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cried Emily.

      “Cyril, ‘ooray!” shouted David.

      “Hullo, Cyril!” said Mollie.

      Six large brown eyes, round with surprise, welcomed me. They overwhelmed me with questions, and made much of us. At length they were settled and quiet again.

      “Yes, I am a stranger,” said Lettie, who had taken off her hat and furs and coat. “But you do not expect me often, do you? I may come at times, eh?”

      “We are only too glad,” replied the mother. “Nothing all day long but the sound of the sluice — and mists, and rotten leaves. I am thankful to hear a fresh voice.”

      “Is Cyril really better, Lettie?” asked Emily softly.

      “He’s a spoiled boy — I believe he keeps a little bit ill so that we can cade him. Let me help you — let me peel the apples — yes, yes — I will.”

      She went to the table, and occupied one side with her apple-peeling. George had not spoken to her. So she said:

      “I won’t help you, George, because I don’t like to feel my fingers so sticky, and because I love to see you so domesticated.”

      “You’ll enjoy the sight a long time, then, for these things are numberless.”

      “You should eat one now and then — I always do.”

      “If I ate one I should eat the lot.”

      “Then you may give me your one.”

      He passed her a handful without speaking.

      “That is too many, your mother is looking. Let me just finish this apple. There, I’ve not broken the peel!”

      She stood up, holding up a long curling strip of peel. “How many times must I swing it, Mrs Saxton?”

      “Three times — but it’s not All Hallows’ Eve.”

      “Never mind! Look! —” She carefully swung the long band of green peel over her head three times, letting it fall the third. The cat pounced on it, but Mollie swept him off again.

      “What is it?” cried Lettie, blushing.

      “G,” said the father, winking and laughing — the mother looked daggers at him.

      “It isn’t nothink,” said David naïvely, forgetting his confusion at being in the presence of a lady in his shirt. Mollie remarked in her cool way:

      “It might be a ‘hess’— if you couldn’t write.”

      “Or an ‘L’,” I added. Lettie looked over at me imperiously, and I was angry.

      “What do you say, Emily?” she asked.

      “Nay,” said Emily. “It’s only you can see the right letter.”

      “Tell us what’s the right letter,” said George to her.

      “I!” exclaimed Lettie. “Who can look into the seeds of Time?”

      “Those who have set ’em and watched ’em sprout,” said I. She flung the peel into the fire, laughing a short laugh, and went on with her work.

      Mrs Saxton leaned over to her daughter and said softly, so that he should not hear, that George was pulling the flesh out of the raisins.

      “George!” said Emily sharply, “you’re leaving nothing but the husks.”

      He too was angry.

      “‘And he would fain fill his belly with the husks that the swine did eat,’” he said quietly, taking a handful of the fruit he had picked and putting some in his mouth. Emily snatched away the basin.

      “It is too bad!” she said.

      “Here,” said Lettie, handing him an apple she had peeled. “You may have an apple, greedy boy.”

      He took it and looked at it. Then a malicious smile twinkled round his eyes — as he said:

      “If you give me the apple, to whom will you give the peel?”

      “The swine,” she said, as if she only understood his first reference to the Prodigal Son. He put the apple on the table. “Don’t you want it?” she said.

      “Mother,” he said comically, as if jesting. “She is offering me the apple like Eve.”

      Like a flash, she snatched the apple from him, hid it in her skirts a moment, looking at him with dilated eyes, and then she flung it at the fire. She missed, and the father leaned forward and picked it off the hob, saying:

      “The pigs may as well have it. You were slow, George — when a lady offers you a thing you don’t have to make mouths.”

      “A ce qu’il paraît,” she cried, laughing now at her ease, boisterously.

      “Is she making love, Emily?” asked the father, laughing suggestively.

      “She says it too fast for me,” said Emily.

      George was leaning back in his chair, his hands in his breeches pockets.

      “We shall have to finish his raisins after all, Emily,” said Lettie brightly. “Look what a lazy animal he is.”

      “He likes his comfort,” said Emily, with irony.

      “The picture of content — solid, healthy, easy-moving content —” continued Lettie. As he sat thus, with his head thrown back against the end of the ingle-seat, coatless, his red neck seen in repose, he did indeed look remarkably comfortable.

      “I shall never fret my fat away,” he said stolidly. “No — you and I— we are not like Cyril. We do not burn our bodies in our heads — or our hearts, do we?”

      “We have it in common,” said he, looking at her indifferently beneath his lashes, as his head was tilted back.

      Lettie went on with the paring and coring of her apples — then she took the raisins. Meanwhile, Emily was making the house ring as she chopped the suet in a wooden bowl. The children were ready for bed. They kissed us all “Good night”— save George. At last they were gone, accompanied by their mother. Emily put down her chopper, and sighed that her arm was aching, so I relieved her. The chopping went on for a long time, while the father read, Lettie worked, and George sat tilted back looking on. When at length the mincemeat was finished we were all out of work. Lettie helped to clear away — sat down — talked a little with effort — jumped up and said:

      “Oh, I’m too excited to sit still — it’s so near Christmas — let us play at something.”

      “A dance?” said Emily.

      “A dance — a dance!”

      He suddenly sat straight and got up.

      “Come on!” he said.

      He kicked off his slippers, regardless of the holes in his stocking feet, and put away the chairs. He held out his arm to her — she came with a laugh, and away they went, dancing over the great flagged kitchen at an incredible speed. Her light flying steps followed his leaps; you could hear the quick light tap of her toes more plainly than the thud of his stockinged feet. Emily and I joined in. Emily’s movements are naturally slow, but we danced at great speed. I was hot and perspiring, and she was panting, when I put her in a chair. But they whirled on in the dance, on and on till I was giddy, till the father, laughing, cried that they should stop. But George continued the dance; her hair was shaken loose, and fell in a great coil down her back; her feet began to drag; you could hear a light slur on the floor; she was panting — I could see her lips murmur to him, begging him to stop; he was laughing with open mouth, holding her tight; at last her feet trailed; he lifted her, clasping her tightly, and danced twice round the room with her thus. Then he fell with a crash on the sofa, pulling her beside him. His eyes glowed like coals; he was panting in sobs, and his hair was wet and glistening.

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