A Christmas Garland

Excerpt: ...And yet he relished it more than anything he had ever tasted. This beef was her own handiwork. Thus it was because she had made it so. He warily refrained from complimenting her, but the idea of a second helping obsessed him. "Happen I could do with a bit more, like," he said. Emily hacked off the bit more and jerked it on to the plate he had held out to her. "Thanks," he said; and then, as Emily's lip curled, and Jos gave him a warning kick under the table, he tried to look as if he had said nothing. Only when the second course came on did he suspect that the meal was a calculated protest against his presence. This a Christmas pudding? The litter of fractured earthenware was hardly held together by the suet and raisins. All his pride of manhood