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fears were already being fulfilled. "Good morning, Tilda! A white Christmas, after all!" Joseph said.
    Nathaniel had breakfasted early, and had gone away. Mathilda sat down beside Edgar Mottisfont, and hoped that he would not think it necessary to entertain her with conversation.
    He did not. Apart from some desultory comments on the weather, he said nothing. It occurred to her that he was a little ill-at-ease. She wondered why, remembered that he had wanted a private interview with Nathaniel on the previous evening, and hoped, with a sinking heart, that more trouble was not brewing.
    Valerie, breakfasting on half a grape-fruit and some dry toast, and explaining why she did so, wanted to know what they were all going to do. Only Joseph seemed to welcome this desire to map out the day's amusements. Stephen said that he was going to walk; Paula declared that she never made plans; Roydon said nothing at all; and Mathilda only groaned.
    "I believe there are some very pretty walks in the neighbourhood," offered Maud.
    "A good tramp in the snow! Almost you tempt me, Stephen!" Joseph said, rubbing his hands together. "What does Val say, I wonder? Shall we all brave the elements, and blow the cobwebs away?"
    "On second thoughts," said Stephen, "I shall stay indoors." Joseph bore up under the offensiveness of this remark, merely wagging his head, and saying with a laugh: "Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning!"
    "Aren't you going to read your play to us, Willoughby?" asked Valerie, turning her large blue eyes in his direction.
    It never took Valerie more than a day to arrive at Christian names, but Roydon felt flattered, rather excited, at hearing his on her lips. He said, stammering a little, that he would like to read his play to her.
    Paula at once threw a damper on to this scheme. "It's no use reading it just to Valerie," she said. "You're going to read it to everybody."
    "Not to me," said Stephen.
    Roydon bristled, and began to say something rather involved about having no desire to bore anyone with his play.
    "I hate being read to," explained Stephen casually. "Now, now!" gently scolded Joseph. "We are all longing to hear the play, I'm sure. You mustn't pay any attention to old Stephen. What do you say to giving us a reading after tea? We'll gather round the fire, and enjoy a real treat."
    "Yes, if Willoughby starts to read it directly after tea, Uncle Nat won't have time to get away," said Paula, brightening.
    "Nor anyone else," interpolated her brother.
    This remark not unnaturally involved Roydon in a declaration of his unwillingness to inflict the literary flowers of his brain upon an unsympathetic audience. Stephen merely said Good! but everyone else plunged into conciliatory speeches. Finally, it was agreed that Roydon should read his play after tea. Anyone, said Paula, casting a dagger-glance at her brother, incapable of appreciating Art might absent himself with her goodwill.
    It next transpired that Joseph had instructed the head gardener to uproot a young fir tree, and to bring it up to the house for decoration. He called for volunteers in this festive work, but Paula evidently considered a Christmas tree frivolous, Stephen was apparently nauseated by the very mention of such a thing, Edgar Mottisfont thought it work for the younger members of the party, and Maud, plainly, had no intention of exerting herself in any way, at all.
    Maud had been reading more of the Life of the Empress of Austria, and created a diversion by informing the company that the Hungarians had all worshipped Elizabeth. She feared, however, that her mind had not been stable, and suggested to Roydon that she would provide an excellent subject for a play.
    Roydon appeared bewildered. He said that costume pieces (with awful scorn) were hardly in his line.
    "She seems to have had a very dramatic life," persisted Maud. "It wouldn't be sword-and-cloak, you know."
    Joseph intervened hastily, saying that he thought it would hardly be