some distracting remark. Grace spoke. Florrie turned towards her. Miriam radiated agreement and sipped her hot coffee. Its strong aroma flowed through her senses. She laughed sociably. Someone else laughed.--Of _course_ they don't said Florrie in her most grinding voice and laughed. Two voices broke out together. Miriam listened to the tones, glancing intelligence accordingly, umpiring the contest, her mind wandering blissfully about. Presently there was a silence. Mrs. Philps had bridled and said something decisive. Miriam guiltily re-read the remark. She could not think of anything that could be made to follow it with any show of sincerity and sat feeling large and conspicuous. Mrs. Philps' face had grown dark and old. Miriam glanced restively at her meaning.... Large terrible illnesses, the doctor coming, trouble amongst families, someone sitting paralyzed; poverty, everything being different....--D'you like a snowy Christmas, Miriam? asked Florrie shyly. Miriam looked across. She looked very young, a child speaking on sufferance, saying the first thing that occurs lest someone should remark that it was time to go to bed. Hilarious replies rushed to Miriam's mind. They would have re-awakened the laughter and talk, but there would have been resentment in the widowed figure at the head of the table, the figure that had walked with arch dignity into the big north London shop and chosen the blouse. The weight in the air was dreadful--There don't seem to be snowy Christmases nowadays she said turning deferentially to her hostess with her eyes on Florrie's child's eyes--Christmas is a _very_ different thing to what it was breathed Mrs. Philps sitting back with folded hands from her finished meal.--Oh, I don't know aunt corrected Grace anxiously--aren't you going to have your toast and marmalade? You lived in the North all your young Christmases. It's always colder there. Take some toast aunt----We used to burn Yule logs flickered Mrs. Philps, plaintively refusing the toast. Miriam waited imagining the snow on the garden where the frilled shirts used to hang out to bleach in the dew ... the great flood, the anxiety in the big houses--Yule logs would look funny in this grate, laughed Florrie--Oh, I don't know, pressed Grace.--We had some last year. Haven't we got any this year aunt?----I ordered some wood; I don't know if it's come--Miriam could not imagine the Brooms with burning logs. Yes, she could. They were nearer to burning logs than anyone she knew. It would be more real here; more like the burning logs in the Christmas numbers. The glow would shine on to their faces and they would see into the past. But it was all in the past. Yule logs and then, no yule logs. Everyone even the Brooms were being pushed forward into a new cold world. There was no time to remember--they don't build grates for wood nowadays, ruled Mrs. Philps. Who could stop all this coming and crowding of mean little things? But the wide untroubled leisure of the Brooms