e at which masters and servants should join hands and make
merry together. He had never assisted at one of these balls, and he
refused to listen to his wife's suggestion that it should take place in
the servants' hall, that the servants should be allowed to invite their
own friends, and that the family should limit itself to one brief dance
with their dependants and then leave them to enjoy themselves in their
own way.

No, it was his will that the dance should be held in the hall of the
house, and that the pictures of the Illustrated Christmas Numbers should
be realized to the utmost.

Dinner, therefore, was scrambled over in a hurry, and the family with
their guests went upstairs to the drawing-room or out to the
billiard-room, while preparations were made for the great event of the
evening, the lighting of the Yule Log and Sir Roger de Coverley.

Then the first mishap occurred in the inopportune arrival of the Rev.
Lisle Lindsay, whose rather sedate and solemn appearance cast a slight
gloom upon everybody's spirits, which deepened when Queenie whispered to
Mildred that he looked upon dancing as a frivolous and worldly amusement
scarcely to be tolerated and never to be encouraged.

He soon made an opportunity of devoting himself to Doreen, who was
playing the lightest of light music at the piano in the corner of the
room.

It had been a fancy of Mr. Wedmore's, who had his own way in everything
with his wife, to have this drawing-room, which was large and square and
lighted by five windows, three at the front and two at the side,
furnished entirely with old things of the style of eighty years back,
with Empire chairs, sofas and cabinets, as little renovated as possible.
The effect was quaint and not unpleasing; a little cold, perhaps, but
picturesque and graceful.

The grand piano had a case specially made for it, painted a dull
sage-green and finished in a manner to give it a look of the less
massive harpsichord.

It was at this instrument that Doreen sat, making a very pretty picture
in her white silk, square-necked frock, with bands of beaver fur on the
bodice and sleeves and an edging of the same fur round the bottom of the
skirt.

"My purpose in coming here to-night, Miss Wedmore," said Mr. Lindsay,
when he had delivered an unimportant message from the vicar's wife about
the church decorations, "was really to bring you my good wishes for this
blessed season. I am afraid I shall have no opportunity of spe