But the words of the sermon had made a deep impression on William. He decided for this holy season at least to cast aside deceit and hypocrisy and speak the truth one with another.... William had not been entirely without aspiration to a higher life before this. He had once decided to be self sacrificing for a whole day and his efforts had been totally unappreciated and misunderstood. He had once tried to reform others and the result had been even more disastrous. But he’d never made a real effort to cast aside deceit and hypocrisy and to speak the truth one with another. He decided to try it at Christmas as the Vicar had suggested.
Much to his disgust William heard that Uncle Frederick and Aunt Emma had asked his family to stay with them for Christmas. He gathered that the only drawback to the arrangement in the eyes of his family was himself, and the probable effect of his personality on the peaceful household of Uncle Frederick and Aunt Emma. He was not at all offended. He was quite used to this view of himself.
“All right!” he said obligingly. “You jus’ go. I don’ mind. I’ll stay at home ... you jus’ leave me money an’ my presents an’ I won’t mind a bit.”
William’s spirits in fact soared sky-high at the prospect of such an oasis of freedom in the desert of parental interference. But his family betrayed again that strange disinclination to leave William to his own devices that hampered so many of William’s activities.
“No, William,” said his mother. “We certainly can’t do that. You’ll have to come with us but I do hope you’ll be good.”
William remembered the sermon and his good resolution.
“Well,” he said cryptically, “I guess ’f you knew what I was goin’ to be like at Christmas you’d almost want me to come.”
******
It happened that William’s father was summoned on Christmas Eve to the sick bed of one of his aunts and so could not accompany them, but they set off under Robert’s leadership and arrived safely.
Uncle Frederick and Aunt Emma were very stout and good-natured-looking, but Uncle Frederick was the stouter and more good-natured-looking of the two. They had not seen William since he was a baby. That explained the fact of their having invited William and his family to spend Christmas with them. They lived too far away to have heard even rumours of the horror with which William inspired the grown-up world around him. They greeted William kindly.