was but a little dried fish and rice for supper that night, as it
was a fast day; but the supper of Christmas Eve is always a kind of
sacramental for me, when midnight mass is to follow. There was no
midnight mass for us that Christmas, nor any mass at all; though I
suppose it was celebrated as usual in the Ambassadors' chapels, and the
Queen's: yet the supper had yet that air of mystery and expectancy about
it.

"We are all to dance to-morrow night," said Dolly.

"So that is why the floor is cleared in the Great Chamber," I said.

She nodded at me. She looked more of a child than I had ever seen her.

"Will you dance with me, Dolly?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "but my first is with my father."

I told them presently, though it was but a melancholy tale for Christmas
Eve, of my Lord Stafford's trial, and all that I had seen there; and of
the supper last night in Whitehall.

"My Lord is to be beheaded in five days," I said. "We must pray for his
soul. He will die as bravely as he has lived; I make no doubt."

"And you have no doubt of his innocence?" asked Cousin Tom.

I stared on him.

"Why no," I said, "nor any man, except those paid to believe his guilt."

He pressed me to tell him more of what I had seen in London; and whether
I had seen the Duke of Monmouth again.

"He is in Holland," I said, "under His Majesty's displeasure. But I saw
Her Grace of Portsmouth."

"Why, that is his friend, is it not?" asked Tom.

"Yes," I said, "and a poor friend to his father and the Duke of York."

* * * * *

The next night was a very merry one.

We had dined at noon as usual: and that was pretty merry too; for all
the servants dined with us, and the men from the farm and their wives.
It was sad to have had no mass at all; and all that we had instead of it
was the sound of the bells from Hormead, from the church that had been
our own a hundred and fifty years ago--which was worse than nothing. At
dinner we observed the usual ceremonial, with the drinking of healths
and the burning of candles; and Dolly and her father and her maid sang a
grace at the beginning and end--with a carol or two afterwards that was
a surprise to me. It was very homely and friendly and Christian; and I
saw my man James with his arm around one of the dairymaids--which is
pretty Christian too, I think. We kept it up till it was near time to
get supper ready, telling of stories all the while about the fire in t