"Aunt Sara would be delighted to see you, dear!" she said—"indeed, you were included in the invitation. But I told her that you would far rather be with your own people."
"Oh, thank you, thank you," returned the girl, gratefully. But her joy was unbounded when Althea suggested that she should not return to the Red House until Tuesday afternoon. "I shall need all my helpers then," she finished, smiling; and Waveney understood her. The Christmas programme had been duly unfolded to her. There was to be a grand tea and entertainment for Althea's girls at the Porch House, a festive evening at the Home for Workers, a supper for the Dereham cabmen, and another for the costermongers; and on Twelfth Night the servants at the Red House always entertained their relations and friends in the Recreation Hall. "In fact," as Doreen expressed it, "no one would have time to sit down comfortably until the feast of Epiphany had passed." But, though Doreen spoke in a resigned tone of a weary worker, it might be doubted if any one enjoyed more thoroughly the bustle and preparation.
The day before Christmas was a busy one for all the inmates of the Red House. Doreen was at the Home all day superintending the Christmas decorations, and Althea spent most of her time at the Porch House, where a band of voluntary helpers were making garlands of evergreens, and framing Christmas mottoes in ivy under her skilful direction.
Waveney would willingly have helped in the work, but Althea had other employment for her. Some of her pensioners lived on the other side of the river, and Waveney, who often acted as her almoner, went off early in the afternoon to order parcels of groceries and other good things, and to carry them to two or three old women who lived in the almshouses.
The old women were garrulous, and detained her with accounts of their various ailments, so it was quite dark before the little gate of the almshouse garden closed behind her. For some time she had heard the pattering of the rain against the window-panes, and knew that she would have a long, wet walk home.
"Aye, but it is a wild night," observed Mrs. Bates, lugubriously, as she stirred her bright little fire afresh, "and it makes one shiver to one's very bones, that it do."
"But your warm shawl will be a comfort," returned Waveney, cheerfully. "Well, I must go now. 'A happy Christmas to you,' Mrs. Bates, and I hope your rheumatism will soon be better." And then Waveney unhasped the upper half of Widow Bates's door, and peered out into the darkness.
It was not inviting, certainly. The cold, sleety rain was falling in torrents. A wild night, assuredly, and one that meant mischief. But Waveney wore a stout waterproof cloak that Althea had lent to her, and thought she would be proof against any amount of rain or sleet. True, her umbrella was just a little slit, but she would soon have it re-covered.
A narrow, winding passage, resembling a cathedral close, led to High Street. A few old-fashioned houses fronted the garden wall of the Vicarage. Here it was so dark that Waveney was rather startled when she heard a child's voice close to her elbow.
"Oh, please, I am quite lost, and will you take me home?"