They were total strangers, but his touch of kindness made them
instantly his kin. In another moment the unauthorised version of

King Wenceslas, which, like many other scandals, grew worse on
repetition, went echoing up the garden path; two of the revellers

gave an impromptu performance on the way by executing the staircase
waltz up the terraces of what Luke Steffink, hitherto with some

justification, called his rock-garden. The rock part of it was
still there when the waltz had been accorded its third encore.

Luke, more than ever like a cooped hen behind the cow-house bars,
was in a position to realise the feelings of concert-goers unable to

countermand the call for an encore which they neither desire or
deserve.

The hall door closed with a bang on Bertie's guests, and the sounds
of merriment became faint and muffled to the weary watchers at the

other end of the garden. Presently two ominous pops, in quick
succession, made themselves distinctly heard.

"They've got at the champagne!" exclaimed Mrs. Steffink.
"Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle," said Luke hopefully.

Three or four more pops were heard.
"The champagne and the sparkling Moselle," said Mrs. Steffink.

Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance
household, was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby

had been making use of similar expressions under his breath for a
considerable time past. The experiment of "throwing the young

people together" had been prolonged beyond a point when it was
likely to produce any romantic result.

Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd
that had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have

influenced its earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction
of carol singing were now supplemented by instrumental music; a

Christmas-tree that had been prepared for the children of the
gardener and other household retainers had yielded a rich spoil of

tin trumpets, rattles, and drums. The life-story of King Wenceslas
had been dropped, Luke was thankful to notice, but it was intensely

irritating for the chilled prisoners in the cow-house to be told
that it was a hot time in the old town to-night, together with some

accurate but entirely superfluous information as to the imminence of
Christmas morning. Judging by the protests which began to be

shouted from the upper windows of neighbouring houses the sentiments
prevailing in the cow-house were heartily echoed in other quarters.

The revellers found their car, and, what was more remarkable,
managed to drive off in it, with a parting fanfare of tin trumpets.

The lively beat of a drum disclosed the fact that the master of the
revels remained on the scene.

"Bertie!" came in an angry, imploring chorus of shouts and screams
from the cow-house window.

"Hullo," cried the owner of the name, turning his rather errant
steps in the direction of the summons; "are you people still there?

Must have heard everything cows got to say by this time. If you
haven't, no use waiting. After all, it's a Russian legend, and

Russian Chrismush Eve not due for 'nother fortnight. Better come
out."

After one or two ineffectual attempts he managed to pitch the key of
the cow-house door in through the window. Then, lifting his voice

in the strains of "I'm afraid to go home in the dark," with a lusty
drum accompaniment, he led the way back to the house. The hurried

procession of the released that followed in his steps came in for a
good deal of the adversecomment that his exuberant display had

evoked.
It was the happiest Christmas Eve he had ever spent. To quote his

own words, he had a rotten Christmas.
FOREWARNED

Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway
carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some

trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of
no little magnitude as compared with the accustomed seclusion and

stagnation of her past life. At the age of twenty-eight she could
look back on nothing more eventful than the daily round of her

existence in her aunt's house at Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a
half miles distant from a country town and about a quarter of a

century removed from modern times. Their neighbours had been
elderly and few, not much given to social intercourse, but helpful

or politely" target="_blank" title="ad.温和地；文雅地">politelysympathetic in times of illness. Newspapers of the
ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw regularly were

devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and the world
of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her ideas on

life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular
respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such

knowledge as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt's housekeeper had put
at her disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt's

death had left her, well provided for as regards income, but
somewhat isolated in the matter of kith and kin and human

companionship. She had some cousins who were on terms of friendly,
though infrequent, correspondence with her, but as they lived

permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew little,
beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the human

element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her.
Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards

relationship, but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that
they lived somewhere in the Midlands. She could hardly remember

ever having met them, but once or twice in the course of the last
three or four years they had expressed a polite wish that she should

pay them a visit; they had probably not been unduly depressed by the
fact that her aunt's failing health had prevented her from accepting

their invitation. The note of condolence that had arrived on the
occasion of her aunt's death had included a vague hope that Alethia

would find time in the near future to spend a few days with her
cousins, and after much deliberation and many hesitations she had

written to propose herself as a guest for a definite date some week
ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a large one;

the two daughters were married and away, there was only old Mrs.
Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of

an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and
was going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia's information

did not go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of
the people one met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother

was not difficult to place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old
lady, bearing her feeble health with uncomplaining fortitude, and

having a kind word for the gardener's boy and a sunny smile for the
chance visitor, or else she would be cold and peevish, with eyes

that pierced you like a gimlet, and a unreasoning idolatry of her
son. Alethia's imagination rather inclined her to the latter view.

Robert was more of a problem. There were three dominant types of
manhood to be taken into consideration in working out his

classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and beautiful,
a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper, who

was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil,
who was not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually

required the life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate
disaster. It was probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came

into the last category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the
companionship of one or two excellent women, and might possibly

catch glimpses of undesirable adventuresses or come face to face
with reckless admiration-seeking married women. It was altogether

an exciting prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world
of unknown human beings, and Alethia rather wished that she could

have taken the vicar with her; she was not, however, rich or
important enough to travel with a chaplain, as the Marquis of

Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had just been reading, so
she recognised that such a proceeding was out of the question.

The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local
one, with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of

the stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave
it, but at one there were several market folk on the platform, and

two men, of the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered
Alethia's carriage. Apparently they had just foregathered, after a

day's business, and their conversation consisted of a rapid exchange
of short friendly inquiries as to health, family, stock, and so

forth, and some grumbling remarks on the weather. Suddenly,
however, their talk took a dramatically interesting turn, and

Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention.