“Now, Patty was very fond of animals, and when the dog looked at her she looked at the dog, and then she said to me, ‘He wants us to go with him.’
“On which (as if he understood our language, though we were ignorant of his) the spaniel sprang away, and went off as hard as he could; and Patty and I went after him, a dim hope crossing my mind—‘Perhaps Father Christmas had sent him for us.’
“The idea was rather favored by the fact that the dog led us up the lane. Only a little way; then he stopped by something lying in the ditch—and once more we cried in the same breath, ‘It’s Old Father Christmas!’
CHAPTER IV.
“Returning from the Hall, the old man had slipped upon a bit of ice, and lay stunned in the snow.
“Patty began to cry. ‘I think he’s dead,’ she sobbed.
“ ‘He is so very old, I don’t wonder,’ I murmured; ‘but perhaps he’s not. I’ll fetch father.’
“My father and Kitty were soon on the spot. Kitty was as strong as a man; and they carried Father Christmas between them into the kitchen. There he quickly revived.
“I must do Kitty the justice to say that she did not utter a word of complaint at this disturbance of her labors; and that she drew the old man’s chair close up to the oven with her own hand. She was so much affected by the behavior of his dog, that she admitted him even to the hearth; on which puss, being acute enough to see how matters stood, lay down with her back so close to the spaniel’s that Kitty could not expel one without kicking both.
“For our parts, we felt sadly anxious about the tree; otherwise we could have wished for no better treat than to sit at Kitty’s round table taking tea with Father Christmas. Our usual fare of thick bread and treacle was to-night exchanged for a delicious variety of cakes, which were none the worse to us for being ‘tasters and wasters’—that is, little bits of dough, or shortbread, put in to try the state of the oven, and certain cakes that had got broken or burnt in the baking.