"Don't you find Christmas a pleasant time, then?" I inquired.
"Well, you see, 'm, I bin in service ever since I was turned fifteen, an' you know wot Christmas in service is. An extry tip, I will say, but a lot of extry work to go along with it--and wot washin' up! Some'ow it orl seems so different in books an' on the pictures."
She sighed as she spoke and a look that was almost human crept into the arid region of her countenance. A feeling of compunction swept over me. Was it possible that this poor simple girl concealed depths of conviviality in her nature and a genial disposition which I, in common with all her former employers, had carelessly overlooked? I will admit that this unexpected phase in Elizabeth's character touched and interested me.
"Elizabeth," I cried in a sudden glow of enthusiasm, "you shall have your jolly Christmas--I will provide it. You shall have your turkey, plum-pudding, mince-pies, crackers, mistletoe and all the rest of it." _Cheeryble_ in his most beneficent mood could not have felt more expansive than I did just then. "You can invite your friends; we shall not be at home, so you will have the place to yourself."
"Lor!" she ejaculated. "D'ye reerly mean it, 'm?"
"I do, Elizabeth. Let me know the sort of Christmas you've always longed for and I'll see that you get it."
She drew up her lank form and her face shone. "Well, 'm, I don't know where you get 'em, but for one thing I've often thort as 'ow I'd like to 'ave a festlebord."
"What's that?" I asked, puzzled. "Is it in the Stores' list?"
"I don't know, 'm, but there's always a lot about it in the books. When the Squire's son comes 'ome repentant at Christmas-tide they always gathers round a festlebord and rejoices."
I began to see light. "You mean a 'festal board'?"
"Well, you shall have one, Elizabeth, I'll see to that. I'd let you have a Squire's son as well, but unfortunately the only ones I know are not repentant--as yet. And now tell me which of your friends you would like to invite."
"There's my sister-in-lor 'ud like to come--'er that I 'aven't been on speakin' terms with for five years--but she shan't. An' my friend isn't comin'; I'll see to that arter the things she sed about me to my young man's cousin--sorcy baggage! As for my two aunts they don't set foot under the same roof as me arter the way----"