"Hail! silvery, modest mistletoe, Wreath'd round winter's brow of snow, Clinging so chastely, tenderly: Hail holly, darkly, richly green, Whose crimson berries blush between Thy prickly foliage, modestly. Ye winter-flowers, bloom sweet and fair, Though Nature's garden else be bare-- Ye vernal glistening emblems, meet To twine a Christmas coronet!" "That will do, Doctor," interrupted Aubrey, smiling--"what a memory you have for trifles!" "Peggy! Peggy!--you're sadly overdoing it," said the doctor, hastily, calling out to the sexton's wife, who was busy at work in the squire's pew--a large square pew in the nave, near the pulpit. "Why, do you want to hide the squire's family from the congregation? You're putting quite a holly hedge all round!" "Please you, sir," quoth Peggy, "I've got so much I don't know where to put it--so, in course, I put it here!" "Then," said the doctor, with a smile, looking round the church, "let Jonas get up and stick some of it into those old hatchments; and," looking up at the clerk, busy at work in the pulpit, "don't you put quite so much up there into my candlesticks!" With this the parson and the squire took their departure. As they passed slowly up the village, which already wore a sort of holiday aspect, they met on all hands with a cordial, respectful, and affectionate greeting. The quiet little public-house turned out some four or five stout steady fellows--all tenants of Mr. Aubrey's--with their pipes in their hands, and who took off their hats, and bowed very low. Mr. Aubrey went up and entered into conversation with them for some minutes. Their families and farms, he found, were well and thriving. There was quite a little crowd of women about the shop of Nick Steele, the butcher, who, with an extra hand to help him, was giving out the second ox which had been sent from the Hall, to the persons whose names had been given in to him from Mrs. Aubrey. Farther on, some were cleaning their little windows, others sweeping their floors, and sprinkling sand over them; most were displaying holly and mistletoe in their windows, and over their mantelpieces. Everywhere, in short, was to be seen that air of quiet preparation for the solemnly-cheerful morrow, which fills a thoughtful English observer with feelings of pensive but exquisite satisfaction. Mr. Aubrey returned home towards dusk, cheered and enlivened by his walk. His sudden plunge into the simplicity and comparative solitude of country life--and that country Yatton--had quite refreshed his feelings, and given a tone to his spirits. Of course Dr. Tatham was to dine at the Hall on the morrow; if he did not, indeed, it would have been for the first time during the last five-and-twenty years!