me, or not, I cannot say; but she was evidently proud of the remark,
for she repeated it three times!




CHAPTER VI.

ON CHRISTMAS.


It is such a prickly time. Not only everything but everybody is
positively bristling with prickles. Go where you will, you cannot
avoid these pointed, jagged edges. You come across them everywhere,
and have to suffer accordingly.

To begin with, there is the holly. Now you could not find anything
lovelier in the way of foliage than holly, only such a little
suffices. At Christmas time you are literally saturated with it. In
every house you enter, in everything you eat, at every step you take,
nothing but holly, holly, holly.

Then there are the Church decorations, begun generally a week
beforehand. All the ladies of the place assemble in the vestry,
attracted there by divers reasons. Some, by the desire to have a
finger in every pie; some, because it is an opportunity to meet the
curates; and some, but a very few, from real love of the work. I
cannot understand these latter, I must confess. It is the most
disagreeable work I have ever undertaken. Such dirty work, too! Your
hands or your gloves grow perfectly black under the operation; and it