The days passed on. Lucy found herself free to work with an unencumbered mind. The new servant proved as pleasant as efficient. She was not a woman who talked much, but when addressed, she always responded cheerily, expressed herself nicely, and frequently made shrewd remarks, well set off by her Scottish dialect. Lucy was especially touched by the real right feeling she showed in any observation which glanced towards the absent “master” whom she had never seen. She felt that it was a comfort to have in the house this experienced woman, who had known a wife’s love and a widow’s loss. There seemed a human bond between them in the thick clumsy little Bible with the Scotch metrical Psalms, which lay on the kitchen dresser, its fly-leaf inscribed “To Jessie Milne, from her respectful friend Alex^r. Morison,” with a date of the courting days five and twenty years ago. Christmas drew near. Lucy had wondered a little over Christmas. She felt sure the Brands would invite her and Hugh to their festive board, but she did not want to go there. She knew well enough how the Brands kept Christmas, for she and Charlie had dined with them on one or two Christmas days when they were first married. There would be a great dinner-party—a _chef_ hired for the occasion. With the exception of one or two fawning familiars of the Brand household—and especially obnoxious to Lucy—the guests would be anybody who was in special favour at the time, many of them financial or fashionable acquaintances of the last twelve months. These people would pick over and waste the delicious food placed before them, they would drink much costly wine. There would be toasts, which would range from the last “Company” in which Jem Brand was interested, down to our “Absent Friends,” which he would certainly propose if Lucy were there. There would follow a little confused music in the drawing-room, overmastered by everybody talking at once and yet saying nothing. Then before the party broke up, they would all stand round with linked hands, and these people, who had not a memory, an outlook, or even an interest in common (unless it might be in a “Company”), would ask in London tones, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” singing— “We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn, Frae mornin’ sun till dine: But seas between us braid hae roared, Sin’ auld lang syne.” No, Lucy felt that it would be impossible to endure all this just now. It would be too much for her nerves. It would cut her to the quick, tempting her to tears or laughter, both alike of cynicism and bitterness. Yet Lucy feared that Florence would make a sad fuss if Lucy chose to sit at home alone—but for little Hugh—while a place at her sister’s table was ready to welcome her.