OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
“All things, friendship excepted,
Are subject to fortune.”--LILLY.
The hands on the dial-plate of the clock pointed to quarter-past ten as
Hetty’s nimble fingers set the last stitch in the gown and Floy drew on
her gloves, having already donned hat and cloak in obedience to orders.
“Done!” cried Hetty, putting her needle in the cushion and her thimble
into her pocket. “Now, John, make way with these few basting threads
while I put on my duds, there’s a good soul!”
John--a well-grown lad of seventeen, in looks a happy mixture of father
and mother, in character an improvement upon both, having his mother’s
energy without her hardness and closeness--laid down the paper he had
been reading, and with the smiling rejoinder, “Pretty work to set a man
at, Het!” was about to comply with her request when Mary, coming in
from her mistress’s bedroom, her hands full of packages, interposed:
“Oh, never mind them! I’ll have them all out in the morning before
the Madame’s up. Here, Miss Goodenough, Miss Kemper, and Mr. John,
she charged me to give you each one of these. They’re boxes of fine
candies. She always lays in a great store of them about Christmas.”
“Ah, ha!” cried John as the street-door closed on him and his
companions, “won’t I have the laugh on Lu to-night, Het? He’d never
have let me be your gallant if he’d thought there was a box of candy to
be won by it.”
“A good thing he didn’t; he’ll manage as it is to get enough to make
himself sick,” she returned somewhat scornfully.
“It was so kind in you to come for me,” remarked Floy. “How did you
happen to do it, Hetty?”
“Because we wanted you--mother and I at least--and we thought it was
getting too late for you to come alone.”
Floy was very weary in body, inexpressibly sad and weary in heart and
mind. She strove to shake off her depression and respond to Hetty’s
merry mood; but in vain. She could not banish the thick-coming memories
of other holiday seasons made bright and joyous by the gifts, and still
more by the love, of those of whom she was now bereaved by death and
enforced separation.
Ah, what of Espy to-night?
Hetty read something of this in the sad eyes, and her mood changed to
quiet, subdued cheerfulness.
They entered the house quietly, letting themselves in with a latch-key,
and passed into the room back of the store.
Floy uttered a slight exclamation of pleased surprise as John turned up
the light.
The room had put on quite a festive appearance; all signs of work
had vanished, and it had been made neat and orderly, and its walls
tastefully decorated with evergreens.
“John’s doings,” said Hetty, pushing a cushioned arm-chair nearer
the fire. “Sit down here, my dear, and we’ll have some refreshments
shortly; you see the kettle’s boiling, and the coals are just splendid,
and we can take our time, as we’re not obliged to rise early to-morrow.
“Toast and tea, Jack, my boy; you and I know how to make ’em,” she went
on, throwing off cloak and hat, and producing the requisite articles
from a closet beside the chimney.
“I’ve already had three good meals to-day,” observed Floy, smiling
slightly.
“What of that? four or five hours of hard work since the last, beside
a brisk walk and a ride through the cold, ought to have made you ready
for another,” returned Hetty, giving John the toaster and a slice of
bread, then putting on the tea to draw.
“Have you nothing for me to do?” asked Floy.
“Yes; warm yourself thoroughly. Ah, what a good forgettery I have of
my own! Here’s something else to employ you. A bit of Christmas in it,
I suspect,” she ran on, taking a letter from the mantel and putting it
into Floy’s hand.
A flush of pleasure came into the young girl’s cheek as she recognized
in the address the writing of her old friend Miss Wells, but faded
again instantly, leaving it paler than before.
What news did this missive bring? would it tell her of Espy, and that
sorrow and bereavement had befallen him?
She broke the seal with a trembling hand. Ah, if she were only alone!
But Hetty and John, busy with their culinary labors, might have been
unconscious of her existence for all the notice they seemed to be
taking of her movements.
She opened the letter. A pair of black kid gloves and a folded
bank-note fell into her lap; but without waiting to examine them, she
glanced her eye down the page.
It was a kind, motherly letter, saying a great deal in few words; for
Miss Wells had but little time to give to correspondence.
“She sent a trifling gift just to assure her dear child of her loving
remembrance, and she inclosed ten dollars, fearing her purse might be
low (she had not forgotten how it was with herself in the days when she
was an apprentice and getting nothing but her board for her work); and
if Floy did not like to take it as a gift, as she would be only too
glad to have her do, then let it stand as a loan.”
