"My aunt would like it awfully," exclaimed Warford, letting his gunstock drop with a thump. "I'd rather do anything than sit all through the dinner. Somebody'd be sure to make a row about me, and I should feel like getting into a burrow. I'll play the fiddle: what did you mean?—singing, or what? If we had it Christmas Eve, we might have the Christmas waits, you know."
"Fancy!" said Betty, in true English fashion; and then they both laughed.
"The waits are pretty silly," said Warford. "They were better than usual last year, though. Mr. Macalister, the schoolmaster, is a good musician, and he trained them well. He plays the flute and the cornet. Why not see what we can do ourselves first, and perhaps let them sing last? They'd be disappointed not to come at midnight under the windows, you know," said Warford considerately. "We'll go down and ask the schoolmaster after hours, and we'll think what we can do ourselves. One of the grooms has a lovely tenor voice. I heard him singing 'The Bonny Ivy Tree' like a flute only yesterday, so he must know more of those other old things that Aunt Mary likes."
"We needn't have much music," said Betty. "The people at dinner will not listen long,—they'll want to talk. But if we sing a Christmas song all together, and have the flute and fiddle, you know, Warford, it would be very pretty—like an old-fashioned choir, such as there used to be in Tideshead. We'll sing things that everybody knows, because everybody likes old songs best. I wish Mary Beck was here; but Edith sings—she told me so; and don't you know how we sang some nice things together, the other day upon the moor, when we were coming home from the hermit's-cell ruins?"
Warford nodded, and picked up his gunstock.
"I'm your man," he said soberly. "Let's dress up whoever sings, with wigs and ruffles and things. And then there are queer trumpets and viols in that collection of musical instruments in the music-room. Some of us can make believe play them."
"A procession! a procession!" exclaimed Betty. "What do you say to a company with masks to come right into the great hall, and walk round the table three times, singing and playing? Lady Dimdale knows everything about music; I mean to ask her. I'll go and find her now."
"I'll come, too," said Warford, with delightful sympathy. "I saw her a while ago writing in the little book-room off the library."