'em."

"It was quite a pleasure to know that one of our founders--or more
correctly speaking," said the old man, with a great glory in his
subject and his knowledge of it, "one of the learned gentlemen that
helped endow us in Queen Elizabeth's time, for we were founded
afore her day--left in his will, among the other bequests he made
us, so much to buy holly, for garnishing the walls and windows,
come Christmas. There was something homely and friendly in it.
Being but strange here, then, and coming at Christmas time, we took
a liking for his very picter that hangs in what used to be,
anciently, afore our ten poor gentlemen commuted for an annual
stipend in money, our great Dinner Hall.--A sedate gentleman in a
peaked beard, with a ruff round his neck, and a scroll below him,
in old English letters, 'Lord! keep my memory green!' You know all
about him, Mr. Redlaw?"

"I know the portrait hangs there, Philip."

"Yes, sure, it's the second on the right, above the panelling. I
was going to say--he has helped to keep MY memory green, I thank
him; for going round the building every year, as I'm a doing now,
and freshening up the bare rooms with these branches and berries,
freshens up my bare old brain. One year brings back another, and
that year another, and those others numbers! At last, it seems to
me as if the birth-time of our Lord was the birth-time of all I
have ever had affection for, or mourned for, or delighted in,--and
they're a pretty many, for I'm eighty-seven!"

"Merry and happy," murmured Redlaw to himself.