difficult to get holly
with berries on it in town, and all children loved red berries.
Presumably his trees grew crackers as well as berries, for about a dozen
boxes of the most gorgeous varieties were enclosed in the crate. There
was no letter, but just a card with "For the children," written in a
corner.

On Boxing Day I made Winifred and Marion write letters of thanks--a
weary process from which they emerged splattered with tears and ink.

"Why are you laughing, Miss Harding?" they inquired resentfully. I did
not tell them that I was chuckling at my own cleverness in avoiding a
personal acknowledgment. I did not know that the Squire had ever seen
my writing, but he might have done. No risks should be run.

Delphine and her husband are settled at Davos, and he is beginning to
improve. She writes sweet little letters, and I'm sure this illness has
arrived at a providential moment. The shock of realising that her
Jacky's life was in danger was like a lightning flash lighting up a dark
landscape. In its blaze she saw revealed the true value of things, and
the sloping path on which her feet were set. I don't expect her to grow
up all at once, settle down to all work and no play, and behave as
though she were forty instead of twenty-two; I don't expect the Vicar to
give up being absent-minded and exacting; but I do honestly believe that
it will do him good to have his shock, and that he is just enough to
realise his own share of the blame. Then they will kiss and begin
again, and things will go better, because there will be understanding to
leaven love.

Talking of understandings, there was a marvellous calm in the flat
overhead for some nights in early January, and Bridget informed me that
Mr Nineteen had been taken to a nursing home to have an operation.
Since our tragic encounter, Mrs Nineteen (her real name is Travers) and
I have exchanged furtive bows when we have met in the hall. I always
felt guilty, and anxious to "make it up," and had an instinct that she
felt the same, though neither had the courage to speak; but, of course,
after the operation I had to stop and inquire. She flushed, and said,
"Pretty well, thank you. The doctors are satisfied, but it will be a
long cure." A week later I met her coming in with a book under her arm.
She had been "reading aloud. Her husband felt the time so long. For
an active man, it was a great trial to lie in bed." To judge by her
face, it was an exhausting e