drink her health in a cup of warm ale on the
staircase. Also the little children from Lady Viellcastel's
charity-school would be brought to her by their governante to have cakes
and new groats given to them, and to sing one of those sweet tender
Christmas hymns which surely fall upon a man's heart like sweet-scented
balsam on a wound. And the beadle of St. George's would bring a great
bowpot of such hues as Christmas would lend itself to, and have a bottle
of wine and a bright broad guinea for his fee; while his Reverence the
rector would attend with a suitable present,--such as a satin work-bag
or a Good Book, the cover broidered by his daughters,--and, when he sat
at meat, find a bank-bill under his platter, which was always of silver.
And I warrant you his Reverence's eyes twinkled as much at the bill as
at the plum-porridge, and that he feigned not to see Father Ruddlestone,
if perchance he met that foreign person on the staircase, or in the
store-office where Mistress Nancy Talmash kept many a toothsome cordial
and heart-warming strong water.

This dismal Christmas none of these pleasant things were done. My Lady
gave one Sum to her steward, Mr. Cadwallader, and bade him dispose of it
according to his best judgment among the afflicted, bearing not their
creed or politics or parish in mind, but their necessities. And I was
bereft of a joyful day; for in ordinary she would be pleased that I
should be her little almoner, and hand the purses with the groats in
them to the poor almsfolk. What has become, I wonder, of those good old
customs of giving away things at Christmas-tides? Where is the Lord
Mayor's dole of beef-pies to the vagrant people that lurk in St.
Martin's-le-Grand, that new Alsatia? Where is the Queen's gift of an
hundred pounds to the distressed people who took up quarters in Somerset
House? Where are the thousand guineas which the Majesty of England was
used to send every New-Year's morning to the High Bailiff of Westminster
to be parted among the poor of the Liberty? Nothing seems to be given
nowadays. 'Tis more caning than cakes that is gotten by the charity
children; and Master Collector, the Jackanapes, is for ever knocking at
my door for Poor's Rates.

In the middle of January my Grandmother was yet weaker. Straw was laid
before her door, and daily prayers--for of course the Rector knew
nothing about Father Ruddlestone--were put up for her at St. George's.
And I think also she was not forgotten