Mary King Waddington

We were very particular about attending all important ceremonies at La Ferte, as we rarely went to church there except on great occasions. We had our service regularly at the chateau every Sunday morning. All the servants, except ours, were Protestants, Swiss generally, and very respectable they looked - all the women in black dresses and white caps - when they assembled in M. A.'s library, sitting on cane chairs near the door.

It had been a cold December, quite recalling Christmas holidays at home - when we used to think Christmas without snow wasn't a real Christmas, and half the pleasure of getting the greens to dress the church was gone, if the children hadn't to walk up to their ankles in untrodden snow across the fields to get the long, trailing branches of ivy and bunches of pine. We were just warm enough in the big chateau.