Some children might have been bored by this sort of thing, but Esther was never bored. It seemed to her very interesting, and she always listened with great attention.
"You must help me at Christmas time this year, little woman," he said one crisp December day, as they were walking home together. "There are a lot of old fashions we keep up at Christmas here. It's one of the relics of old times that no Trelawny has had the disposition to do away with. Some people say that the time has gone by for that sort of thing, and that it is obsolete and only a form of pauperization. Perhaps they may be right. But in my day I shall change nothing. I'm too much the old Tory for that. And you will help me this year, won't you? You ought to see how everything is done."
"I should like to," answered Esther eagerly; "what is it you do?"
"Give a great feed—dinner, the people call it—in the hall at the Crag, to which every tenant and his family is entitled to come, even to the babies, if the mothers choose to bring them. No questions are asked, nobody is turned away. Every tenant has the right to be there, and to eat and drink to his heart's content. Five o'clock is the hour for the feed, and after that they sing carols or old songs and make speeches. I come in and drink a glass with them, as the Trelawnys have always done; and when they can eat and drink no more, there is a great giving of presents all round. Bran pies or a Christmas-tree for the children, and clothing or nets or tools for the grown folks. We keep it up till ten o'clock, and then sing 'God save the Queen,' and send them all off to their homes. It used to be done on Christmas Eve or on Christmas Day, but now it's on Boxing Day, as we think that home is the right place for folks on Christmas Day itself. You will have to be my right hand, little woman, in all the preparations we have to make."
Esther was skipping along gaily: her face was aglow.
"How nice!" she exclaimed; "I shall like to help and to see them all. May I come with you, Uncle Robert, when you go to see them at dinner-time?"
"Of course you may, my dear. Indeed I particularly wish you to be with me. I want to present you to the people then. It will be the best opportunity for it."
Esther raised her eyes with a questioning look, but then, remembering that he could not see, she said softly,—
"I don't think I quite understand, Uncle Robert."
His clasp upon her fingers tightened; he did not speak for a while, and then he said slowly,—