Harcourt, grateful for all the kindness he had received at Mrs. Marchmont's, induced Alice to accept; and so their illumined faces were added to the circle that gathered around the yule-log in the large dining-room, that had been cleared for games and dancing.
In spite of the incongruous elements composing that circle, it made, with the crackling fire playing on happy faces and Christmas decorations, a pretty picture,—one that might convert a pagan into willingness to honor the chief Christian festival.
After some old-fashioned country dances—through which even Hemstead had been induced to blunder, to Lottie's infinite delight—they sat down to nuts, apples, and cider. Billets of hickory were piled higher than ever against the great yule-log; and never did the sacred flame light up fairer and happier faces than those of Alice Martell and Lottie Marsden. And yet they were as different as could be. One was the lily, and the other the rose. Harcourt and Hemstead also looked as if some angelic messenger had brought them "tidings of great joy."
Harcourt and Alice sat together; but Lottie, with seeming perverseness, got as far away as possible. But it was only seeming, for she sat where she could look Hemstead full in the face, and, with her brilliant eyes, indulge in love's mystic telegraphy without restraint.
Now was the time for Mr. Dimmerly to shine out; and he proposed that some one should begin a story, and carry it forward to a certain point, then stop abruptly, while some one else took it up for a brief time, when, in like manner, it would again be dropped that another might continue it, so that each one who was willing might have a chance to contribute.
"You commence, Mr. Harcourt," said Mr. Dimmerly.
After a preface of hemming, the young man said: "Once upon a time, in a village in the south of France, it was arranged that there should be a general fete and dance on the village green the afternoon before Christmas. Little Ninon was a peasant's daughter, and she was only fourteen. If she were petite, she was also piquant and pretty—"
"Very good, very good," cried a chorus of voices; and a round of applause stimulated the narrator.
"Until this occasion, Ninon had always been kept at home as a child; but, after interminable coaxings, she obtained her mother's permission to go to the fete. Now her mother was a widow, and it so happened that she could not go with her daughter, and after she had given her consent had not one whom she could send with her child as a protector. But Ninon was in such glee that her mother had not the heart to take back her promise.
"'Now, mother, tell me what shall I say when the boys, and perhaps some of the very young men, ask me to dance with them?'