They submitted, however, to the festival as arranged for
them by Mr. Manningtree and Mrs. Hubbuck--the copious feasting for servants
and dependents, the mummers and carolsingers, the garlands and greenery
which disguised the fine old tapestry, and made a bower of the vaulted
hall. Everything was done with a lavish plenteousness, and no doubt the
household enjoyed the fun and feasting all the more because of that
dismal season of a few years back, when all Christmas ceremonies had been
denounced as idolatrous, and when the members of the Anglican Church had
assembled for their Christmas service secretly in private houses, and as
much under the ban of the law as the Nonconformists were now.
Angela was interested in everything in that bright world where all things
were new. The children piping Christmas hymns in the clear cold morning
enchanted her. She ran down to kiss and fondle the smaller among them, and
finding them thinly clad promised to make them warm cloaks and hoods as
fast as her fingers could sew. Denzil found her there in the wide snowy
space before the porch, prattling with the children, bare-headed, her soft
brown hair blown about in the wind; and he was moved, as a man must needs
be moved by the aspect of the woman that he loves caressing a small child,
melted almost to tears by the thought that in some blessed time to come she
might so caress, only more warmly, a child whose existence should be their
bond of union.
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