(AUNT JANE AND AUNT ADELINE.)
’11.30, Christmas Eve. ’MY DEAREST LILY—–This will be a joint letter, for Ada will finish it to-morrow, and I must make the most of my time while waiting for the Waits to dwell on unsavoury business. Macrae came over here with a convoy of all sorts of “delicacies of the season,” for which thank you heartily in the name of Whites, Hablots, and others who partook thereof, according, no doubt, to your kind intention. He was greatly perturbed, poor man, for your cook has been very ill with diphtheria, and the scarlet fever is severe all round; there have been some deaths, and the gardener’s child was in great danger. The doctor has analysed the water, and finds it in a very bad state, so that your absence this autumn is providential. If you are in haste, telegraph to me, and I will meet your landlord there, and the sanitary inspector, and see what can be done, without waiting for Jasper. At any rate, you cannot go back there at once. Shall I secure a furnished house for you here? The Rotherwoods are coming to the hotel next door to us, as soon as Phyllis is fit to move and infection over. Victoria will stay there with the children, and he go back and forwards. If Harry and Phyllis May should come home, I suppose their headquarters will be at Stoneborough; but still this would be the best place for a family gathering. Moreover, Fergus gets on very nicely at Mrs. Edgar’s, and it would be a pity to disturb him. On the other hand, I am not sure of the influences of the place upon the—–
’Christmas Day, 3 P.M.—–There came the Waits I suppose, and Jane had to stop and leave me to take up the thread. Poor dear Jenny, the festival days are no days of rest to her, but I am not sure that she would enjoy repose, or that it would not be the worse possible penance to her. She is gone down now to the workhouse with Valetta to take cards and tea and tobacco to the old people, not sending them, because she says a few personal wishes and the sight of a bright child will be worth something to the old bodies. Then comes tea for the choir-boys, before Evensong and carols, and after that my turn may come for what remains of the evening. I must say the church is lovely, thanks to your arums and camellias, which Macrae brought us just in time. It is very unfortunate that Silverfold should be in such a state, but delightful for us if it sends you here; and this brings me to Jenny’s broken thread, which I must spin on, though I tell her to take warning by you, when you so repented having brought Maurice home by premature wails about Dolores. Perhaps impatience is a danger to all of us, and I believe there is such a thing as over-candour.