The Mistletoe Bough | Page 4

it," said Mrs. Garrow, pleading to her
only daughter on behalf of her two sons.
"Pray don't, mamma," said Elizabeth Garrow. "It only means romping.
To me all that is detestable, and I am sure it is not the sort of thing that

Miss Holmes would like."
"We always had it at Christmas when we were young."
"But, mamma, the world is so changed."
The point in dispute was one very delicate in its nature, hardly to be
discussed in all its bearings, even in fiction, and the very mention of
which between mother and daughter showed a great amount of close
confidence between them. It was no less than this. Should that branch
of mistletoe which Frank Garrow had brought home with him out of the
Lowther woods be hung up on Christmas Eve in the dining-room at
Thwaite Hall, according to his wishes; or should permission for such
hanging be positively refused? It was clearly a thing not to be done
after such a discussion, and therefore the decision given by Mrs.
Garrow was against it.
I am inclined to think that Miss Garrow was right in saying that the
world is changed as touching mistletoe boughs. Kissing, I fear, is less
innocent now than it used to be when our grand-mothers were alive,
and we have become more fastidious in our amusements. Nevertheless,
I think that she made herself fairly open to the raillery with which her
brothers attacked her.
"Honi soit qui mal y pense," said Frank, who was eighteen.
"Nobody will want to kiss you, my lady Fineairs," said Harry, who was
just a year younger.
"Because you choose to be a Puritan, there are to be no more cakes and
ale in the house," said Frank.
"Still waters run deep; we all know that," said Harry.
The boys had not been present when the matter was decided between
Mrs. Garrow and her daughter, nor had the mother been present when
these little amenities had passed between the brothers and sister.
"Only that mamma has said it, and I wouldn't seem to go against her,"
said Frank, "I'd ask my father. He wouldn't give way to such nonsense,
I know."
Elizabeth turned away without answering, and left the room. Her eyes
were full of tears, but she would not let them see that they had vexed
her. They were only two days home from school, and for the last week
before their coming, all her thoughts had been to prepare for their
Christmas pleasures. She had arranged their rooms, making everything
warm and pretty. Out of her own pocket she had bought a shot-belt for

one, and skates for the other. She had told the old groom that her pony
was to belong exclusively to Master Harry for the holidays, and now
Harry told her that still waters ran deep. She had been driven to the use
of all her eloquence in inducing her father to purchase that gun for
Frank, and now Frank called her a Puritan. And why? She did not
choose that a mistletoe bough should be hung in her father's hall, when
Godfrey Holmes was coming to visit him. She could not explain this to
Frank, but Frank might have had the wit to understand it. But Frank
was thinking only of Patty Coverdale, a blue-eyed little romp of sixteen,
who, with her sister Kate, was coming from Penrith to spend the
Christmas at Thwaite Hall. Elizabeth left the room with her slow,
graceful step, hiding her tears,--hiding all emotion, as latterly she had
taught herself that it was feminine to do. "There goes my lady
Fineairs," said Harry, sending his shrill voice after her.
Thwaite Hall was not a place of much pretension. It was a moderate-
sized house, surrounded by pretty gardens and shrubberies, close down
upon the river Eamont, on the Westmoreland side of the river, looking
over to a lovely wooded bank in Cumberland. All the world knows that
the Eamont runs out of Ulleswater, dividing the two counties, passing
under Penrith Bridge and by the old ruins of Brougham Castle, below
which it joins the Eden. Thwaite Hall nestled down close upon the clear
rocky stream about half way between Ulleswater and Penrith, and had
been built just at a bend of the river. The windows of the dining-parlour
and of the drawing- room stood at right angles to each other, and yet
each commanded a reach of the stream. Immediately from a side of the
house steps were cut down through the red rock to the water's edge, and
here a small boat was always moored to a chain. The chain was
stretched across the river, fixed to the staples driven into the rock on
either side, and the boat was pulled backwards and forwards over the