Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

It was nearly six weeks after this before all Miss Marjoribanks's arrangements were completed, and she was able with satisfaction to herself to begin her campaign. It was just before Christmas, at the time above all others when society has need of a ruling spirit. For example, Mrs. Chiley expected the Colonel's niece, Mary Chiley, who had been married about six months before, and who was not fond of her husband's friends, and at the same time had no home of her own to go to, being an orphan. The Colonel had invited the young couple by way of doing a kind thing, but he grumbled a little at the necessity, and had never liked the fellow, he said -- and then what were two old people to do to amuse them? Then Mrs. Centum had her two eldest boys home from school, and was driven out of her senses by the noise and the racket, as she confided to her visitors.

"It is all very well to make pretty pictures about Christmas," said the exasperated mother, "but I should like to know how one can enjoy anything with such a commotion going on. I get up every morning with a headache, I assure you; and then Mr. Centum expects me to be cheerful when he comes in to dinner; men are so unreasonable. I should like to know what they would do if they had what we have to go through: to look after all the servants -- and they are always out of their senses at Christmas -- and to see that the children don't have too much pudding, and to support all the noise. The holidays are the hardest work a poor woman can have," she concluded, with a sigh; and when it is taken into consideration that this particular Christmas was a wet Christmas, without any frost or possibility of amusement out of doors, English matrons in general will not refuse their sympathy to Mrs. Centum. Mrs. Woodburn perhaps was equally to be pitied in a different way.