating half the day as a fast and the other half as a festival. After morning church, it is generally understood that one may enjoy one's self--that is, within the limit of the domestic circle. There is the rub. It is not every disposition which can appreciate forfeits and snap-dragon. My own respected grandfather used to thank Heaven with much devotion that he had always been a domestic man, who knew how to enjoy a peaceful Christmas in the bosom of his family; but then he always went to sleep immediately after dinner, and nobody ventured to wake him until the servants came in to prayers, after which he went to bed.