Another Christmas Eve arrives, with snow and calm frosty weather. Though,
as of old, they had games, and _tableaux vivants_, and dance, and song,
and "hoodman blind"[53]--blindman's bluff--yet in spite of these
recreations,
"over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost."
There were no visible signs of distress--no tears or outward mourning.
Could regret then have died out?
"No--mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry."