the brandy! Ah! Sarah, will no temptation accrue from the pouring of
the warming draught? "Out upon thee!" says Sarah. "Am I not already
as warm over my work as I want to be, and shall I not have my good
glass of beer at my dinner? Leave the quality upstairs their brandy,"
says Sarah, "and let me get to my work."

Well, and the upshot of all this is, that, despite all one may
affirm to the contrary, the one grand essential, the peculiar and
individualizing attribute of Christmas is--the dinner. The parson
may think of his preaching (and if he ever does so, surely most of
all on this day) and the virtuous may think of the poor; the old may
remember the young, and the young be pardoned for only remembering
each other, but the chief thought, the most blissful remembrance is
still--The Dinner.

If the parson preach a little better sermon than usual, it is
because his nine children have not been forgotten by Lady Bountiful,
and are actually going to have--A Dinner.

My Lady Bountiful in her turn may go to church, and appear devoutly
removed from the _mundus edibilis_, yet if you could look into her
reflections, you would perceive that she has but one thought--The
Dinner. Do you suppose, much as the youths from Oxford and their
friend the captain, from London, are devoted to mamma and her
daughters, they are not at the same time being eaten up, as it were,
devoured, by the intense wish for the hour to come when they may
partake of--That Dinner!

Sir Humphrey has asked a particularly large party down this Christmas,
and seems to have forgotten nobody he ever knew. Not a poor relation