“How kind, how very kind!” thought Floy.
Yes, her purse was very low, and such a loan from such a source was
very acceptable. Ah, here was Espy’s name! He had been called home to
see his mother die; she had had a stroke of paralysis, but the case
was not hopeless; she might linger a good while, and perhaps get about
again.
Floy breathed more freely.
There were just a few more lines.
“Dear child, sorrow and care will sometimes press heavily; you will
sadly miss the old loves; but take heart: ‘He careth for you,’ He who
loves you with a greater, tenderer love than a mother’s, and hath all
power in heaven and in earth.”
“Good news, I see! and I’m real glad for you, poor child!” said Hetty
softly, as she handed Floy a cup of fragrant tea and a slice of hot
buttered toast, and in so doing caught the look of sweet peace and joy
in the dewy eyes lifted from the letter to her face.
“Good news? oh, yes indeed! that I’m not forgotten, that I’m loved and
cared for still by--”
“Ah, yes, don’t I know how nice it is to be remembered by home friends
when you’re far away!” Hetty put in quickly, as the low, tremulous
tones faltered and fell, and Floy hastily drew out her handkerchief to
wipe away the tears she could not keep back.
“I too,” said John, buttering his toast and taking a sip of tea; “a
fellow gets awfully homesick sometimes at school, and a letter such as
you, for instance, dash off once in a while, Het, does him a world of
good.”
“News from home,” whispered Floy to herself, as she laid her weary head
upon her pillow; “yes, from my Father’s house; a sweet message from my
Elder Brother on the throne, reminding me anew that He cares for me;
how strange that, knowing that, I can ever be sad and anxious!”
It was the last waking thought. But, alas! what a pang of remembrance
came with the first moment of returning consciousness! One year ago how
loved and cared for, to-day how lonely and forsaken!
Ah no, not that! “He careth for you,” sweetly whispered the Comforter
to her aching heart, and she was comforted.
A few quiet tears dropped upon her pillow, but they were not all of
sadness.
A faint rustling sound came from the bed on the other side of the room,
then a whisper from Hetty.
“Merry Christmas, mothery! how are you this morning?”
“Oh, I’m splendid! I’m going to say everything’s splendid now. Merry
Christmas to you too. I wish I had a million to give you.”
“A million of what, mothery?” laughed the girl.
“Dollars, to be sure! But what is it Shakespeare says?”
“Don’t know, mothery; but it’s getting light, and I must get up and see
about breakfast.”
“Yes, and we’re to have Indian; Thorne insisted on it.”
“What in the world is that?” thought Floy, raising her head to look at
Hetty, who was making a hasty but very quiet toilet.
“Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” they cried simultaneously, ending
in a merry laugh.
“We’ll exchange Yankee sixpences when we get our faces washed,” said
Hetty. “Breakfast in twenty minutes precisely. Indian all hot and hot!”
and with the last word she darted from the room.
“Thorne gives a good bit o’ trouble one way and another,” observed Mrs.
Goodenough, who had risen also and was dressing much more deliberately
than Hetty had done; “he’ll have what he wants in spite of everything
(in the line of trouble to other folks ’specially). But then there
ain’t many that’s equivalent to him in learning. There isn’t anything
but what he’s read; he knows everything. So it’s quite natural Prue
should be proud of him and spoil him with humoring all his whims.”
“Do we all breakfast together this morning, Mrs. Goodenough?” asked
Floy.
“Yes; but I’m going to wear this thick wrapper; it’s not handsome or
dressy, but the comfort supersedes the outward appearance.”
With this remark she left the room.
Floy was glad of the few moments of solitude thus afforded her. It was
growing light, and she found time before the call to breakfast for
another peep at her precious letter. She hurried down at the first
stroke of the bell, anxious to avoid meeting the Sharps on the stairway.
Patsy, in her ordinary soiled, frowsy-headed, slipshod condition, was
setting the chairs up to the table, on which Mrs. Goodenough and Hetty
were arranging an unusually inviting meal.
“Don’t delude yourself with the hope that you are about to be regaled
upon pound-cake, Miss Kemper,” remarked Hetty, placing a loaf of hot
corn-pone near Floy’s plate, another at the farther end of the board.
