“The gale kept me awake. I got very little sleep,” answered Ida.
“And no wonder. Well, my love, you haven’t wished me a merry Christmas yet. Goodness knows we want one badly enough. There has not been much merriment at Honham of late years.”
“A merry Christmas to you, father,” she said.
“Thank you, Ida, the same to you; you have got most of your Christmases before you, which is more than I have. God bless me, it only seems like yesterday since the big bunch of holly tied to the hook in the ceiling there fell down on the breakfast table and smashed all the cups, and yet it is more than sixty years ago. Dear me! how angry my poor mother was. She never could bear the crockery to be broken—it was a little failing of your grandmother’s,” and he laughed more heartily than Ida had heard him do for some weeks.
She made no answer but busied herself about the tea. Presently, glancing up she saw her father’s face change. The worn expression came back upon it and he lost his buoyant bearing. Evidently a new thought had struck him, and she was in no great doubt as to what it was.
“We had better get on with breakfast,” he said. “You know that Cossey is coming up at ten o’clock.”
“Ten o’clock?” she said faintly.
“Yes. I told him ten so that we could go to church afterwards if we wished to. Of course, Ida, I am still in the dark as to what you have made up your mind to do, but whatever it is I thought that he had better once and for all hear your final decision from your own lips. If, however, you feel yourself at liberty to tell it to me as your father, I shall be glad to hear it.”
She lifted her head and looked him full in the face, and then paused. He had a cup of tea in his hand, and held it in the air half way to his mouth, while his whole face showed the over-mastering anxiety with which he was awaiting her reply.
“Make your mind easy, father,” she said, “I am going to marry Mr. Cossey.”