After dinner there would be the swift-coming December
twilight, and Christmas games, snap-dragon and the like, which Papillon,
although a little fine lady, reproducing all her mother's likes and
dislikes in miniature, could not, as a human child, altogether disregard.
"I don't care about such nonsense as Georgie does," she told her aunt,
with condescending reference to her brother; "but I like to see the others
amused. Those village children are such funny little savages. They stick
their fingers in their mouths and grin at me, and call me 'Your annar,' or
'Your worship,' and say 'Anan' to everything. They are like Audrey in the
play you read to me."
Denzil was in attendance upon aunt and niece.
"If you want to come with us, you must invent a pretty walk, Sir Denzil,"
said Papillon. "I am tired of long lanes and ploughed fields."
"I know of one of the pleasantest rambles in the shire--across the woods
to the Grange. And we can rest there for half an hour, if Mrs. Angela will
allow us, and take a light refreshment."
"Dear Sir Denzil, that is the very thing," answered Papillon, breathlessly.
"I am dying of hunger. And I don't want to go back to the Abbey. Will there
be any cakes or mince pies at the Grange?"
"Cakes in plenty, but I fear there will be no mince pies.
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