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their own classroom, while their elders fulfilled their public duties.
    Alan Lester's two daughters were among his pupils, and were some of the keenest workers at the Christmas decorations. At home they continued their labours enthusiastically, and Alan found the schoolhouse as lavishly festooned in paperchains as the school itself.
    'You know,' commented Alan to his wife Margaret when the little girls were safely in bed, 'I am a true lover of Christmas, but I do get a little tired of these ubiquitous paperchains.'
    'Never mind,' said his wife consolingly. 'You know what Eeyore said about birthdays? "Here today, and gone tomorrow." Well, Christmas is much the same!'
    'Ah!' replied Alan, 'but these things stay up until Twelfth Night. However, if the girls like them...'
    'They do,' said Margaret; and there the matter was left.

    Meanwhile, at the vicarage in Lulling, preparations for the dinner party were already going ahead.
    Dimity, whose confidence in her ability to cook had grown since her marriage, was quite enjoying making lists of possible menus for the great occasion. She consulted Charles earnestly about his opinion, but always received the same unhelpful response: 'I'm sure that would be very nice, Dimity. Very nice indeed.'
    Food meant little to Charles, and Dimity often wondered if he would patiently wade through a stewed boot or bread soaked in hot water if put before him. He would certainly not question such a meal, and probably compliment her when his plate was clean.
    She remembered his angelic forbearance with the appalling meals his housekeeper had dished up, when Charles was a lone widower at Thrush Green years earlier. She and Ella had often taken pity on him, and invited him to lunch. He had always been excessively grateful, Dimity recalled, but now, after years of marriage and supplying him with meals, she wondered if perhaps she and Ella had been more satisfied then with their entertaining than their polite guest.
    In the end Dimity had devised a main course which would survive in the oven should the guests be late in arriving. Chicken breasts in a creamy sauce in a casserole, accompanied by jacket potatoes, runner beans grown in the vicarage garden and taken from the freezer, and fresh carrots for a splash of colour should prove adequate. The problems of starters and puddings to augment the chicken kept Dimity engrossed happily for days beforehand.
    Charles would be in charge of the wine throughout the evening, and here he took more interest and was quite knowledgeable. Dimity was content to leave things to him.
    There would only be six at the table, but the plethora of dishes were to be tackled in the kitchen, while coffee was being taken in the vicarage's elegant drawing-room, by the stalwart daily help who usually came to give a hand with the housework on two mornings a week.
    The warmest of the three spare bedrooms was to house Mr Wilberforce overnight, and Dimity was already planning the best arrangement of his bedside lighting and reading matter. With such domestic matters Dimity was happily occupied, while Charles thought only of the pleasure of seeing and handling the letters written so long ago by Nathaniel, and the diary kept by the Reverend Octavius Fennel who had once walked the streets of Lulling and Thrush Green to meet his parishioners, just as Charles himself did today.

    At Thrush Green Harold Shoosmith looked forward to the evening with even greater excitement.
    They were invited to the vicarage at seven o'clock to meet the other guests, and fortunately the night was clear.
    Fog had shrouded the Cotswolds for two days, causing traffic to progress at a walking pace in the towns, and making it necessary to have lights on all day in offices, shops and homes.
    A breeze had sprung up in the late afternoon, swirling the mist away in long veils. By the time early dusk had fallen over Lulling, the Christmas lights were shining as brightly as ever, and there was general relief, as the Shoosmiths