Despite the painful incidents of Evie's convalescence, Christmas was a happy season at Erley Chase, for it had always been a tradition of the household to make much of this festival, and Mrs Chester could not bring herself to change her habits as the years advanced. Every twenty- sixth of December Mr Chester would say solemnly, "This is the last time! I cannot let you wear yourself out like this. When Christmas cards have to be sent off by the hundred, and presents by the score, it is time to call a halt, for what has been a pleasure becomes a burden. Next year you drop these outside people, and think only of our immediate circle," and Mrs Chester would murmur meekly, "Yes, dear; of course. Just as you wish," and begin laying in stores for next Christmas at her first visit to the January sales. There was a cupboard in one of the spare rooms which was dedicated entirely to the keeping of presents, and into it went all manner of nick-nacks which were picked up during the year--bazaar gleanings, in the shape of cushions, cosies, and table- cloths, relics of travel, and a hundred and one articles useful and ornamental, which had been bought because they were so cheap, and it really seemed wicked to leave them lying on the shop counter! When a need arose, as when a birthday was suddenly remembered the day before it fell due, or an anniversary suggested the propriety of a little offering, it was the easiest thing in the world to poke about in the cupboard until a suitable gift was discovered. Laura Everett was much amused by this novel way of apportioning presents, which was so strangely different from that practised at her own home. When she was wheeled into the morning-room a few days before Christmas, it was to find a small bazaar of fancy articles spread on tables and sofas, while Mrs Chester sat checking off the names written on a long sheet of paper, and Rhoda cried out: "Here's a yellow silk cushion. Whom do we know who has got a complexion that can bear being set off against a background of sulphur yellow?" ... "Here's a gorgeous table centre, quite beautifully worked. Whom do we know who is old- fashioned enough to use table centres still?" ... "Here's a piece of Turkish embroidery, which would be the very thing to cover that shabby old sofa at the Vicarage; it was absolutely in holes the last time I saw it." "Turkish embroidery--Mrs Mason. Thank goodness, that's one thing settled! Wrap it up at once, Rhoda dear. It will be one thing less to do," cried Mrs Chester in a tone of relief, while Evie held up her hands in astonishment. "Of all the extraordinary ways of giving presents! To have a room full of things and then to puzzle as to whom you can give them! This is indeed a new experience for me. When we talk over our presents at home it is to wonder how in the world we can contrive to buy twenty things for nineteen shillings. Such a wholesale way of managing things I never imagined in my wildest moments."