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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 Excerpt: ...hall. The whole thing is an absurdity." Absurd as it was, Sir John had been coaxed into submission; and now on this particular Christmas Day he was quite resigned to the five-o'clock dinner, and was amused at the delight of the little hirelings, who clapped their hands and jumped and chirped like three grasshoppers. "We're all going to have late dinner!" they cried, in a chorus of small silvery voices. "You poor things!" exclaimed Miss Hawberk. "Do you never have late dinner at home, not even on Christmas Day?" "Never," answered the boy. "There isn't any late dinner. Mother dines with us very early, and then in the evening, when the candles are lit, we all have tea, mother and all of us, and jam sandwiches, and then I sit by the fire and learn my spelling while mother puts Lassie and Moppet to bed." "He stops up last because he's the oldest," explained Moppet, who always addressed her small speeches to Sir John, "and we don't learn no spelling because we're too young. But I know most of Laddie's words," she added with sly triumph. "Laddie is very slow, and I'm rather quick." "Too quick, Moppet," said Mr. Danby, lifting the tiny creature in his arms, and looking at her with a touch of melancholy. "If my watch were to go as fast as that small brain of yours I should be afraid the works would wear out." The children went for a walk on the cliffs with Miss Hawberk and the gentleman whom they called Uncle Tom, and while they were strolling in the grey softness of a green Christmas, watching silvery sea-gulls wheeling and chattering;in the soft grey sky, or congregating on a ledge of rocks, and the black shags diving for fish, Sir John came across the hillocky...