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Page 51
The parson went home through the frosty night. In the village street he
heard a boy's voice singing two lines of the Christian hymn--
"Trace we the Babe Who hath redeemed our loss
From the poor Manger to the bitter Cross;"
and his eyes filled with tears.
The old lady went to bed and slept in peace.
"In all the thirty-five years we have been privileged to hear you,
sir," she told the rector next day after service, "I never heard such a
Christmas sermon before."
The visitor carefully preserved the blue paper and the cracker motto.
He came down early next morning to find the white half to put with
them. He did not find it, for the young lady had taken it the night
before.
The tutor had been in the room before him, wandering round the scene of
the evening's festivities.
The yule log lay black and cold upon the hearth, and the tutor nodded
to it. "I told you how it would be," he said; "but never mind, you
have had your day, and a merry one too." In the corner lay the heap of
crackers which Master MacGreedy had been too ill to remember when he
retired. The tutor pocketed them with a grim smile.
As to the comfit, it was eaten by one of the dogs, who had come down
earliest of all. He swallowed it whole, so whether it contained an
almond or not, remains a mystery to the present time.
* * * * *
AMELIA AND THE DWARFS.
My godmother's grandmother knew a good deal about the fairies.
_Her_ grandmother had seen a fairy rade on a Roodmas Eve, and she
herself could remember a copper vessel of a queer shape which had been
left by the elves on some occasion at an old farm-house among the
hills, The following story came from her, and where she got it I do not
know. She used to say it was a pleasant tale, with a good moral in the
inside of it. My godmother often observed that a tale without a moral
was like a nut without a kernel; not worth the cracking. (We called
fire-side stories "cracks" in our part of the country.) This is the
tale.
AMELIA.
A couple of gentlefolk once lived in a certain part of England. (My
godmother never would tell the name either of the place or the people,
even if she knew it. She said one ought not to expose one's neighbours'
failings more than there was due occasion for.) They had an only child,
a daughter, whose name was Amelia. They were an easy-going,
good-humoured couple; "rather soft," my godmother said, but she was apt
to think anybody "soft" who came from the southern shires, as these
people did. Amelia, who had been born farther north, was by no means
so. She had a strong resolute will, and a clever head of her own,
though she was but a child. She had a way of her own too, and had it
very completely. Perhaps because she was an only child, or perhaps
because they were so easy-going, her parents spoiled her. She was,
beyond question, the most tiresome little girl in that or any other
neighbourhood. From her baby days her father and mother had taken every
opportunity of showing her to their friends, and there was not a friend
who did not dread the infliction. When the good lady visited her
acquaintances, she always took Amelia with her, and if the
acquaintances were fortunate enough to see from the windows who was
coming, they used to snatch up any delicate knick-knacks, or brittle
ornaments lying about, and put them away, crying, "What is to be done?
Here comes Amelia!"
When Amelia came in, she would stand and survey the room, whilst her
mother saluted her acquaintance; and if anything struck her fancy, she
would interrupt the greetings to draw her mother's attention to it,
with a twitch of her shawl, "Oh, look, Mamma, at that funny bird in the
glass case!" or perhaps, "Mamma, Mamma! There's a new carpet since we
were here last;" for, as her mother said, she was "a very observing
child."
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