He raised the precious token to his lips, exclaiming with great tenderness, "I shall wear it as long as I live. What would the world be to me, Cecilia, without your heart and hand?"
There was a service in the church at ten, and at noon all the really aged people in the parish had been invited to a dinner at Woodlawn.
"I want to have a regular house-warming," Mr. Curtis had said to his wife. "I want to warm it with the good will of all our villagers." So it was decided that the old people should come to dinner, the married persons and children to tea, and the young people of both sexes in the evening.
I wish I could paint a picture of the happy faces that gathered around the festal board during that lovely Christmas Day. There was the good pastor and his family improving this pleasant occasion to speak a word here and there as it was needed among their flock. There were Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, leading Susy who had just returned from the hospital. There was Thomas Grant, his face red as a beet, gallanting a very sensible looking girl who was soon to become his wife. There were swarms of laddies and lasses, kept in constant good humor by Albert Dodge, who had returned to Oxford for the occasion. There were groups of children headed by Bertie, playing all sorts of games, or gathering in a circle around the Squire, who told them funny stories.
"You have learned the secret of living," remarked the Pastor, when he came to take leave. "In promoting the happiness and welfare of those about us we ensure our own."
"That is the rule by which my wife is training our boy," answered the gentleman. "No other house-warming could have pleased us so well as this."
