GREETINGS.
THERE was no family breakfast at the house in Gramercy Park. A smiling
chambermaid brought up a tray to Hildegarde's room, with all manner of
pleasant things under suggestive little covers. Hilda ate and was
thankful, and then, finding that her aunt would not be visible before
noon, she put on her hat and went for a walk. The streets were chilly,
in the November morning, but the air was fresh and good, and Hildegarde
breathed it in joyously.
This was just a walk, she said to herself. She had many visits to make,
of course, and more or less shopping to do, but there was time enough
for all that. Now she would walk, and get her bearings, and consider
that one might live well in a city. The brick sidewalks seemed at once
strange and familiar; she had known the brown-stone streets all her
life. Once they had seemed her own, the only place worth walking in; now
they were a poor apology, indeed, for shady lanes and broad sunny roads
along which the feet trod or the wheel spun, winged by "the joy of mere
living." She passed the house where her childhood had been spent, and
paused to look up at the tall windows, in loving thought of the dear
father who had made that early home so bright and full of cheer. Dear
Father! There was his smoking-room window, where he used to sit and read
aloud to her, so many happy hours. How he would dislike those heavy
brocade curtains; he used to thunder, almost as loud as Colonel Ferrers,
about curtains that kept out the blessed sunshine. How--the house was a
corner one, and at this moment, as Hildegarde stood gazing up at the
windows, a gentleman turned the corner, and ran plump into her.
"Upon my soul," said the gentleman, with great violence, "it is a most
extraordinary thing that a human being should turn himself into a post
for the express purpose of--I beg your pardon, madam. I was not
conscious that I was addressing a lady! Can I serve you in any way?
Command me, I beg of you!"
The moment Hildegarde caught the sound of the gentleman's voice, she
turned her head away, so that he could not see her face; and now she
spoke over her shoulder.
"A place in thy memory, dearest--sir, is all that I ask at thy hands. It
is hard to be forgotten so soon, so utterly!"
"What! what! what! what!" said the Colonel. "Who! who! why--why the
mischief will you not turn your head round, young woman? There is only
one young woman in the world who would address me in this manner, and
she is a hundred miles away. Now, in the name of all that is elfish,
Hildegarde Grahame, what are you doing here?"
Hildegarde turned round, her eyes full of happy laughter, and took her
friend's arm.
"And in the name of all that is occult, and necromantic, and
Rosicrucian, Colonel Ferrers, what are _you_ doing here?" she asked. "I
thought you were in Washington."
"I was, till last night!" the Colonel replied. "We have seen all the
sights, the boy and I, and now we have come to see the sights here on
our way home. Well! well! and the first sight I see is the best one for
sair een that I know. What a pity I left the boy at the hotel! He was
still asleep. We arrived late last night. I went to wake him, and I give
you my word, I could as soon have thought of waking an angel from a
dream of paradise; the little fellow smiled, you understand, Hildegarde,
and--and moved his little arms, and--I came away, sir,--my dear, I
should say,--and left him to sleep as long as he would. Where are you
going now, my child? have you had breakfast? if not,--"
"Oh, yes, I have had breakfast, dear sir!" said Hildegarde. "And you
were thinking, if I had had it, how pleasant for me to go in and
surprise that blessed lamb in his crib; now, weren't you?"
"The point, as usual!" cried the Colonel. "Country neighbours learn to
know each others' thoughts, they say, but I never believed it, till I
had neighbours. Well, shall we go? Now, upon my soul, this is the most
surprising and delightful thing that has happened to me for forty years.
But you have not told me where you are staying, Hilda, nor why you are
here, nor in fact anything; have simply wormed information out of the
confiding friend, and remained silent yourself!" and the Colonel looked
injured, and twirled his moustaches with mock ferocity.
"I like that!" said Hildegarde. "That really pleases me! Kindly
indicate, dear sir, the moment at which I could have got in a word
edgewise, since you began your highly interesting remarks! I have been
simply panting with eagerness to tell you that I left home yesterday,
and arrived in New York at five o'clock in the afternoon; that I am
staying with my great-aunt in Gramercy Park; that I am wofully homesick,
and that the sound of your voice was the most ecstatic sound I have
heard for half a century."
