It had been predicted from the premature beginning of the winter's
gaieties, that an ebb would occur before the Southern carnival,
Christmas, and the party-goers resolved to falsify the prophecy.
Mrs. Dana called on the afternoon of the 24th to invite Ida and
Josephine to dine with her. "You will see only ourselves and Mr.
Holmes, who is Charley's shadow."
"A stupid set," was Josephine's reflection. "How pleasant," Ida's; and
their answers corresponded. The former, "very sorry, papa would always
dine at home, Christmas-day; he held it to be a religious duty she
verily believed," laughing affectedly, "and he could not eat unless she
were there."
Ida said, "I will come with pleasure, thank you," and lost all but the
main purport of Miss Read's apology, in an eager whisper from Elle, who
was with her mother.
"I don't hear, will I 'please come to what?'" lifting her to her lap.
Elle put her arms around her neck, and her mouth to her ear.
"To your molasses stew!" said Ida, "indeed I will. When is it to be?"
Another important whisper.
"Josephine, are we engaged for to-morrow evening?"
"I do not know," she replied, shortly.
"I hope not," said Mrs. Dana. "Elle's head is full of her frolic. I was
describing to her the molasses stew I had every Christmas, when I was
a child, and nothing would do but I must promise her one for 'being a
good girl.'"
"She deserves it, I know," said Ida, fondly. "I will come, Elle, if I
leave fifty grown people's parties."
"Will you, too?" asked the child, going up to Josephine. Mrs. Dana
pressed the invitation.
"I am not certain, but I have engaged to go somewhere else," said
Josephine, smiling heartlessly into the pure little face. "If I can, I
will do myself the honor, Miss Dana."
The wretched attempt at playfulness actually frightened Elle, who
shrunk again to the side of her friend.
"Are you serious in promising to go to this babyish fal-lal?" snapped
Josephine, the minute Mrs. Dana was gone.
"I am."
"Did not you hear that Anna Talbot is to receive company to-morrow
night?"
"Yes; and I am rejoiced that Elle's invitation was earliest. There are
Anna and Ellen Morris."
"I haven't time to stay," exclaimed the young lady, throwing herself
upon the sofa. "You both must spend a sociable evening with me--a
Christmas jubilee--egg-nogg, country-dances, etc. We are to have a high
time. You are disengaged?"
"I am," said Josephine, promptly, "and if I were not, I could not
resist the temptation to send a 'regret,' and go to your house."
"Thank you--and you, Ida--may I count upon you both?" drawing up her
cloak. Ida declined courteously;--"she was engaged to Mrs. Dana."
"Oh!" began Anna, disappointed.
"Is it not too silly!" interposed Josephine. "It is a child's party--a
molasses stew--think of it!"
"You are joking, Ida," said Ellen, "excuse yourself to Elle--we want
you!"
"Not as much as my little cousin does. I cannot break my word to her."
"Little cousin!" smiled Anna. "I thought the relationship was closer. I
will not give up the hope of persuading you. The nicest beaux in town
are to be there--Mr. Thornton, Mr. Russell, and Mr. Villet, and Mr.
Lacy, and a score more--_do_ come!'"
"I cannot!" said Ida, with a pang.
"Papa will not be pleased with our going out separately;" said
Josephine, that night.
"He does not object to my going to Mr. Dana's alone;" was the response.
"Thinking of number one, as usual, my amiable lady! I tell you what! I
shall not demean myself, by playing puss-in-the-corner, and smearing my
hands with treacle, when I might be at Mr. Talbot's, in decent company."
"As you like. If you represent the character of the company to your
father, he will probably insist upon your mixing with them."
"He! he!" tittered Rachel, who was in waiting. Josephine flounced out
of the room.
"Christmas gift, Miss Ida!" Her maid stood at her bedside, in the
grey morning light. "Christmas gift!" called out the passers-by, as
they encountered each other in the street "Hurrah for Christmas!"
shouted squads of boys, at the corner, to a brilliant accompaniment of
pop-crackers.
Ida heard it all, with a spirit out of tune with mirth. No gifts were
prepared for her; the Thanksgiving-day was one of mourning to the
homeless. She had anticipated a visit from Carry, during the holidays;
but her last letter had dashed the hope. "Mammy" was recovering from
a severe fit of sickness, and she would not leave her. Ida wished she
were not to dine at Mr. Dana's; she was not fit for society, and sad
enough, without the sight of joys, which reminded her of her losses and
wants. In this discontented mood, she went down stairs. No Christmas
yet! Mr. Read grunted to her formal bow, and Josephine said "the coffee
was cold--it had been on the table so long." Mr. Read finished his
second cup, and pulled out his pocket-book.
