"But the savage mother knows how to sulk and frown, and her tear-storms and icy moods are terribly trying. There is no coquetry about her then; it is the storm and stress of a great passion." And with this grand peroration Mr. Ingram gave his moustache a final twist, and, as Noel phrased it, brought down the house. Waveney thought of Monsieur Blackie's parable--for of course it had been duly retailed to her in Mollie's weekly budget--when the weather changed disastrously before Christmas. The Frost King no longer touched the earth with his white fingers; the wintry sunshine had faded from the landscape; the skies were grey and threatening, and the raw cold made one's flesh creep. "Hardly Christmas weather," Althea observed, regretfully, as she looked out from the library window at the blackened grass and sodden, uninviting paths. Only under the wide verandah of the Porch House a crowd of birds were feeding. Waveney was, as usual, watching them. "I am afraid it will rain before evening," returned Doreen. "The barometer is going down fast. I do so dislike a wet Christmas." And to this Althea cordially agreed. But no amount of impending rain could damp Waveney's pleasurable expectations, for she had a delightful programme before her. That year Christmas day fell on Saturday, and as Althea and Doreen always dined with Mrs. Mainwaring, Althea proposed driving her to Cleveland Terrace. "Aunt Sara would be delighted to see you, dear!" she said--"indeed, you were included in the invitation. But I told her that you would far rather be with your own people." "Oh, thank you, thank you," returned the girl, gratefully. But her joy was unbounded when Althea suggested that she should not return to the Red House until Tuesday afternoon. "I shall need all my helpers then," she finished, smiling; and Waveney understood her. The Christmas programme had been duly unfolded to her. There was to be a grand tea and entertainment for Althea's girls at the Porch House, a festive evening at the Home for Workers, a supper for the Dereham cabmen, and another for the costermongers; and on Twelfth Night the servants at the Red House always entertained their relations and friends in the Recreation Hall. "In fact," as Doreen expressed it, "no one would have time to sit down comfortably until the feast of Epiphany had passed." But, though Doreen spoke in a resigned tone of a weary worker, it might be doubted if any one enjoyed more thoroughly the bustle and preparation. The day before Christmas was a busy one for all the inmates of the Red House. Doreen was at the Home all day superintending the Christmas decorations, and Althea spent most of her time at the Porch House, where a band of voluntary helpers were making garlands of evergreens, and framing Christmas mottoes in ivy under her skilful direction.