“When next you see Mariana, please give her my love, and tell her I asked to see her, but was not successful.”
He bowed solemnly and let her pass, but took no further notice than if he had been made of stone.
Now came Christmas night. On Lucifram Christmas Day wasn’t marred by any subsequent church-going. It was nothing better than a heathen feast; the Serpent had nothing to do with it.
On that day the children went simply wild, and gave themselves incredible airs; demanded their best toys, gorged oranges and apples, made themselves ill with plum-pudding, demanded their full share of turkey, and got it, and looked with expectant eyes on the iced cake when it appeared. Just as if they’d been starving all day! The little wretches!
The grown-up world, unless it was going out to an evening party, yawned, and ate its customary Christmas fare, and drank it too. Then the old people played cards, and the young people sang, especially the young men with untrained voices, and the lovers behaved as if they really were in love with one another.
Now that day there had arrived two Christmas presents so beautiful that many an empress might have envied them. The first came early in the morning, before the postman; a curious and unusual thing. There is no doubt Santa Claus was on the war-path, for such a lovely ball and reception dress could only have been made in some magic fairyland. It was like shining silken _crêpe_, all frosted over with tiny sparkling jewels, all in white. It shone like soft pure snow in the sunlight, and fell in folds of simplest grace. It was so very simply, yet so very wonderfully made, that one wondered what it was that gave it such a beautiful effect.
“Is it not too dead white to suit me?” said she to Brightcoat, after going into raptures on its beauty.
“See here, there is a little box below,” said it.
And Rosalie opened it, and uttered the most real cry of delight in her life.
“It’s my stone, my first stone, that I loved so, all set in gold and ready to wear. Oh, Brightcoat, Brightcoat, look!”
And she sat down on the bed and hid her face in the pillows, and cried from different emotions. At last she wiped away the tears and looked up, her eyes falling on the shining stone again.