"Ha!" said the Colonel. "Humph! mockery, I perceive! of the aged, too!
Very well, Miss Grahame, your punishment will be decided hereafter.
Meanwhile, here we are at my hotel, and we will go straight up and wake
the boy,--if he seems to be ready to wake, my dear. I am sure you will
agree with me that it would be a pity to rouse him from a sound sleep.
'Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care,' you remember,
Hildegarde!"
"Yes, dear Colonel Ferrers!" said Hildegarde. "But I don't believe
Hugh's sleeve is very deeply ravelled, do you? and indeed, it is high
time for him to be awake."
They turned in at a great white marble portal, and the elevator soon
brought them to the Colonel's door. He opened it softly with a
latch-key, and led the way into the apartment; then paused, and beckoned
Hilda to come in quietly.
"Listen!" he whispered. "Hugh is awake!"
They listened, and heard a clear, sweet voice discoursing calmly:
"I have three pillows to my head, though I am not ill. I wish that
other boy was here, that was in bed, and made songs about himself, and
said it was the Land of Counterpane. He was the Giant great and still,
that sits upon the pillow-hill, and I am that kind of giant too. Now I
play he is here, and he sits up against that pillow, and I sit up
against this. And I say, 'How can you say all the things that come in
your mind? I can have the things in my mind, too, but they will not have
rhyme-tails to them. How do you make the rhyme-tails?'
"And then he says,--I call him Louis, for that is the prettiest part of
his name,--Louis says, 'It has to be a part of you. I think of things in
short lines, and after every line I look for the rhyme-tail, and I see
it hanging somewhere. But perhaps your Colonel can help you about that,'
Louis says.
"But I say, 'No! my Colonel cannot help me about that. My Colonel is
good, and I love him with love that grows like a tree, but he cannot
make rhymes. Now, if my Beloved were here, she might be able to help me;
but she is far away, and the high walls shut her out from me. The walls
are very high here, Louis, and my Colonel has gone away now, and I don't
know how soon he will come back; so don't you leave me, Louis, for I am
alone in a sandy waste, and there are no quails. But manna would be
nasty, I think.'"
At this point the listeners could bear no more. Hilda ran into the room,
and had Hugh in her arms, and was laughing and crying and cooing over
him all at once. The Colonel followed, very red in the face, blowing his
nose and clearing his throat portentously.
"Why, darling," Hilda was saying between the kisses, "darling Boy, did
you want me? and did you think your Colonel would leave you for more
than a few little minutes? Of course he would not! And where do you
suppose I came from, Boy, when I heard you say you wanted me? Do you
think I came down the chimney?"
Hugh gravely inspected her spotless attire; the blue serge showed no
wrinkle, no speck of dust.
"I should say _not_ the chimney!" he announced, "But from some strange
where you must have come, Beloved, if it was a place where you heard me
talking when I was not there. Was it the up-stairs of the Land of
Counterpane?" he added, his eyes lighting up with their whimsical look.
"Was it the Counterpane Garret? Then it must have been over the top of
the bed that you came from, and you seemed to come in at the door. Did
Louis tell you to come?"
"Louis?" said the Colonel. "What does the boy mean? Stuff and nonsense!
I met your Beloved in the street, ran into her, and thought she was a
post; and then I brought her along, and here she is; and what do you
think about breakfast, Young Sir?"
Young Sir thought very well of breakfast, but he could not think of
eating it without his two friends looking on; so Hildegarde waited in
the parlour, chatting merrily with the Colonel till Young Sir's toilet
was completed, and then breakfast was brought, and Hugh ate, and the
others watched him; and Hildegarde found that she was quite hungry
enough to eat Black Hamburg grapes, even if it was only two hours since
breakfast, and altogether they were very merry.
"And what shall we do now?" asked the Colonel, when the pleasant meal
was over. "The Metropolitan, eh? The boy must see pictures, Hilda, hey?
