“Lor a mussy, Sir! them parties,” said Rebecca, “is a getting too much of a good thing, if I may make so bold as to say it. It’s always parties at this time of the year. You’ll excuse me a mentioning of it, Mr. Merry,” she continued, “but if I might make so bold again, I should say why don’t you keep a school, or a sylum, or a hinn, and so you could have the young people, as you call ’em, always about you?” Now you must not think that this was an expression of Rebecca’s real state of feeling, nor that I was in the least degree alarmed or vexed at the light in which she viewed my proposition. Faithful old servants, who have lived in one’s family for a generation or so, do get queer whims, and contract habits which could not be tolerated in upstart new comers. Rebecca never gives way to an explosion like this if anybody else is present, and I have two or three alternatives always in reserve for pacifying her. Not wishing to use any of the alternatives on the occasion in question, I merely said— “Christmas only comes once a year, Rebecca, and I mean, as long as I have health and strength, to keep up the good old custom of giving Christmas parties, and I look to you to carry out the arrangements this year in the same admirable way you have done on so many previous occasions.” If Rebecca could have blushed, I believe she would have done so at this compliment, but her blushing days have gone by, so she dropped a mild curtsey, and said, “It shouldn’t be her fault, please ’eving, that should prevent this party being the best _we_ had ever given.” So a council of war was held on the spot. Amelia and the cook were summoned, paper and pencil were called into requisition, and if a newspaper reporter, or a secretary of a society, had been present, a summary of the proceedings would have been given in something like the following style:— Moved by Mr. Merry, and seconded by Rebecca— “That the invitations be issued for six o’clock on Christmas Eve, and that tea be served up in the breakfast room.”—Carried. Moved by Rebecca, and seconded by Mr. Merry— “That, in the opinion of this meeting, it is desirable and advisable that the fun of the evening should take place in the drawing room; that supper should be laid in the breakfast room; that the dining room be completely divested of furniture, to allow plenty of room for dancing, and that the spare bedroom be appropriated for the necessary costuming required by those who take part in the charades.”—Carried unanimously. Moved by the cook, and seconded by Amelia— “That if false moustachios are required by those who take part in the charades, young gentlemen be prohibited from using the kitchen fire for burning the corks necessary for that purpose.” Moved by Amelia, and seconded by the cook—