was, he relented.
Something in the wet brown eye perhaps recalled a forgotten dream of
his boyhood; for he sighed sharply, and did not swear as he meant to.
All he said was, that "women will be women, and that she had a worse
job on her hands than the House of Refuge,"--which she put down to the
account of his ill-temper, and only laughed, and made him shake hands.

Lois and her father came out in the old cart in high state across the
bleak, snowy hills, quite aglow with all they had seen at the
farm-houses on the road. Margret had arranged a settle for the sick
girl by the kitchen-fire, but they all came out to speak to her.

As for the dinner, it was the essence of all Christmas dinners: Dickens
himself, the priest of the genial day, would have been contented. The
old school-master and his wife had hearts big and warm enough to do the
perpetual honours of a baronial castle; so you may know how the little
room and the faces about the homely table glowed and brightened. Even
Knowles began to think that Holmes might not be so bad, after all,
recalling the chicken in the mill, and,--"Well, it was better to think
well of all men, poor devils!"

I am sorry to say there was a short thunderstorm in the very midst of
the dinner. Knowles and Mr. Howth, in their anxiety to keep off from
ancient subjects of dispute, came, for a wonder, on modern politics,
and of course there was a terrible collision, which made Mrs. Howth
quite breathless: it was over in a minute, however, and it was hard to
tell which was the most repentant. Knowles, as you know, was a disciple
of Garrison, and the old school-master was a States'-rights man, as you
might suppose from his antecedents,--suspected, indeed, of being a
contributor to "DeBow's Review." I may as well come out with the whole
truth, and acknowledge that at the present writing the old gentleman is
the very hottest Secessionist I know. If it hurts the type, write it
down a vice of blood, O printers of New England!

The dinner, perhaps, was fresher and heartier after that. Then Knowles
went back to town; and in the middle of the afternoon, as it grew dusk,
Lois started, knowing how many would come into her little shanty in the
evening to wish her Happy Christmas, although it was over. They piled
up comforts and blankets in the cart, and she lay on them quite snugly,
her scarred child's-face looking out from a great woollen hood Mrs.
Howth gave her. Old Yare held Barney, with hi