've decided to wait until that lovely woman has
gone away."

The waste of his territory, its largesse to no purpose, its vastness
through which only unbearable silences echoed; accumulated revenues and
hereditary title, only added to the Duke's melancholy.

He had planned the Christmas house party too late as it proved, and
refusals, one after another, came in during the week. The poor
gentleman's mood led him to resent each fresh defection on the part of
his guests as personal wounds inflicted by old friends at a time when
charity would have been sweet. And it was with really tragic
melancholy that he threw the last letter down exclaiming:

"And they all with one consent began to make excuse."

He quite waited for a line from Mrs. Falconer, which would tell him
that she, too, had decided to abandon him: and the thought of what he
believed to be Jimmy's complications at The Dials caused him half to
regard the matter with a pity for her.

"If Jimmy _isn't_ married, he's the most whited of sepulchres!"

The satin shine of holly, the glimmer of pearly mistletoe, the odor of
spruce and pine, and heavier scent of hemlock bewitched the castle
throughout with their fragrance. Setting and decoration suggested a
feast, and the Duke as he passed through the upper halls, and by the
doors of his children's rooms, saw holly wreaths on the walls and that
the little gates were twisted with green.

The day was dampish and the Duke, unable to bear the silence of the
house, with his gun and his dogs and with a lack of resource and
superfluity of ennui to urge him from the castle, started to tramp off
his unrest. The afternoon was young, and the bare, naked sunlight fell
over the bare nakedness of the land. The little low clumps of
neutral-colored underbrush, the reddish-brown thickets between wood and
field, would hide the birds well, and with his gun across his back, his
hands in his pockets, his Grace covered many miles before he at length
stopped to take in the length of the land or to listen for wings.

Coveys had flown up and away unseen by him, and their whirring unheard.
His dogs had run off, and without being abruptly brought to heel,
skulked back by themselves shamefaced and bewildered by the hunter's
indifference. The holly reddened on the hedges, the scarlet berries
bright among the glowing leaves; high in the poplars the parasite
mistletoe with crystal balls, hung tiny white globules like fairy
grapes; holida