Aunt Jane’s mysterious parcel was greeted rapturously, and conveyed into the dining-room, which had a semi-circular end, filled with glass, and capable of being shut off with heavy curtains when the season made snugness desirable. This bay had been set apart from the first for her operations, the tree, whose second season it was, having been taken up and already erected in the centre of the room, not much the worse for last year’s excursion, for, if rather stunted, that was all the better. No one was excluded from the decoration thereof, since that was the best part of the sport to those too old for the mystery--and yet young enough to fasten sconces where their candles would infallibly set fire to the twigs above them. The only defaulters were Jasper, who had preferred going down to the meadows with his gun; and Dolores, who had retired to the drawing-room with a book, on having a paper star removed from immediate risk of conflagration. ‘They were determined not to let her help,’ she said. So she only emerged when the workers halted for a merry, hurried meal in the schoolroom, where Jasper appeared, very late, very cross at having had to make himself fit to be seen, and, likewise, at having brought home no spoil, the snipes having been so malicious as to escape him. Having sallied forth before the post came in, it was only now that it broke on him that visitors were expected, and he did not like it at all. ‘I thought we had got rid of all the enemy!’ he growled, at his end of the table. ‘That’s what he calls Constance.’ thought Dolores. ‘Polite,’ observed Gillian. ‘This will be worse still, being lord and ladies grumbled on Jasper, ‘I hate swells.’ ‘Oh! but these aren’t like horrid, common, fine lords and ladies,’ cried Mysie; ‘why, you know all mamma’s old stories about the fun they had with cousin Rotherwood. ‘What’s the good of that! That’s a hundred years ago. He’ll just make mamma and Uncle Regie of no good at all! And then there’s a girl too--’ (in a tone of inconceivable disgust) ‘I don’t want strange girls--an awful stuck-up swell of a Londoner, not able to do anything! I wish I had gone to spend Christmas with Bruce! I would if I had known it was to be like this.’ The speech brought Mysie to the verge of tears. Aunt Jane’s sharp ears heard it, and she looked at the head of the table, expecting to hear a rebuke; but Lady Merrifield turned a deaf ear on that side. Only after the meal, she called her son, ‘Jasper,’ she said, ‘I want to send a note to Redford, if you like to ride over with it. You need not come home till eight o’clock, if it is moonlight, it the boys are disengaged, and if you do really wish to keep out of the way.’ Jasper’s eyes fell under hers. ‘Mamma, I don’t want that.’ ‘Only you said more than you meant, Japs. If it relieves your mind, it hurts other people. But I do want the note taken, so go and come back in time for the sports; which I don’t think you will find much damaged.’