So, with a violent jingle of sleigh-bells, the Doctor presently shot
forth again into the white and quiet world, and as he went, gliding
swiftly past the ghostly spruces by the roadside, oddly enough, despite
his cheerful justification to Aunt Ellen, he was fiercely rebelling at
the defection of his children. John and his lovely wife might well have
foregone their fashionable ball. And Howard and Philip--their
holiday-keeping Metropolitan clubs were shallow artificialities surely
compared with a home-keeping reunion about the Yule log. As for the
children of Anne and Ellen and Margaret--well, the Doctor could just
tell those daughters of his that their precious youngsters liked a
country Christmas best--he _knew_ they did!--not the complex,
steam-heated hot-house off-shoot of that rugged flower of simpler times
when homes were further apart, but a country Christmas of keen, crisp
cold and merry sleigh-bells, of rosy cheeks and snow-balls, of skating
on the Deacon's pond and a jubilant hour after around the blazing
wood-fire: a Christmas, in short, such as the old Doctor himself knew
and loved, of simplicity and sympathy and home-keeping heartiness!
And then--there was Ralph--but here the Doctor's face grew very stern.
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