The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1869-12-28 00:00:00

CHRI4TMAS WITH THE FIiLLALOVES.

'Ti. Christmas time
I don't • x.ctly know why I slhreriat• the pronoun
but perhaps it looks Invre seasonable.
Al any rat., 5.1 observed bdors, 'Ti. Merry Christ-
mas time. _ .

..ti.. holmium it isn't g.ite er merry SS
It might be down our lane. It is, however, muggy and
rainy, and, on the whole, rather like a backward
Spring.
The trees In our garden seem to take this view of the
case, and have Iwitun budding. I have noticed before
• teatime, to bud upon the part of our trees, the
yearning aspirations of whish severe frosts invariably
Other gardeners on a small scale may have notised
something of thie sort.
Rose Anna 1., however (weather permitting), bent on
seasonable festivites. She has already declared her
intention of this year making a large number of minor.
pies.
I. who will have to eat several of them, shudder
slightly at this intelligence.
She goes on to say, " I hope our pudding will turn
out better this time.' .
In my reculiarly quiet, I observe, "It didn't turn
out .tll Isst year, did it, dear?

Wby not r asks Rose Anna.
" B cause." I cheerfully rejoin, "If my memory
nerves um, it stuck to the basin."
This simple pleasantry (forineed on fact) annoys
Rose Anna, who pretends it rem the servant's fault for
not buttering the basin aforesaid.
However, • trues to puddings. What is going on
this Christmas,
"In this dead-and-alive plies," says Rom Anna,
" nothing.l"
I am silent for a while. Subsequently. I take • strolL
Thin pleas. looked at in one light, is certainly very
much demi-ant-alive. The appearance of the lane is
simply segmlchr•l.
The very look of the beastly little bit of back garden,
a mausoleum of decayed cabbage-stump', is enough to
make one commit suicide.
How awfully jolly it would he to run up to town,
and go the rounds ! I like the term, "go the rounds."
Not that I ever went them, or exactly know what and
where they are; but it has • sort of rollical, Nib:died,
awfully jo heal, Tom and Jerry, with coloured plates
(Rotten, Piccadilly) sort of sound about it. Suppose I
propos-, that Rose Anna end I ge the rounds together
—for I don't think -be would rearm to my going alone.
Previous to mentioning the matter, however, a letter
arrives from London, with nothing short of an invita-
tion to spend Chriettnas and holing-day with Rom
Anna's family In the genteelest part of Holton.
Roes Anna is at firat rather vexed at the thought
that the mince-pie manufacture must he postponed,
and the plum-pudding arrangement put off indefinitely ;
but I use all the eloquence at ~.y cornmeal to show her
that we may, in other roo eats, probably enjoy our-
selves.
An I now the happy day has arrived, and we are en
roarre for the gay and festive scene above alluded to.
In the train, however, Rose Anna says, "As peps
knows you have been out with the hounds, don't you
think he will expect • hamper of game I''
Rose Amritsar strangely ignorant on these points, I
smilingly observe, that "ono animal enly is hunted at
• time, and that it is not ell-ternary to divide its body
amongst the twentyor thirty noble sporteruen who have
joinwl in the chase..,
Rom Anna says, "who has it then ?"
I quietly remark, "The one who is In at the death
has the brush."
Rom Anon wants to know, "What brush e,
See mg that a person in the seat omi/oat it us I.
much amused, I no 'go Rose Anna to talk lower, and
-whimper "Its tail."
Rose Anne, however, says, " Whom—the hare'. ir
This ia horribly absurd of It me Anna, but, now I ,r,me
to think of it, it was • hare I bunted. and until I hoe.,
consulted i-orne learn. d authority, I am really ont
positively certain "'button • tire" tail is or is not called
• brush like a Ca's, and whether or not, whatever it
may be called, it Incomes • trophy deer capture.
But the train me :Irbil* is carrying us swiftly on'
ward. In spite of that, we ere somehow a long while
reaching ourjourni y's end. When we do, by ths co-
nfession of Rom Anna'. mamma, it
n Id appear that
tree
we are tint so welcome as MO mig t have been. It
seems we ought to have written tom We were coning;
and now !her 1- a qn. onion whether ere LI • bedroom
that W• MS have.
Deteruaaed t. ler festive at any cost, I say, " What's
the odd's'!" tor se Anna's manima says, " Well, I know
you don't *tried thing. being • little awkward •" and in
due murse we in I than very •arkward indeed, but pre-
tend we think • turn-up bedstead in a dark cupboard
rather jolly.
We however get dream-4 for dinner somehow or other,
with a good deal of elbowing and a little unpleasantness,
and go downstair-, to meet our uncles and aunts.
It is extra... Ornery how uncle and aunt, don't improve
by berpb,g. low not propeily on in the ailments of
Res. An. a's rehrtions, and lurk after wrong eemni.inte.
I also ask alter • maiden aunt's husband, end inquire
sweetly
re I whether a dead uncle isn't expected to dinner.
'lbis causes an awkward silence, in which I subside.
Presently dinner comes. Rather dreary, thougt,
everything is in proluaion. Health-drinking aft,,,,,
wards An uncle, who can't remember br name, says,
" You young Mr. What-aole-Oall•it, you re no foe], or
I'm much mistaken ; and here's your good health.'
Upon this Ruse Anna's parrs says,. "I. don't know
uncle Robert ; we musn't be too sure about anything.
Whereupon Rm.. Annie.. mamma pighs end says she
dy knowledge.
In afraid her Henry is
wanting
in
wen
ithe rest of the
Frereln, iy sighs at ibis juncture, an
.. .
evening 4 spent in bew•ineg thingsgetteralll, and my
&Orme it. particular.
At parting, we wish 005 another very dolefully •
happy new year. and retire in a despondent state tot
the tuen.up bedstmol, which doubles tip atthe
_e
..
stumps to get into it, sad during the numieder of tb
night is utterly impraetimble. Rose Anna, sleeping
on a broken joint, it almost moootOnous in her ewe-

id-M-ning.' -
And sat %Is Marry Christmas time and methinks now,
at lam. wimp Ago la yaks, and, dolt,. La chsuou of a
wink of sleep, that tba waits ma alriking up fins old
Christmas tons benastb oar bedroom window.