dame, dressed very much in the antique
taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping
from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came curtseying forth, with
many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. Her husband,
it seems, was up at the house keeping Christmas eve in the servants'
hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song
and story in the household.

[Illustration: "It was in a heavy magnificent old style, of iron bars,
fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers."--PAGE 46.]

My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to
the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow
on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked
branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep
vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight
covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught
a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin transparent
vapour, stealing up from the low grounds, and threatening gradually to
shroud the landscape.

My companion looked round him with transport:--"How often," said he,
"have I scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school
vacations! How often have I played under these trees when a boy! I feel
a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look up to those who have
cherished us in childhood. My father was always scrupulous in exacting
our holidays, and having us around him on family festivals. He used to
direct and superintend our games with the strictness that some parents
do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should
play the old English games according to their original form; and
consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie
disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It
was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that
home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious
home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow."

[Illustration]

We were interrupted by the clangour of a troop of dogs of all sorts and
sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs of low degree," that,
disturbed by the ringing of the porter's bell, and the rattling of the
chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn.

----"The little dogs and all,
Tray,