The summer had passed away, the autumn-time had come and gone; from the hedge-rows of the Paddocks the last lingering leaves had fallen, and another new year was about, with the accustomed rejoicings, to be ushered in, but still things had not improved in John’s altered home. No sunshine of the heart brightened up the old walls, and yet, for all that inside there was gloom, it was necessary, for old custom’s sake, that the show of merriment should be kept up; for Christmas-time was nigh at hand, and hospitality, as well as jollity, had, time out of mind, been, at that festive season, the order of the day at Peartree-house. To give and distribute largely and ungrudgingly at the dying-out of the old year had ever been an institution in Mrs. Beacham’s family. “The Turtons,” she was wont to say (John’s mother was--as of course all the world knew--a Turton of Cradock, in the West Riding of York) “The Turtons always kep a good table at Christmas-time both for rich and poor, in their own county; and I’m not going to do different, though this _is_ Sandyshire. Christmas comes but once a year, and it’s only right that when it does come, them as _can_ afford it should give them as can’t their bellies full.” In furtherance of this charitable object, preparations for feeding the hungry began betimes in the spacious kitchen of Peartree-house. No stronger proof could be adduced of the fact, that albeit often cross, disagreeable, and snappish in the privacy of home, Mrs. Beacham was, _au fond_, generous and kind-hearted, as the manner in which, on the grand occasion of Christmas-time, she fulfilled her welcome duties could fully testify. “L’année est morte, vive l’année!” The old cry has been cried, and the old song sung, till some of us are weary of the semi-joyous and all solemn sound; but the good Samaritan at the Paddocks addressed herself, even as she had done for fifty years, to the congenial task before her; and, as I said before, the old kitchen of the farm-house reeked with preparations for the coming festival. Such a kitchen as it was! The ceiling half-covered from beam to beam with flitches of well-smoked bacon--with a store of precious delf, and a glittering _batterie de cuisine_ in the shape of pots and pans, that excited envy in the hearts of half the housewives in the neighbourhood; and with a chimney so wide-mouthed and gaping that the largest spit in Sandyshire would have been scarcely long enough to span it! The amount of fuel consumed in that “kitchen range” was, as Mrs. Beacham was given proudly to say, what nobody would believe; and yet if any of these incredulous ones had chanced to catch a glimpse at Christmas-time of that same furnace, methinks that their doubts regarding its consuming powers would, like other and more material things under its influence, have melted into thin air.