is long; yet all the year round we think of the sunshine, and in the cold winter eat with gratitude the fruits and harvests of the summer. So should it be with our hours, days, or years of happiness. In the cold winter which follows-love fled, friends dead, fortune lost, pride destroyed—our hearts should be warmed and our pains consoled by the mere thinking upon the vanished joys, just as I still think upon my stay at Dilston. Shall not an old man comfort himself with thinking of his former strength, and an old woman with the thought of her former beauty? I myself, being now in middle life and no longer comely, remember with grateful joy that my beauty once gave pleasure to all who looked upon it, loveliness in woman being, like the gracious sunshine, a gift for all alike, even to those who value it least and are insensible to its delight. To be sure, in those days I knew nothing of the pleasure which all men feel, rich and poor, young and old alike, though some are more insensible than others, in the contemplation of a lovely woman, so that some have beautiful faces painted on their snuff

boxes, and do gaze upon them constantly, even to the wasting of their time and the troubling of their heads, as the Greek. gazed upon and fell in love with, and pined for, his statue, until Venus changed the marble into flesh; though it hath never been related that a miracle was wrought with a snuff-box, and one has never heard that a painted face has been transformed into beauteous damsel.

Well, Dilston was reached at last, after that cold ride; and you may be sure that Tom Forster bawled lustily for hot mulled ale. We found the castle full of the Radcliffes, and all the great house astir with guests and servants and preparations for the feast.

The ladies

My expectations proved true. Katharine and Mary were richly dressed indeed; yet with something sombre and nun-like, as was said to be affected by Madame de Maintenon, the French King's wife. The gentlemen were dressed in the plain Northumberland fashion, except the Earl and his two brothers, who, after the manner in which they were brought up, dressed with great richness; even Charles,

the youngest-who was not yet at his full height, and only fifteen years of age, and wore his own hair tied behind with a crimson ribbon-had a silk coat, a flowered waistcoat, white silk stockings, and red-heeled shoes. Everybody was so good as to compliment me on the appearance which I made. Even the ladies kindly said that, though my maid was only a country girl, she had so dressed my hair as to give it a modish look, and that no one could have looped my frock better, or shown a richer petticoat.

'It is the first Christmas we have spent at home,' said the Earl. 'We must forget none of the old customs of the country. Besides, they are all Catholic customs, which is another reason for keeping them up.'

'Mr. Hilyard, my lord,' I said, 'will have it that many of these are pagan, though transferred to Catholicism, and long ago adopted by the Church.'

He laughed, and called me an obstinate little Puritan.

The supper was served in the great hall, decked with holly and mistletoe; a Yule-log was blazing upon the hearth; the side-tables

were dazzling with the Radcliffe plate; and the tables were covered with Yule-cakes, which are, in the north, shaped like a baby, and Christmas pies in form of a cradle, not to speak of goose-pies, shrid or mince pies, caraway-cakes, brawn, sirloins, turkeys, capons, hams and gammons, pheasants, partridges, hares, and everything good and fit for man's delight. When all was ready and the company assembled, they brought in the boar's head, maids and men following, all lustily singing

'Nowell, Nowell.

Tidings good I have to tell.'

There were but moderate potations at the supper, but some of the gentlemen made up for it afterwards; and when supper was done, the company all left the table together and sat down to cards, which must never be omitted on Christmas Eve, if you never touch a card on any other day. There was a basset-table, and a quadrille-table, and a pool of commerce. I played at the last with my lord, Charles, and others; and I won twelve shillings, which made me tremble to think

what I should have done if I had lost so much. Indeed, I had not so much as twelve shillings in the world. After the cards we played another game-everybody to say what most he loved and least he liked. In such a history as this it would be folly to record how my lord vowed that most he loved Dorothy's smiles, and most he dreaded Dorothy's frowns. Nevertheless, it must be owned that these compliments are pretty things; they keep up the spirits and courage of a girl, and her good opinion of herself, which is a great thing. Mr. Errington, of Beaufront, who was one of the company, said many pleasant things, pretending to be twenty years younger, and to mistake me for my aunt, the beautiful Dorothy Forster, whose suitor he had been. Of course I knew that he flattered me; but yet I was pleased. To have such pretty things said by so old a man is like a sweet golden russet of last year in the month of April. As for Charles Radcliffe, that mad boy swore loudly that he would be Miss Dorothy's knight, and pranced about singing, with gestures like a Frenchman, that sweet old song: