Christmas was at hand, the first Christmas in Laura’s married life, and to her happy fancy it seemed the most wonderful season that had ever been marked on the calendar of the ages. How could she and John Treverton be thankful enough for the blessings Providence had given them? How could they do enough to make other people happy? About a fortnight before the sacred festival she carried Celia off to Beechampton in the pony carriage, to buy a tremendous stock of blankets and flannel petticoats for the old women, and comfortable homespun coats for the rheumatic old men. ‘Have you any idea as to the amount you are spending, Laura?’ asked the practical Celia. ‘No, dear; but I have one fixed idea, and that is that no one near Hazlehurst shall be cold and wretched this Christmas, if I can help it.’ ‘I’m afraid you are encouraging pauperism,’ said Celia. ‘No, Celia; I am waging war against rheumatism.’ ‘I hope you don’t expect gratitude.’ ‘I only expect the blankets to keep out Jack Frost. And now for the grocer’s.’ She shook the reins gaily, and drove on to the chief grocer of Beechampton, in whose plate-glass windows a pair of tall Japanese jars announced the superior character of the trade transacted inside. Here Mrs. Treverton ordered a hundred parcels of plums, currants, sugar, spice, and candied peel, each parcel containing an ample supply for a family Christmas pudding. The shopman rejoiced as he booked the order, and was eloquent in his praise of ‘our new fruit.’ From the grocer’s they drove to the confectioner’s, and there Laura ordered such a supply of plum cake and buns, muffins and tea cakes, all to be delivered at the Manor House on Christmas Eve, that Celia began to be seriously alarmed for her friend’s sanity. ‘What can you want with all that indigestible rubbish?’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you going to open a pastrycook’s shop?’ ‘No, dear. These things are for my juvenile party.’ ‘A juvenile party--already! I can’t understand your motive, unless it is to get your hand in for the future. Who are you going to have? All Lady Parker’s nursery, of course--and Lady Barker’s grandchildren, and Mrs. Pendarvis’s seven boys, the Briggses, and the Dropmores, and the Seymours. You’ll want dissolving views, and a conjuror; and you might have _tableaux vivants_, as you don’t seem to care how much money you waste. People expect so much at juvenile parties now-a-days.’ ‘I think my guests will be quite happy without _tableaux vivants_, or even a conjuror.’ ‘I doubt it. Those little Barkers are intensely old for their age.’ ‘The little Barkers are not coming to my party.’ ‘And the Pendarvis boys give themselves as many airs as undergraduates after their first term.’ ‘But I have not invited the Pendarvis boys.’ ‘Then what children, in goodness’ name, are to eat all those cakes?’ cried Celia. ‘My party is for the children of the cottagers. All your father’s infant school will be there.’