Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of AllCountries” edition , email
“Let the boys have it if they like it,” said Mrs.Garrow, pleading to her only daughter on behalf of her twosons.
“Pray don’t, mamma,” said ElizabethGarrow. “It only means romping. To me all thatis detestable, and I am sure it is not the sort of thing thatMiss Holmes would like.”
“We always had it at Christmas when we wereyoung.”
“But, mamma, the world is so changed.”
The point in dispute was one very delicate in its nature,hardly to be discussed in all its bearings, even in fiction, andthe very mention of which between mother and daughter showed agreat amount of close confidence between them. It was noless than this. Should that branch of mistletoe which FrankGarrow had brought home with him out of the Lowther woods be hungup on Christmas Eve in the dining-room at Thwaite Hall, accordingto his wishes; or should permission for such hanging bepositively refused? It was clearly a thing not to be doneafter such a discussion, and therefore the decision given by Mrs.Garrow was against it.
I am inclined to think that Miss Garrow was right in sayingthat the world is changed as touching mistletoe boughs. Kissing, I fear, is less innocent now than it used to be when ourgrand-mothers were alive, and we have become more fastidious inour amusements. Nevertheless, I think that she made herselffairly open to the raillery with which her brothers attackedher.
“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” said Frank, who waseighteen.
“Nobody will want to kiss you, my lady Fineairs,”said Harry, who was just a year younger.
“Because you choose to be a Puritan, there are to be nomore cakes and ale in the house,” said Frank.
“Still waters run deep; we all know that,” saidHarry.
The boys had not been present when the matter was decidedbetween Mrs. Garrow and her daughter, nor had the mother beenpresent when these little amenities had passed between thebrothers and sister.
“Only that mamma has said it, and I wouldn’t seemto go against her,” said Frank, “I’d ask myfather. He wouldn’t give way to such nonsense, Iknow.”
Elizabeth turned away without answering, and left theroom. Her eyes were full of tears, but she would not letthem see that they had vexed her. They were only two dayshome from school, and for the last week before their coming, allher thoughts had been to prepare for their Christmaspleasures. She had arranged their rooms, making everythingwarm and pretty. Out of her own pocket she had bought ashot-belt for one, and skates for the other. She had toldthe old groom that her pony was to belong exclusively to MasterHarry for the holidays, and now Harry told her that still watersran deep. She had been driven to the use of all hereloquence in inducing her father to purchase that gun for Frank,and now Frank called her a Puritan. And why? She didnot choose that a mistletoe bough should be hung in herfather’s hall, when Godfrey Holmes was coming to visithim. She could not explain this to Frank, but Frank mighthave had the wit to understand it. But Frank was thinkingonly of Patty Coverdale, a blue-eyed little romp of sixteen, who,with her sister Kate, was coming from Penrith to spend theChristmas at Thwaite Hall. Elizabeth left the room with herslow, graceful step, hiding her tears,—hiding all emotion,as latterly she had taught herself that it was feminine todo. “There goes my lady Fineairs,” said Harry,sending his shrill voice after her.
Thwaite Hall was not a place of much pretension. It wasa moderate-sized house, surrounded by pretty gardens andshrubberies, close down upon the river Eamont, on theWestmoreland side of the river, looking over to a lovely woodedbank in Cumberland. All the