window, that opened upon the lawn.  It was entirely paneled with oak, carved by old Flemish workmen, and adorned here and there with bold devices.  The oak, having grown old in a pure atmosphere, and in a district where wood and roots were generally burned in dining-rooms, had acquired a very rich and beautiful color, a pure and healthy reddish brown, with no tinge whatever of black; a mighty different hue from any you can find in Wardour Street.  Plaster ceiling there was none, and never had been.  The original joists, and beams, and boards, were still there, only not quite so rudely fashioned as of old; for Mr. Raby’s grandfather had caused them to be planed and varnished, and gilded a little in serpentine lines.  This woodwork above gave nobility to the room, and its gilding, though worn, relieved the eye agreeably.

The further end was used as a study, and one side of it graced with books, all handsomely bound:  the other side, with a very beautiful organ that had an oval mirror in the midst of its gilt dummy-pipes.  All this made a cozy nook in the grand room.

What might be called the dining-room part, though rich, was rather somber on ordinary occasions; but this night it was decorated gloriously.  The materials were simple—­wax-candles and holly; the effect was produced by a magnificent use of these materials.  There were eighty candles, of the largest size sold in shops, and twelve wax pillars, five feet high, and the size of a man’s calf; of these, four only were lighted at present.  The holly was not in sprigs, but in enormous branches, that filled the eye with glistening green and red:  and, in the embrasure of the front window stood a young holly-tree entire, eighteen feet high, and gorgeous with five hundred branches of red berries.  The tree had been dug up, and planted here in an enormous bucket, used for that purpose, and filled with mold.

Close behind this tree were placed two of the wax pillars, lighted, and their flame shone through the leaves and berries magically.

As Miss Carden entered, on Mr. Raby’s arm, her eye swept the room with complacency, and settled on the holly-tree.  At sight of that she pinched Mr. Raby’s arm, and cried “Oh!” three times.  Then, ignoring the dinner-table altogether, she pulled her host away to the tree, and stood before it, with clasped hands.  “Oh, how beautiful!”

Mr. Raby was gratified.  “So then our forefathers were not quite such fools as some people say.”

“They were angels, they were ducks.  It is beautiful, it is divine.”

Mr. Raby looked at the glowing cheek, and deep, sparkling, sapphire eye.  “Come,” said he; “after all, there’s nothing here so beautiful as the young lady who now honors the place with her presence.”

With this he handed her ceremoniously to a place at his right hand; said a short grace, and sat down between his two guests.

“But, Mr. Raby,” said Grace, ruefully, “I’m with my back to the holly-tree.”