The Mistletoe Bough

Mrs. Garrow pleads to her only daughter on behalf of her two sons, saying let the boys have it if they like it. Elizabeth Garrow says it only means romping, that to her all that is detestable, and that she is sure it is not the sort of thing that Miss Holmes would like. The text asks whether that branch of mistletoe which Frank Garrow had brought home out of the Lowther woods should be hung up on Christmas Eve in the dining-room at Thwaite Hall, according to his wishes.

Thwaite Hall is described as not a place of much pretension, a moderate-sized house surrounded by pretty gardens and shrubberies, close down upon the river Eamont. The text says Frank was thinking only of Patty Coverdale, a blue-eyed little romp of sixteen, who, with her sister Kate, was coming from Penrith to spend the Christmas at Thwaite Hall. The text says she had arranged their rooms, making everything warm and pretty, and that out of her own pocket she had bought a shot-belt for one, and skates for the other.