"Ah well! God knows what's best for us all," as an old charwoman said to me, years ago, when she was remarking on how I had grown. I never saw the application of the remark, and do not think I ever shall. Whether my growth was a subject to deplore, and she tried to comfort me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark, for she repeated it three times!
CHAPTER VI.
ON CHRISTMAS.
It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere, and have to suffer accordingly.
To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take, nothing but holly, holly, holly.
Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry, attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have a finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such dirty work, too! Your hands or your gloves grow perfectly black under the operation; and it is a curious thing, that when this stage is reached, your nose invariably begins to itch, and you forget the condition of your fingers, and—well, the result is anything but becoming! It is so comfortable, too, walking about the vestry, isn't it? The holly grows so affectionate to your ankles, and at every step squash goes a berry, and all its middle oozes out and sticks to the sole of your boot. When you go home, you find you are at least an inch taller by reason of the many corpses of berries you have collected!
Yes, Christmas decorations are delightful altogether. And so the clergymen think, when they become excited in their sermons, and bring their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round the pulpit. They do not actually swear then, but their faces express sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.
As I said before, everybody is prickly at Christmas time, especially one's relations. And so, to make the season as festive as possible, we, in our sensible way, collect as many of these cheerful, sociable beings together as we can; and, in short, make a delightful family party. Holly? it is an insult to the tree to compare it in any way. No, I think the whole gathering resembles a hedgehog more than anything else. It is one mass of prickles. Ah, these happy family parties! Is there ever one member that agrees with another, I wonder?