10
CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT, 1931.
TWO CHRISTMAS.
EVES.
(Continued from Page 8.)
she retired to her bedroom to read until he late, for Oliver bad collapsed into his chair as though shot and lay there huddled up, father's arrival.
shoulders quivering. Margery sat suadeniy on a near-uy chair and began biting nysteri- Bob Morriston cally at her handkerchief. only seemed capable of intergent move- ment and speech. He dashed across the room and sank on one knee beside Oliver's chair, and while he knelt, and with one caressing arm round the man in the chair, looked up at his father and talkeď volubly. To his father and Margery what he told was an old story, but the telling of it was always new to them and never more wel-
Mr. Mariston's return was so belated that Margery's Look had dropped from her hands and sne too slept when his hooter an- Dounced him. It was the sound of his voice in the hall that awakened her, and when she got downstairs it was to find her father had switched on the light in the firelit room and | was staring with an expression in which | amazement struggled with anger at the man who was sleeping so profoundly in his fa-
the will to resist the offer of food, and the prospect of staying a little longer in Margery Morriston's company was too alluring to be denied. But he vowed that before an hour had passed he would be gone. To be un-vourite chair. masked in her presence would now be un- endurable.
Soon the maid entered the room and placed a small table convenient to his chair. Presently she laid a furnished tray on the table and from it took a half-bottle of spark- ting Moselle, which she proceeded to open.
"
Miss Margery told me to tell you, sir, that you were to drink a glass of this now,' she announced, as she poured out the wine. Oliver had not touched the Moselle when Margery returned laden with a small- er tray on which were dainty sandwiches made with her own hands, and two salads, one made of tomatoes and a crisp lettuce and the other of bananas and oranges with a cream and liqueur dressing.
J
The meal, with Margery's company, was to Oliver like a foretaste of Paradise. Like a pair of happy children they ate, and talked, and laughed and made merry, and not until he lifted his last glass of wine t his lips Margery had insisted on opening a second half-bottle- · did Oliver realise that in the dregs of it was bitterness untold, the end of the happiest hour of his life, the be ginning of misery in which privations such as he had known in the last few days would count as nothing beside the sense of re- parable loss which remembrance of his hour of joy 'would bring to him.
At the end of the meal Margery lighted another cigarette for Oliver, and; piling the empty plates and bottles on the tray, left
the room.
|
¦
"Who is this man, Margery?" Mr. Morriston boomed. "Is he drunk or ill?”
Margery's shocked expression had the effect of reducing the volume of her father's voice.
"Who is this man?" he repeated, but in a milder and lower tone.
'Surely you can see, Dad," Margery re- "He's monstrated. "It's Mr. Trowbridge. tired out with travelling, and has been wait- ing here all the evening for you and Bob to return."
"Mr. Trowbridge!" Mr. Morriston bark- "It's no more Mr. Trowbridge than ed.
Have you been entertaining him are. under that impression?”
you
come than now.
"It's Cresswell, Dad, you remember my telling you about Cresswell. That Christ- mas Eve when I was shot down over a Meso- potamian desert and Cresswell, his observer killed and himself badly wounded, planed down and, under fire, picked me out of my machine and carried me back to our lines in his. Except for one day in hospital, when we were both convalescent, I've not seen him till to-night. I'd almost given up hope of ever finding him.” -
:
"But why did he pretend to be Trow- bridge?" Mr. Morriston looked helplessly from his son to his daughter.
To Margery intuition, and the memory “I gave him some supper and when he fell asleep I went to my room. Surely you of Oliver's drawn haggard face and his rap- are mistaken. Dad, it must be Mr. Trow-turous joy in the cigarette she had first lighted for him, gave something like under- bridge." Margery spoke almost tearfully.
"You'll soon see if I am mistaken." He, standing. took a stride towards the sleeping man, then "Let Bob in," he directed, "there turned. he is at the door. He took the car to the garage for me.”
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"I think we had better leave Bob and· Mr. Cresswell together now, Dad," she sai "They will probably have a great deal to talk about."
"I believe you are right, daughter," Mr. Morriston replied with great soberness? and walked to the door. Margery joined him there, but before closing the door be hind her she ventured one glance backward and saw that Cresswell had raised his head and that he and Bob were silently gripping She hid a smile and wiped away a hands. tear with her very much rumpled handker-
Oliver Cresswell, soundly asleep as he was, awoke at once when Mr. Morriston' hand descended on his shoulder, and, as was his way, he awoke in immediate and full He knew at possession of all his senses. once that the tall, fierce-looking old gentle man who eyed him so threateningly was Mr. Morriston, and that the worst that | could happen to him had happened, except -he looked about the room, noted that | chief. Oliver, with a profound sigh, lay back Margery was not in it, and breathed a heart- felt "Thank God for that." Then he stood in his chair on her departure, and, watch- ing the upward curling smoke of his cigar-up and faced Mr. Morriston... ette, told himself that he must be gone be- Already fore five minutes had passed.
he was cutting it perilously close; at any moment the hoot of Mr. Morriston's motor might signal his arrival. His fatigue anding outbursts. the necessity to send off the telegram to Bob would be ample excuses to Margery for leaving the house as soon as she returned to the room. His eyes closed while he was thinking out what he should say to her. The red end of his when she returned. cigarette died to ashes; before it fell from his fingers or Margery returned he was asleep.
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Margery saw that he slept directly she entered the room. Stepping softly past him, she picked up the falien cigarette, moved the small table out of reach of his possible movements, switched off the light and left him sleeping in the firelight. Then
"You are not Mr. Trowbridge, of course?" Mr. Morriston, spoke with a calm mock politeness that betokened a more dan- gerous state of mind than his most booni-
"I am not Mr. Trowbridge," Oliver said simply.
"
"Then what the "Cresswell! by all that's glorious. The interruption came from Cresswell!" the doorway. It was shouted in a high, glad. young voice by Bob Morriston and was fol- lowed by something that sounded very like
a sob from Margery.
What followed was extraordinary. At the repetition of the name "Cresswell" the Mr. Morriston's attitude fierceness of crumpled and the anger was wiped from his face as though by a magic, invisible sponge. His hand flew out to seize Oliver's, but too
The anciens custom of bringing in the Yule-log,', which was
burnt - on
7
Christmas Eve.
THE DUTCH “SANTA CLAUS.”.
Just as we look forward to our Christ mas Day, which we celebrate on December 25, so the little Dutch boys and girls look forward to their St. Nicholas Day, which they keep on December 5. St. Nicholas was a Bishop who was chosen in the Middle Ages to be patron.saint of Amsterdam. He was supposed to reward good little-children for their goodness, and to punish bad little children for their badness! But he hardly ever had any punishing to do, everyone was good when St. Nicholas Day came round. Little Dutch boys and girls still believe that the good saint appears every December 5 in the evening, and leaves toys in the shoes which are set out invitingly to attract his attention as he passes.
St. Nicholas Day is very much like our own Christmas Day. Everyone gives every- one else presents, and there is much merry- making. But in Holland they give their presents in a very quaint way. It is not considered right to send a plain parcel with the recipient's name written clearly upon it and your own name on a little card inside. You have to disguise your writing, and you have to fold the present in lots of different wrappers, sometimes putting a different name on each until the person for whom it is intended finds his own name on the last wrapper of all! Then you send a tiny pře sent, like a small brooch or a ring, wrapped in stocks of paper and packed in a band- box!
THE DESCENT OF MAN.
(With Apologies to Darwin) There was a New-rich-not a Jew- That once took his wife to the Zoo,
As they stared at the shapes
Of those horrible apes,
She said, "Montague dear; how like you!"