tragic night when he
had first cast eyes on the baleful beauty of the Spanish maid. Yet
might it not be that once again the sight of these words would send him
wandering homeless o'er the world--that the stream of his uncle's
benevolence might be suddenly damned by a force mysterious as
inexorable?

"Trembling with emotion, the young man thrust his hand into his pocket
to bring forth this mystic note--"

Darsie paused dramatically.

"And--and--and then--?"

"He discovered that it was not there! In the course of his long
wanderings it had unfortunately been mislaid."

The clamour of indignation which followed this _denouement_ can be
better imagined than described but the example having been set,
wonderful how many stories of the same baffling character were revived
by the different members of the company during the remainder of the
firelight _stance_. So wild and exaggerated did the narratives become,
indeed, that the meeting broke up in confusion, and took refuge in those
admittedly uproarious Christmas games which survived from the happy
nursery days, when "to make as much noise as we like" seemed the climax
of enjoyment.

And so ended Christmas Day for the joint ranks of the Vernons and
Garnetts.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE MELODRAMA.

On Boxing Day, Lavender excused herself from joining a rinking party,
and lay curled up on a sofa reading a Christmas number.

The following morning she stayed in bed to breakfast, and complained of
a swollen face. On the third day, the sight of the huge cheeks and
doubled chin sent the family flying for the doctor, and the tragic
verdict of "mumps" was whispered from mouth to mouth.

Mumps in the Christmas holidays! Isolation for the victim for days,
even weeks; the risk of infection for others; the terrible, unthinkable
possibility of "missing a term"! Mrs Vernon came nobly to the rescue,
and invited Darsie to spend the remainder of the holidays under her
roof, since, with a Tripos in prospect, every precaution must be taken
against infection. For the rest, Lavender's own little eyrie was
situated at the end of a long top passage, and might have been
originally designed for a sanatorium and there, in solitary state, the
poor mumpy poetess bewailed her fate, and besought the compassion of her
companions. Letters were not forbidden, and she therefore found a sad
satisfaction in pouring out her woes on paper, as a result of which
occupation the following poe