To the doctor it was too full of sad memories for him to be able to make it gay or cheerful for his children, and the children did not know how to set about making it so for themselves, while Aunt Pike had no ideas on the subject beyond sending and receiving a few cards, giving Anna a half-sovereign to put in the savings bank, and ordering a rather more elaborate dinner on Christmas Day.
Kitty, Dan, and Betty this year felt a real yearning for a Christmas such as they had read of, and discussed all manner of impossible plans, but there it all ended.

Dr.Trenire gave them a book each, and they sat around the schoolroom fire reading them and munching the sweets they had clubbed together to buy, and that was all the festivity they had that year.
It was a damp, mild season, unseasonable and depressing, pleasant neither for going out nor for staying indoors; and Dan, who had less than five weeks' holidays, and had already had one of them spoilt by the weather, grumbled loudly, fully convinced that he had every reason to do so.
But with January came a change to high, cold winds, which dried up the mud, and, having done that much service, departed, to be followed by days of glorious sunshine.

Just about the middle of the month Mrs.
Pike had to go away for a week or two to visit her sister in Yorkshire, and with this circumstance, and the lovely weather combined, the children's spirits rose.

Dan had but a fortnight's holiday left, it is true, but they meant to enjoy every possible minute of that fortnight, and to begin with they decided on an expedition to Helbarrow Tors, one of their most beloved of picnic places.

Anna had never seen that wonderful spot, and Anna, who did not accompany her mother on her Yorkshire visit, was to be introduced to all its beauties on the very day after her mother's departure.
As though knowing what was expected of it, the day broke most promisingly.