386 ANGEL PAVEMENT

sampled the family supply of literature. If you went out,
you had to pretend you were having a marvellous time
because /ou were wearing hats from crackers and playing
pencil and paper games ("Let me see, a river beginning
with 'V'?"). And what was so terribly depressing and
revolting about it all was that it was possible to imagine
a really good Christmas, the adult equivalent of the en-
chanting Christmasses of childhood, the sort of Christ-
mas that people always thought they were going to have
and never did have. As the bus stopped by the dark
desolation of Lord's cricket ground, swallowed two
women who were all parcels, comic hats, and fuss (a sure
sign this that Christmas was near, for you never saw
these parcels-and-comic-hat women any other time), and
then rolled on, Miss Matfield took out from its secret
recess that dream of a Christmas. She was in an old
house in the country somewhere, with firelight and
candle-light reflected in the polished wood surfaces; by
her side, adoring her, was a vague figure, a husband, tall,
strong, not handsome perhaps but distinguished; two or
three children, vague too, nothing but laughter and a
gleam of curls; friends arriving, delightful people—
"Hello," they cried. "What a marvellous place you've
got here! I say, Lilian!"; some smiling servants; logs on
the fires, snow falling outside, old silver shining on the
mahogany dining table, and "Darling, you look wonder-
ful in that thing," said the masculine shadow in his deep
thrilling voice. "Oh, you fool, stop it," Miss Matfield
cried to herself. She had only brought out that non-
sensical stuff to annoy herself. She liked reminding her-
self how silly she could be. It braced her.

She would go home, as usual, for Christmas, and on
the way there she would look forward to it and imagine