think of
something as we go about."

Her name remained at the head of the list, but nothing was written
opposite it. They drove from shop to shop. The air was white, and when
they alighted it tasted like cold pennies. At times they passed through
a clot of grey. Mrs. Wilcox's vitality was low that morning, and it was
Margaret who decided on a horse for this little girl, a golliwog for
that, for the rector's wife a copper warming-tray. "We always give the
servants money." "Yes, do you, yes, much easier," replied Margaret but
felt the grotesque impact of the unseen upon the seen, and saw issuing
from a forgotten manger at Bethlehem this torrent of coins and toys.
Vulgarity reigned. Public-houses, besides their usual exhortation
against temperance reform, invited men to "Join our Christmas goose
club"--one bottle of gin, etc., or two, according to subscription. A
poster of a woman in tights heralded the Christmas pantomime, and little
red devils, who had come in again that year, were prevalent upon the
Christmas-cards. Margaret was no morbid idealist. She did not wish
this spate of business and self-advertisement checked. It was only the
occasion of it that struck her with amazement annually. How many of
these vacillating shoppers and tired shop-assistants realised that it
was a divine event that drew them together? She realised it, though
standing outside in the matter. She was not a Christian in the accepted
sense; she did not believe that God had ever worked among us as a young
artisan. These people, or most of them, believed it, and if pressed,
would affirm it in words. But the visible signs of their belief were
Regent Street or Drury Lane, a little mud displaced, a little money
spent, a little food cooked, eaten, and forgotten. Inadequate. But in
public who shall express the unseen adequately? It is private life that
holds out the mirror to infinity; personal intercourse, and that alone,
that ever hints at a personality beyond our daily vision.

"No, I do like Christmas on the whole," she announced. "In its clumsy
way, it does approach Peace and Goodwill. But oh, it is clumsier every
year."

"Is it? I am only used to country Christmases."

"We are usually in London, and play the game with vigour--carols at
the Abbey, clumsy midday meal, clumsy dinner for the maids, followed by
Christmas-tree and dancing of poor children, with songs from Helen.
The drawing-room does very well for that. We put the tree in the
powde