He got up and welcomed his friends, and thanked them for their visit.
"I could not find it in my heart to invite any one, even you, true souls; but I am very, very glad you have come; though it is another sacrifice on your parts."
"Not at all, Lyon Berners; we love you, and had rather come here and be miserable with you than be merry with anybody else," said Clement Pendleton warmly.
But Mr. Berners was resolved that his generous young friends should not be as "miserable" as they were willing to be in the merry Christmas season. So he wrote a note of invitation for two other guests, and dispatched it by Joe to Blackville that very evening.
The note was addressed to Mr. Sheridan, with a request that he would come, and bring his niece, Miss Minnie Sheridan, to meet Captain and Miss Pendleton at dinner on Christmas-day, at Black Hall.
Now this Miss Minnie Sheridan was an orphan heiress, the daughter of the young barrister's eldest brother. By the death of both her parents, she had been left to the guardianship of her young uncle, who, with his youthful niece, now boarded at the Blackville Hotel.
It was reasonably to be expected that these young people would, on Christmas-day, willingly exchange the hotel parlor and the society of strangers, for the drawing-room at Black Hall and the company of their friends.
Moreover, Mr. Berners had noticed a growing esteem between the brilliant young barrister and the beautiful Beatrix Pendleton, an esteem which he hoped and believed, for their sakes, would ripen into a warmer sentiment. Therefore he invited the Sheridans to meet the Pendletons at the Christmas dinner.
Miss Tabby had, within a few days, returned and resumed her position as housekeeper at Black Hall. Her office was something of a sinecure. She could do little more than fret at the servants. She was not strong enough yet to scold them vigorously.
On the night before Christmas it snowed, but just enough to cover the ground a few inches deep.