"Monty dared me to do it."
"He never dreamed you actually would. Besides, are you going to do every idiotic, silly thing that every foolish person says you dare not? I thought you were more sensible, Diana! Remember, we are responsible for you during the holidays, and I wish to return you whole to your parents. We use every reasonable precaution to take care of you, but I can't calculate on safeguarding you as if you were a baby of three."
Diana drummed her fingers on the pillow. Mrs. Fleming waited a moment, then tried a different tack.
"I'm not very strong, Diana. My heart is weak, and I'm afraid for some days I shall feel the effect of the shock you gave me this afternoon. I don't believe you're the kind of girl who'd deliberately want to make me ill."
Diana wriggled round, but her head was bent down.
"Remember that we care about you, dear. It would grieve us very much if the slightest little accident were to happen to you. We want you to have jolly holidays here, and to go back to school safe and well, with, I hope, a happy remembrance of the Vicarage."
Two soft arms were thrown round Mrs. Fleming's neck.
"I'd do anything for you, though I hate to be a molly-coddle!" whispered Diana. "I'm most fearfully sorry if I've really made you feel ill!"
The decoration of the church was only one of the incidents of Christmas; there were other things to be done before the festival arrived. The Flemings liked to preserve old traditions, and finding that their little American guest was very keen on all the details of a genuine British Yule-tide, they did their best to satisfy her. Mrs. Fleming used the cherished half-pound of currants—which in the war-time shortage of dried fruits was all the grocer could send her—to make the frumenty and spiced cakes that from time immemorial had been eaten in that northern district to celebrate the feast of the Nativity. A Yule-log was sawn and placed upon the dining-room fire, and a huge bough of mistletoe hung up in the hall.