Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/234

 Christmas had been kind and seasonable—a white sheet covered the world. Holly gleamed against old oak. Priceless silver, saved from the smelting-pot in Cromwell’s hard days, shone above white napery on the long tables. The tenants’ dinner was over, and now was the moment when, according to the will, Michael Wood’s wife must be presented to the tenants then assembled.

The slender figure in white woollen cloth and white fur, with Christmas roses at its breast, stood on the daïs at the end of the great hall, and the tenants cheered themselves hoarse at the mere sight of her beautiful face, her kind eyes.

“It went off very well,” Michael said when, the last guest gone, the last shutter closed, the last servant departed, the two stood alone in the long drawing-room.

“Yes; think if you had had to present to them the old white-haired wife”

“I loved the old wife,” he said obstinately; but his voice was not quite steady.

“I wish,” she said, playing with the Christmas roses she wore, “I wish you would try to forgive me. It was horribly wrong; but I began it as a joke. You see, I had only just come over from the convent