This, Aunt Jane did not think the worst part of the affair, and she said that the girl had been brought up to call the man Uncle Alfred, and very possibly did not understand that he was only so by courtesy, nor that he was so utterly untrustworthy. ‘I thought so,’ said Mary Hacket. ‘I told Connie that such a child could not possibly have been a willing party to his fraud--for fraud, I fear, it was--Miss Mohun. Do you think there is any hope of her recovering the sum she advanced.’ ‘I am afraid there is not, even if the wretched man is apprehended.’ ‘Ah! if she had only told me what she wanted it for!’ ‘I hope it was all her own.’ ‘Oh, Miss Mohun, no doubt you know that two sisters living together must accommodate one another a little, and Connie’s dress expenses, at her age, are necessarily more than mine. But here come the dear children, and we ought to dismiss all painful subjects, though I declare I am so nervous I hardly know what I am about.’ However, by Miss Mohun’s help, the good lady rose to the occasion, and when once busy, the trouble was thrown off, so that no guests would have detected how unhappy she had been in the forenoon. Constance soon came down, and confided to Gillian a parcel directed to Miss D. Mohun, containing all the notes written to her, and all the books lent to her, by the false friend whom she had cast off, after which she threw herself into the interests of the present. The London ornaments, and the residue of the gifts and bonbons, made the Christmas-tree a most memorable one to the G.F.S. mind. As to Fly, she fraternized to a great extent with a very small maid, in a very long, brown dress, and very thick boots, who did not taste a single bonbon, and being asked whether she understood that they were good to eat, replied that she was keeping them for ‘our Bertie and Minnie;’ and, on encouragement, launched into such a description of her charges--the blacksmith’s small children--that Lady Phyllis went back, not without regrets that she could not be a little nurse who had done with school at twelve years old, and spent her days at the back of a perambulator. ‘Oh, daddy,’ she said, ‘I do wish you had come down; it was such lovely fun--the best tree I ever saw. Why wouldn’t you come?’ ‘If thirty odd years should pass over that little head of yours, my Lady Fly, and you should then meet with Mysie and Val, maybe you will then learn the reason why.’ ‘We will recollect that in thirty years’ time.’ ‘When our children go to a Christmas-tree.’ ‘And we sit over the fire instead.’ ‘Oh! but should we ever not care for a dear, delightful Christmas-tree?’ ‘If we had each other instead.’ ‘Then we would all go still together!’ ‘And tell our little boys and girls all about this one, and the Butterfly’s Ball!’ ‘Perhaps our husbands would want us, and not let us go.’ ‘Oh! I don’t want a husband. He’d be in the way. We’d send him off to India or somewhere, like Aunt Lily’s.’