As I was looking at this my Cousin Dolly ran in, her hands all over flour; and as I saw her--"Here," I said to myself, "is the place where it shall be done." She could not touch me or kiss me, because of the flour; but she permitted me to kiss her, my cold lips against her warm cheek; and her eyes were as stars for merriment. There is something very strange and mystical about Christmas, to me--(which I think is why the Puritans were so savage against it)--for I suppose that the time in which our Lord was born as a little Child, makes children of us all, that we may understand Him better. "Well, you are come then!" said Dolly to me--"and we not ready for you." "I am ready enough for home," said I. And she smiled very friendly at me for that word. "I am glad you call it that," said she. * * * * * There was but a little dried fish and rice for supper that night, as it was a fast day; but the supper of Christmas Eve is always a kind of sacramental for me, when midnight mass is to follow. There was no midnight mass for us that Christmas, nor any mass at all; though I suppose it was celebrated as usual in the Ambassadors' chapels, and the Queen's: yet the supper had yet that air of mystery and expectancy about it. "We are all to dance to-morrow night," said Dolly. "So that is why the floor is cleared in the Great Chamber," I said. She nodded at me. She looked more of a child than I had ever seen her. "Will you dance with me, Dolly?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "but my first is with my father." I told them presently, though it was but a melancholy tale for Christmas Eve, of my Lord Stafford's trial, and all that I had seen there; and of the supper last night in Whitehall. "My Lord is to be beheaded in five days," I said. "We must pray for his soul. He will die as bravely as he has lived; I make no doubt." "And you have no doubt of his innocence?" asked Cousin Tom. I stared on him. "Why no," I said, "nor any man, except those paid to believe his guilt." He pressed me to tell him more of what I had seen in London; and whether I had seen the Duke of Monmouth again. "He is in Holland," I said, "under His Majesty's displeasure. But I saw Her Grace of Portsmouth." "Why, that is his friend, is it not?" asked Tom. "Yes," I said, "and a poor friend to his father and the Duke of York." * * * * * The next night was a very merry one.