"People will be asking if I made you a present. Thank goodness!
Christmas comes but once a year. Two would break a man. There!"
fillipping a roll of notes to his daughter. "Don't waste it upon
gimcracks and finery. If women had to earn money, they wouldn't be
so crazy to spend it. You must have some, I suppose:" and he laid a
smaller bundle upon Ida's plate.
"No, sir! I have money of my--" but he did not wait to hear her
through. As she quitted the table, Josephine pointed to the untouched
"present."
"Take it, if you choose!" said Ida, contemptuously. "I am not a
dependant or a beggar!"
Josephine loved money, and pocketed it. "And the old curmudgeon is none
the wiser!" chuckled the dutiful daughter.
Ida stretched herself upon a lounge, and set seriously about reasoning
herself out of her despondency. She thought of Carry, and Lynn and
Charley; but they came reluctantly, with selfishly happy faces; with
their schemes and amusements and dearer friends. Mr. and Mrs. Dana
pitied her;--this was the spring of their kindness! and her haughty
soul winced at the idea. Hope and Fancy crept, with trailing wings,
into hiding-places until the sun should shine out--she sullenly hugged
her misery. What visionary who reads this, but has suffered from these
morbose fits?
"Well?" said she, tartly, as Rachel tiptoed across the floor.
"I thought you was asleep;" replied the sable damsel.
"I am awake--do you want anything?"
Rachel rubbed her chin, gave her turban a twitch, and fumbled in her
pocket "Law! I _ain't_ lost it, I _know_! It must be in my bosom!"
Ida, awakened by her movements, watched her as she produced a tiny
packet from the last-mentioned receptacle. With an odd compound of
awkwardness and affection, she slipped a ring upon her mistress' finger.
"Thar! it fits! don't it?" intensely complacent.
"But where did you get it, Rachel? is it for me?"
"For you, and nobody else, Miss Ida. I was determined your nose should
not be made a bridge of by everybody; so I've been a savin' my spare
coppers--(and no servant of yours wants for 'em,) and when you was
admirin' that ar ring of Miss Josephine's, I says to myself--'She shall
have one!' and when I'd cleaned up your room, I took off down town to
the jewellerers--and thar 'tis--wishin' you a Merry Christmas, and an
ever-lastin' Happy New Year, ma'am!" stepping back with a flourishing
courtesy. Ida tried to smile at her peroration, and failing, burst into
tears. Rachel was transfixed. She was not used to hysterics, and had
never seen her mistress weep before. Her consternation was a speedy
restorative; and Ida finally made her sensible that she was not grieved
or displeased, but overjoyed at her gift. Then the voluble Abigail
recollected "somethin' else" she had to communicate.
"Ain't that tall gentleman, with black whiskers, that visits here so
constant, named Mr. Lacy?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. When I went into the jewellerer's he was a standin'
at the counter, buyin' a pair of gold spectacles--for his mother--I
reckon. I heard him say they was for a lady. I asked for the rings, and
the shop-boy gave me a string of brassy, ugly things--and says I--'I
want a handsome one, sir, for my mistis.'
"'Your mistis!' says he. 'Them's plenty good for her!'
"'Are these the best you have?' says Mr. Lacy, sort o' frownin' and
talkin' like he was his master fifty times over.
"'No, sir--would you like to see some?' says the boy, turnin' white.
"'Bring them!' says Mr. Lacy; and when they come, he told me, with
the sweetest smile, and so respectful! 'These cost a great deal of
money--do you know it'?' So I showed him what I had, and he said
'twould do. Bimeby, I picked out two, and could not tell which was the
prettiest. I kept a-lookin' at one, and then at 'tother, and says he,
'Can't you choose between them?'
"'No, sir,' says I.
"'I think that the handsomest;' says he, pintin' to one, and that's
it you've got on your finger, this minute, Miss Ida. He seed that
low-lived boy give me the right change, and when I curchyed and said,
'I'm mightily obliged to you, sir;' he said, 'You are welcome,' just
like I'd been the Governor! We colored folks know a gentleman when we
see him, and _he_ is a real born one."
The ring was very elegant, and the blood mounted to Ida's temple's, as
she toyed with it.
"Perhaps, it was not Mr. Lacy?" said she, in a tone of extreme
indifference. "Where had you met him, that you know him?"
