When, during the first days of her loneliness, any thought of Lucy’s had strayed towards Christmas—prompted perhaps by some question from little Hugh—she had wished she could go on with what Charlie and she had begun, since that would surround her with those who loved him and whom he loved, and would save her from any jar with the Brands or any reproaches from them. Had Pollie been with her, she would certainly have done this. She knew that Charlie, trustful of Pollie’s fidelity, had inferred this would be so. Now, with this reliable woman on the scene it was again not only possible but quite easy. So Lucy called on Miss Latimer and delivered her invitation personally, getting it accepted with tears and embraces. “If you had not felt equal to inviting me I should have gone nowhere else,” said the little lady. Lucy wrote to Wilfrid Somerset, and by return of post came his reply, thanking her for “the sacrifice she was making for her friends,” and adding, “I had expected to sit alone this year.” Then Lucy remembered a young lad of fifteen or sixteen whom some country friend had introduced to Charlie, who had found him employment in the office of his firm. He had had no friends when he came to London, and he had now been in London only three or four months. So she sent him an invitation, and got a prompt, prim little reply. He was a shy boy and did not much care for the thought of a dinner-party, but he had been thinking “it would be very dull at Christmas,” and he knew, too, that his mother in Lancashire would spend a happier Christmas if she knew he was made welcome in a friendly house. Florence did not put in an appearance at her sister’s house till two days before Christmas, when she came to say that, of course, Lucy and Hugh were coming to her, and she had only called to mention that dinner would be half-an-hour earlier than it had hitherto been. She cried out with deprecation, and even anger, to find that Lucy had already made her own arrangements. Who would have thought of such a thing? She had not sent her invitation earlier simply because she thought it would be understood as a matter of course. She had told two or three of her expected guests that they would meet her sister. What would they think? And what a queer creature Lucy was to wilfully choose the depressing society of a superannuated teacher, a deformed pedant, and a country bumpkin. There was no accounting for tastes. Lucy was glad to divert her sister’s ire by thanking her for her expedition to Willesden. “It was you, Florence,” she said, “who have helped me to do what Charlie and I used to do together. Unless I had secured that nice Mrs. Morison, I could not have ventured on my little dinner-party. You have not told me yet what sort of interview you had with her people.” “Oh, well enough,” answered Mrs. Brand evasively. “It was a poor little place. I should not say they are well off. If they asked her for a visit, I expect they got something off her.”