prettiest of them all! What
have yon lads been thinking about to let those little fingers be going
instead of her feet? Or is it all Miss Ida's jealousy, eh?'

All this, in a speaking-trumpet voice, put the poor child into an agony
of blushes, which only incited him to pat her on the cheek, and the rest
to laugh hilariously, under the influence of negus and cheap champagne.

Constance could have cried for very shame, but when she was waiting on
her mother, who, tired as she was, would not go to bed without locking up
the spoons and the remains of the wine, Mrs. Morton said kindly, 'You are
tired, my dear, and no wonder. They were a little noisy to-night. Those
are not goings-on that I always approve, you know, but young folk always
like a little pleasure extra at Christmas. Don't you go and get too
genteel for us, Conny. Come, come, don't cry. Drink this, my love,
you're tired.'

'Oh, mamma, it is not the being genteel--oh no, but Christmas Day and
all!'

'Come, come, my dear, I can't have you get mopy and dull; religion is a
very good thing, but it isn't meant to hinder all one's pleasure, and
when you've been to church on a Christmas Day, what more can be expected
of young people but to enjoy themselves? Come, go to bed and think no
more about it.'

To express or even to understand what she felt would have been impossible
to Constance, so she had to content herself with feeling warm at her
heart, at her mother's kind kiss.

All the other parties she saw were much more decorous, even to
affectation, except that at the old skipper's, and he was viewed by the
family as a subject for toleration, because he had been a friend and
messmate of Mrs. Morton's father. All the good side of that lady and Ida
came out towards him and his belongings. He had an invalid
granddaughter, with a spine complaint and feeble eyesight, and Ida spent
much time in amusing her, teaching her fancy works and reading to her.
Unluckily it was only trashy novels from the circulating library that
they read; Ida had no taste for anything else, and protested that Louie
would be bored to death if she tried to read her the African adventures
which were just then the subject of enthusiasm even with Herbert! Ida
was not a dull girl. Unlike some who do not seem to connect their books
with life, she made them her realities and lived in them, and as she
hardly ever read anything more substantial her ideas of life and society
were founded on