of visiting friends here, and without making a sojourn at this place so intimately associated with my father’s memory and death”
The warmest congratulations followed the simple avowal thus narrated. The entire company made good cheer, yet with a quiet joy. The Lady Judith placed her guests according to their obvious and appropriate preferences. Lord Drda and Lady Ludmila sat together at table and smiled and chatted with perfect composure and undisguised affection. Nicolas Jaroslav and Agaphia entertained each other, and were happy in each other’s confidence; and again Sambor and Milada enjoyed each other’s looks, and seemed better contented to hear the cheerful communings of the other guests than propose their own. Prokop devoted himself to the new arrivals, who again entertained the Lady Judith with many details and rough adventures with goats’ flesh and kumyss; and the nomad life of the steppes. The Lady Judith listened with placid cheerfulness; but no demonstration of absorption in het own sorrow, or of inattention to her present duties allowed itself to mar the decorous gayety of the evening.
As the long winter’s deeper glow approached, the logs in the wide fireplace emitted a brighter blaze, and diffused a welcome such as only a Christmas hearthstone can. Although the wood may crackle and blaze as lustily and with as demonstrative a splendor at other times, yet the glow of feeling that cheers the Christmas family group, bestows a more graceful curl on the blaze, infuses a more genial warmth into
