There are times when one should control one’s passion for candour; and as I was saying, Christmas waits excite no emotion in my breast save that of irritation. But I have known “Hark, the herald angels sing,” wheezily chanted by fog-filled throats, and accompanied, hopelessly out of tune, by a cornet and a flute, bring a great look of gladness to a work-worn face. To her it was a message of hope and love, making the hard life taste sweet. The mere thought of family gatherings, so customary at Christmas time, bores us superior people; but I think of an incident told me by a certain man, a friend of mine. One Christmas, my friend, visiting in the country, came face to face with a woman whom in town he had often met amid very different surroundings. The door of the little farmhouse was open; she and an older woman were ironing at a table, and as her soft white hands passed to and fro, folding and smoothing the rumpled heap, she laughed and talked, concerning simple homely things. My friend’s shadow fell across her work, and she looking up, their eyes met; but her face said plainly, “I do not know you here, and here you do not know me. Here I am a woman loved and respected.” My friend passed in and spoke to the older woman, the wife of one of his host’s tenants, and she turned towards, and introduced the younger—“My daughter, sir. We do not see her very often. She is in a place in London, and cannot get away. But she always spends a few days with us at Christmas.” “It is the season for family re-unions,” answered my friend with just the suggestion of a sneer, for which he hated himself. “Yes, sir,” said the woman, not noticing; “she has never missed her Christmas with us, have you, Bess?” “No, mother,” replied the girl simply, and bent her head again over her work. So for these few days every year this woman left her furs and jewels, her fine clothes and dainty foods, behind her, and lived for a little space with what was clean and wholesome. It was the one anchor holding her to womanhood; and one likes to think that it was, perhaps, in the end strong enough to save her from the drifting waters. All which arguments in favour of Christmas and of Christmas customs are, I admit, purely sentimental ones, but I have lived long enough to doubt whether sentiment has not its legitimate place in the economy of life. ON THE TIME WASTED IN LOOKING BEFORE ONE LEAPS HAVE you ever noticed the going out of a woman? When a man goes out, he says—“I’m going out, shan’t be long.” “Oh, George,” cries his wife from the other end of the house, “don’t go for a moment. I want you to—” She hears a falling of hats, followed by the slamming of the front door. “Oh, George, you’re not gone!” she wails. It is but the voice of despair. As a matter of fact, she knows he is gone. She reaches the hall, breathless. “He might have waited a minute,” she mutters to herself, as she picks up the hats, “there were so many things I wanted him to do.”