Some outspoken souls came out boldly and declared that they had a better time than ever this year. Many felt that they had earned a right to forget disagreeable @hings and to make merry with right good will and so they flung themselves with extra zest into the merry-makings. People who would ordinarily stay at home on Christmas Eve stepped out, just so as not to waste the No-Curfew dispensation, like children being given permission to stay up late for once.
What fun it was to have blent: of time to dress for dinner, to have leisure to enjoy a sequence of courses, to dawdle over coffee without wondering whether one would spend the night in-théBtatian as a consequence. And then to dance till one was tired enough to want to go home, not leave unwillingly when the orchestra played Taps at eleven. Or if one played cards or Christmas games at home, it was a comfort not to have to watch the clock and wave: between the dictates of hospitality and a desire to send one's guests out in plenty of time,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.