"I never met him nowhar. I seed him one Sunday, when he walked
home with you from church, and I was at the up-stairs window, and
once through the dinin'-room door when he was here to supper, and
once--through the parlor window."
"Peeping! Rachel! If he had seen you, he would not think as highly of
your manners, as you do of his."
"Peeping! Law! Miss Ida, them was sly glimpses, permiscuous-like, you
know. He warn't a-gwine to catch me."
A longer inspection of the ring. There was no blush this time, but
the smile was happier. The motive was then as pure as the action was
generous. The little shower had purified the murky atmosphere. This
token of remembrance, at a moment when she believed herself forgotten,
was none the less dear that the donor was a poor slave. It was the
fruit of self-denying affection; and had no sooner clasped her finger,
than it acted as the Open Sesame to a store-house of untold riches. "It
has taught me more than one lesson," she murmured.
Rachel was garrulously happy.
"I do-clar, Miss Ida, you've been gettin' prettier ever since I come
in;" said she, standing off to survey the effect of her toilette. "I
hope thar'll be a crowd at Mars' John's. Is it a dinin'-day?"
"No--a family party."
"That's a pity! I 'spect that's another present! It never rains but it
pours."
The footman said Mr. Dana was below. Charley waited to escort her to
his brother's; and Ida began to realise, as he paid the compliments of
the season, in a style, eminently "Char-leyish,"--that Christmas had
indeed come.
"Christmas gift! Christmas gift! cousin Ida," shouted two infantine
voices; and Charley the less, and Elle scampered down the porch-steps
to salute her. "Now mamma! now for the tree! She is here!"
"Oh! Mrs. Dana! have not they seen their tree? What suspense for the
dear creatures!"
"It was their wish; and their father would not consent that the door
should be unlocked until the family were assembled."
"Here is the last straggler!" exclaimed Lynn, springing into the group,
shaking hands with his friends, and kissing the children. "We are all
here!"
At a given signal, the door of the mysterious room was unfolded, and
revealed the tree; its precious load glittering and gay in the clear
winter day. Headed by "papa," and closed by the nurse and baby, the
procession performed a circuit, and then formed a ring. Uncle Charley
was distributor; accompanying each gift by an appropriate remark. For
Ida, there were a pair of ear-rings from John Dana; a bracelet of
fair hair, which did not require the simple "Carry" upon the chased
clasp, to signify from whose brow it had been shorn; a handsomely-bound
edition of Shelly's works--Lynn's taste; Charley gave a card case, a
Chinese curiosity, and evaded her thanks and praises by pointing out a
resemblance in the most grotesque figure, carved thereupon, to himself,
a circumstance, which he protested, induced him to select it. Among the
white buds of a perpetual rose-tree, hung a card--"Elle and Charley to
their dear cousin;" and Mrs. Dana finished the list with a rose-wood
work-box, supplied with every implement of female industry.
"Is this being friendless?" asked Ida, inly, looking at her
acquisitions. "For the rest of the day, I will be grateful and
contented."
The morning was spent in the nursery. On Christmas day, its door could
not bar intruders; there were no men or women; all were children,
Charley whipped his namesake's top; rocked the cradle; and instructed
Elle in domestic economy, as he helped arrange her baby-house. The
dinner-bell, rung an hour earlier than usual, on account of the wee
ones taking that meal with the "big folks," was faintly heard in
the din of a famous game of romps. The afternoon was less noisy;
the children fell asleep, wearied with frolic; the gentlemen walked
out; Mrs. Dana was busy; and so it was, that Ida sat alone in the
drawing-room, at nightfall, watching the passing of the pink light from
the clouds, and thinking--"Everything to gladden me, and yet ill at
ease! murmuring soul, be still!" And then she wished for the society of
a calmer mind, that should speak peace to the heavings of her unquiet
spirit; for the comprehensive charity, the benign philosophy, which
hoped for the best, and argued for the right--this was her version of
the outgoing of the woman's heart--"Would _he_ were here!"
But Elle's friends came early, and she had no time for higher thoughts
than filling small mouths with bread and butter--"run-the-thimble,"
the vexed question of "how many miles to Babylon;" and
"Chicken-me-chicken-me-craney-crow;" pastimes, whoso barbarous names
cause the refined juveniles of this precocious '54, to join their
gloved hands in thanksgiving, that their lot was not cast in those
times! As the dignified master of the house deigned to participate in
the ceremonies, we trust our heroine will not suffer a very grievous
letting-down in the opinion of these formidable critics, for the
prominent parts she assumed. A circle was ordered for "Fox and goose."
