“Then give us one now, Missy,” cried old Tees-dale. “That's what Mr. Crowdy wants, and so do we all.” “Something lively?” suggested Missy, looking doubtfully at the red-faced minister. “Lively? To be sure,” replied Mr. Crowdy. “Christmas Day, young lady, is not like a Sunday unless it happens to fall on one, which I'm glad it hasn't this year. Make it as lively as convenient. I like to be livened up!” And the old man rubbed his podgy hands and leant forward in the least uncomfortable chair. “And shall I give you a dance too?” “A dance, by all means, if you dance alone. I understand that such dancing has become quite the rage in the drawing-rooms at home. And a very good thing too, if it puts a stop to that dancing two together, which is an abomination in the sight of the Lord. But a dance by yourself—by all manner of means!” cried Mr. Crowdy, snatching off his spectacles and breathing upon the lenses. “But I should require an accompaniment.” “Nothing easier. My friend Appleton can accompany anything that is hummed over to him twice. Can't you, Appleton?” “Mr. Crowdy,” replied the younger man, in an injured voice, as he looked askance at a little old piano with its back to the wall, and still more hopelessly at a music-stool from which it would be perfectly impossible to see the performance; “Mr. Crowdy, I do call this unfair! I—I——” “You—you—I know you, sir!” cried the aged divine, with unmerciful good-humour. “Haven't I heard you do as much at your own teas? Get up at once, sir, and don't shame our cloth by disobliging a young lady who is offering to sing to us in the latest style from England!” “I'm not offering, mind!” said Missy a little sharply. “Still, I'm on to do my best. Come over here, Mr. Appleton, and I'll hum it quite quietly in your ear. It goes something like this.” That conquered Appleton; but the Teesdales, while leaving the whole matter in the hands of Missy and of the venerable Mr. Crowdy, who wanted to hear her sing, had thrown in words here and there in favour of the performance and of Mr. Appleton's part in it; all except Mrs. T., who was determined to have no voice in a matter of which she hoped to disapprove, and who showed her determination by an even more unsympathetic cast of countenance than was usual with her wherever Missy was concerned. Mrs. T. was seated upon a hard sofa by her husband's side, Arabella on a low footstool, John William by the window, and the two ministers we know where. The one at the piano seemed to have got his teeth into a banjo accompaniment which would have sounded very wonderfully like a banjo on that little old tin-pot piano if he had thumped not quite so hard; but now Missy was posing in front of the mantelpiece, and all eyes but the unlucky accompanist's were covering her eagerly.