No eager desire to paint like that or play like that was awakened by pictures or music; Amaryllis was a passive and not an active artist by nature. And I think that is the better part; at least, I know it is a thousand times more pleasure to me to see a beautiful thing than to write about it. Could I choose I would go on seeing beautiful things, and not writing.
Amaryllis had no ambition whatever for name or fame; to be silent in the sunshine was enough for her. By chance she had inherited the Flamma talent—she drew at once without effort or consideration; it was not so much to her as it is to me to write a letter.
The thought to make use of her power did not occur to her until the preceding Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding were a bitter mockery at Coombe Oaks—a sham and cold delusion, cold as snow. A "merry Christmas"—holly berries, mistletoe—and behind these—debt. Behind the glowing fire, written in the flames—debt; in the sound of the distant chimes—debt. Now be merry over the plum-pudding while the wolves gnash their teeth, wolves that the strongest bars cannot keep out.
Immediately the sacred day was past they fell in all their fury upon Iden. Pay me that thou owest! The one only saying in the Gospel thoroughly engrained in the hearts of men. Pay me that thou owest! This is the message from the manger at Bethlehem of our modern Christmas.
CHAPTER XXI.