Charley played Reynard, and Ida, goose the first. The children enjoyed,
without fully understanding the game, and she had to keep the character
longer than the laws prescribed. Round and round they flew--circling
and doubling--the spectators screaming their applause--and she ran
directly against a gentlemen who was entering. Her impetus was such
that she would have fallen, but for his extended arm. A laughing voice
said something, unintelligible in her confusion.
"Oh! Mr. Lacy!" cried Elle. "I was _so_ afraid you wouldn't come!"
"I promised--did I not?" said he, stooping to kiss her.
"Yes, sir, but I thought maybe you'd rather go to Miss Anna Talbot's
party, like Miss--"
"Elle! Elle! no, no!" whispered Ida, in time to suppress the name.
"You see I had rather be at yours;" he returned, without noticing the
unfinished sentence. "What are you playing?"
"'Did you ever see a wild goose
Sailing on the ocean?'"
sang Charley.
"'The wild goose's motion
Was a mighty funny notion.'"
he added, aside to Ida.
No forced spirits now! The innocent fun--the converse of the social
circle, after the little ones had gone--the walk home, beneath the
tremulous stars--the "good night" and pressure, whose thrill lingered
in her fingers 'till sleep sealed her eyes--all were sources of
unutterable pleasure--pleasures born from one influence--flowing from
one presence.
A month later, Josephine returned from an evening concert, with a
violent toothache, the consequence of the sudden transition from the
steaming hall to the ice-cold air without. She tossed and groaned in
agony through the night; by morning the pain abated, a relief for which
she was wickedly ungrateful, when she beheld reflected in the mirror, a
tumefaction of the cheek, nearly closing one eye, and otherwise marring
the symmetry of her features. The pain came back at intervals during
the day; and with fretfulness, threw her into a fever. Dr. Ballard was
sent for. It was late in the evening when she awoke from the slumber,
gained by the anodyne he administered. The rain was plashing against
the window; there was no other sound except a subdued murmur of distant
voices. There were visitors in the parlor--who had ventured through the
storm? Her sharpened senses caught manly tones--tones she thought she
recognised; and then Ida's rippling, joyous laugh smote her unwilling
ear. The conversation became lower and more serious; and she could
endure no more. Unmindful of health and prudence, she hurried on a
dressing-gown, wrapped a shawl about her head, and glided down stairs,
as stealthily as a cat. The front room only was warmed and lighted, but
the folding-doors were ajar. Mr. Lacy stood by the mantel, hat in hand,
yet in no hurry to depart. He was playing with a rosebud he had plucked
from a vase near, but as unconscious of its beauty as of the lateness
of the hour. The expression with which he regarded the earnest speaker
before him was not to be mistaken. It even seemed that he would have
it understood, for a proud smile trembled over his mouth, as her eye
avoided his.
Josephine felt turned to stone. By a singular fatality, she had, up
to this time, remained ignorant of the growing intimacy between these
two. We have seen that many of their interviews were unknown to her,
although some of them occurred in her very presence; and Ida, in
obedience to Lynn's caution, had guarded against any appearance of
rivalship. Now, jealousy and perception awoke together--at one sweeping
glance backward, she saw herself slighted--foiled--duped! and she grew
faint at the sight of the frightful results of her lack of vigilance,
which rushed overwhelmingly upon her mind. Her native shrewdness soon
came to her aid. Matters were not so desperate. There was no word of
love;--she breathed more freely. "Not yet! not yet!" she hissed, under
her breath;--and the small hands clenched in passionate resolve, as
she added--"never!" The leave-taking was full of feeling, but friends
parted as kindly. The outer door clanged to; and Ida sank into her
chair. Buried in the cushions, she sat, looking into the blaze, a smile
of ineffable tenderness illumining her face; her cheeks bright with
unwonted scarlet. The patter of the rain upon the panes but lulled her
into deeper reverie. And in contrast to a foreground so rich and warm,
in its glowing colors and balmy air, and dreams of love and hope--was
the dark, chill background, with its shape of evil, hideous in her
distorted features and glowering hatred. Ida stooped suddenly. It
was to pick up the bruised bud Morton had dropped. She looked around
hurriedly, and with a more vivid blush, raised it to her lips, and hid
it in her bosom.
"Rose-buds are not the only things which are played with for a time,
then trampled under foot, as you shall learn ere long, my love-lorn
damsel!" said the wily schemer, stealing back to her chamber.
"With us, now, it is war to the death!"