I felt, even at that first moment, an unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Markham. Most people would have pronounced her very handsome, in spite of her sallow complexion and thin lips, but a certain hardness in her expression repelled me, as it repelled Joyce. Her dark eyes regarded one so coldly; there was such hauteur and indifference in her manners; and then the metallic harshness of her voice! “How could she be Mrs. Morton’s sister?” I thought, as I recalled the sweet graciousness, the yielding softness, that made my dear mistress so universally beloved.
(To be continued.)
CHRISTMAS IN THE GERMAN FATHERLAND.
In the days of my youth it was my good fortune to have letters of introduction to some German friends of our family, and to be invited to spend the winter with them in their charming country house at the foot of the Riesengebirge.[1]
It was the 24th of December, and bitterly cold, when I emerged from the railway carriage upon the platform of a small country station, and was taken into friendly possession by a vivacious little dark-eyed baroness and her tall, flaxen-haired son, who, with many fears that I must be nearly frozen by my long journey from Berlin, wrapped me in an extra fur and supplied me with a third veil before allowing me to encounter the keen outer air and a long sledge drive.
To drive in a sledge at all was to me a novel and delightful experience, and the sledge to which I was now conducted was particularly pretty, with its body of light carved wood, its fur rugs lined with crimson, its pair of cream-coloured Russian ponies, with their harness studded with silver knobs, and arches of silver bells over their heads; and when once we were all warmly ensconced among the cushions and wrappers, and were gliding with noiseless swiftness over the well-kept sledge-way, it seemed to me that sledging was the very acme of luxurious motion, and I felt almost sorry when Baron Max checked his ponies to point out the high tower, now close at hand, which he said formed part of the main building of his home.
After passing through some fine pine-woods, we drove across the whilom moat, now planted with trees and called the Dark Walk, and, driving under a small archway, found ourselves in a spacious court laid out as a flower-garden, while facing us, and forming three sides of a hollow square, stood the schloss itself. The great entrance was approached by a long flight of steps, and upon these were several liveried servants awaiting our arrival, while at the sound of the sleigh-bells and the cracking of the driver’s whip, two great wolfhounds rushed out to welcome their master, and were followed, more sedately, by the daughters of the house, who from their striking disparity in height were always known by the sobriquet of Tiny and Tall.
To Tiny’s care I was immediately consigned, and, after a brief adjournment to my room, was led by her into the saloon, where we found Tall presiding over the coffee and cakes, which, as I discovered later on, she had herself prepared.
The Baroness had disappeared, leaving an apology for me that, as it was Christmas Eve, she had much to do, to which she must attend, and while we were waiting the signal to go and view the tree, Tiny and Tall proceeded to enlighten me as to many of their national customs in connection with this particular season.
In this village, for instance, as in many others of the Fatherland, and especially in Southern Germany, a veiled woman goes up and down the streets after nightfall, bearing in her arms a child chosen for his beauty and goodness to represent the Infant Saviour, and as they pass along they find the cottage windows discreetly left ajar, so that the Christ-child, as he is called, can leave upon the sill some token of the day. Every good child, upon awakening next morning, finds gifts—oranges, sweeties, or some such things; but, alas for the child who has been naughty! for him are no such delights; for him there lies only a pliant willow or birchen rod, suggestive of the chastisement he deserves. Into the towns the Christ-child seldom comes; he is there replaced by the Christmas tree; and it was to decorate such a tree that the mother of the family had now disappeared.