'The eye that ne'er on beauty dwells,' h'm! ha! folderol! I forget the
rest, but the principle remains the same. Never seen any pictures except
those at home, and the few in Washington. Chiefly rubbish there, I
observe. What do you say, Miss Braeside? Will you give Roseholme the
honour of your company as far as the Metropolitan?"
"Why not?" thought Hildegarde. "Hobson said positively that Aunt Emily
would not see me before lunch, and there is no one else that I need go
to see quite so very immediately."
"Yes, I will go with pleasure!" she said. So off they started, the
cheerfullest three in New York that morning. Busy men, hurrying
down-town to their business, turned to look back at them, and felt the
load of care lightened a little just by the knowledge that there were
three people who had no care, and were going to enjoy themselves
somewhere. Hugh walked in the middle, holding a hand of each friend,
chattering away, and looking up from one to the other with clear, joyful
looks that made the whole street brighter. The Colonel was in high
feather; flourishing his stick, he strode along, pointing out the
various objects of interest on the way. He paused before a mercer's
window, filled with shimmering silks and satins.
"Now here," he said, "is frippery of a superior description; frippery
enough to delight the hearts of a dozen women."
"Possibly of two dozen, dear sir," put in Hildegarde; "consider the
number of yards in all those shining folds."
"Hum! ha! precisely!" said the Colonel. "Now, Hildegarde, you have some
taste in dress, I believe; you appear to me to be a well-dressed young
woman. Now, I say, what seems to you the handsomest gown in all this
folderol, hey? the handsomest, mind you?"
"'Said the Kangaroo to the Duck, this requires a little reflection!'"
Hildegarde quoted.
"Perhaps, on the whole, that splendid purple velvet; don't you think so,
Colonel Ferrers?"
"Hum!" said the Colonel. "Ha! possibly; but--ha! hum! that--I may be
wrong, Hildegarde--but that seems to me hardly suited to a young person,
hey? More a gown for a dowager, it strikes me? I may be wrong, of
course."
"Not in the least wrong, dear sir," said Hilda, laughing. "But you said
nothing about a young person. You said 'the handsomest.'"
"Precisely," said the Colonel again. "And after all, a gown is a
temporary thing, Hugh. Now, a bit of jewelry--but now, Hildegarde, I put
it to you, if you were going to choose a gown for Elizabeth Beadle, for
example; suppose Hugh and I were going to take a present home to
Elizabeth Beadle; there's no better woman of her station in the mortal
universe, sir, I don't care who the second may be. What do you think
suitable, hey?"
"Oh, Guardian!" and "Oh, Colonel Ferrers!" cried Hugh and Hildegarde, in
a breath. "How delightful!"
"I think Hugh ought to choose," said Hildegarde, with some self-denial;
and she added to herself:
"If only he will not choose the blue and red plaid; though there is
nothing she would like so well, to be sure!"
Hugh surveyed the shining prospect with radiant eyes.
"I think you are the very kindest person in all the world!" he said. "I
think--my mind is full of thoughts, but now I will make my choice."
He was silent, and the three stood absorbed, heedless of the constantly
increasing crowd that surged and elbowed past them.
"My great-aunt is fond of bright colours," said the child, at last.
Hildegarde shivered.
"She would like best the red and blue plaid. _But_, people must not
always have the things they like best. You remember the green apples,
Guardian, and how they weren't half as good as the medicine was horrid."
"Most astonishing boy in the habitable universe!" murmured the Colonel,
under his breath. "Don't undertake to say what kind of boys there may
be in Mars, you understand, but so far as this planet goes,--hey? Ha!
well, have you made your choice, Young Sir?"
Hugh pointed out a gray silk, with a pretty purple figure. "That is the
very best thing for my great-aunt," he said.
"That will fill her with delirious rapture, and it will not put out the
eyes of anybody. We shall all be happy with that silk."
So in they went to the shop, and Hugh bought the silk, and the Colonel
paid for it, and then they all went off to the Metropolitan, and spent
the rest of the morning in great joy.