“No, it’s only Indian,” said Mrs. Goodenough, “but it’s splendid, and
more than equivalent to pound-cake for breakfast.”
“Yes indeed,” said Floy, “_I_ greatly prefer it, at any rate; I’m
extremely fond of good corn-bread.”
“Well, Hetty’s is always superior to the best.”
“Superior to the best, eh?” sneered the Thorne, as with pompous air
he came leisurely in and took his accustomed seat. “Madam, that is a
contradiction in terms.”
“Well, if it isn’t good enough for you, you needn’t eat it,” she
returned indifferently; “but let’s sit down and begin while it’s hot.”
The Thorne was evidently in no holiday mood. “Where are the children?”
he demanded, with a scowl, glancing about upon the empty seats as he
took up the carving knife and fork.
“Don’t wait for them; they’ll be here presently,” said his wife.
“Presently, madam!” he growled; “they ought to have been ready an
hour ago. You are bringing up your children to ruinous habits of
self-indulgence.”
“Example is better than precept,” Hetty could not help remarking.
“And pray, miss, what do you mean by that?” he asked, turning almost
fiercely upon her.
“Surely a man of Mr. Sharp’s talent and erudition can have no
difficulty in understanding words so simple,” she replied, with a
twinkle of fun in her eye.
“Come, don’t let’s quarrel to-day of all days in the year,” put in her
mother good-humoredly. “Here’s John, anyhow,” as the lad came briskly
in with a “Merry Christmas to you all!”
“Where have you been, sir, that you are so late to this very late
breakfast?” asked his father, ignoring the greeting.
“Round to the grocer’s on the corner, sir.”
“Doing an errand for me,” said Hetty, “and he’s not to be scolded; for
if it hadn’t been for him--getting me kindling to hurry up my fire, and
assisting in various ways--breakfast would have been later than it is.”
“Where now, Prudence?”
Mrs. Sharp had risen hastily and pushed back her chair.
“I must go up and see if Araminta is sick, Thorne; the poor thing was
too tired yesterday with her journey to do anything but lounge about.”
“Humph! I dare say; you are ruining that child with your coddling.”
“Ah, here she comes! Lucian too,” said Mrs. Sharp in a relieved tone,
resuming her seat as the door opened and a girl of fifteen, looking
only half awake and far from neat, in a loose, somewhat soiled morning
dress and hair in crimps, came languidly in, followed by a lad some
four years older, the veritable counterpart of his father in appearance
and manners.
The latter had a scowl and rebuke for each, which were received as
matters of course.
“Don’t scold ’em, Thorne,” said their aunt; “the poor things have so
much book attention when they’re at school!”
“You’re rather late, children,” the mother remarked, helping them
bountifully; “times are changed since you were little things. Then we
could hardly keep you from waking us too soon Christmas morning.”
“That was when we were children indeed, and hung up our stockings,”
said Lucian, “and didn’t know what was in them. Now you just give us
the money and let us buy for ourselves.”
A loud peal from the door-bell sent Patsy flying out to the hall. She
returned in a moment with a letter, two packages, and the morning paper.
“For me! I know they are!” cried Araminta, waking up. “Here, Patsy,
give them to me. Dear me, no! how provoking! they’re every one directed
to Miss Kemper,” and she looked around inquiringly.
Upon that John introduced the two, and Floy’s property was somewhat
reluctantly resigned to her.
She had finished her meal, and, asking to be excused, was leaving the
room, when an exclamation from John, who was glancing over the paper,
stayed her steps.
“Lea! what Lea is it, I wonder?--‘was arrested yesterday on a criminal
charge, and has committed suicide. His affairs are found to be
hopelessly involved.’”
“Doesn’t it give his Christian name?” asked Mrs. Sharp, with interest.
“Yes: Abner.”
“Just so; there’s a good customer lost!” she exclaimed in a tone of
vexation.
“And they were so rich!” remarked her sister; “what turns of the wheel
of fortune! What is it Shakespeare says?”
Floy hurried away to the privacy of Hetty’s parlor, sighing softly to
herself, “Poor Miss Carrie! Ah, there are heavier trials than mine!”
Half an hour later Hetty looked in. “May I see what Santa Claus has
sent you?”
“Yes, indeed. A dozen beautifully fine handkerchiefs, with Madame Le
Conte’s card--”
“Just like her! she’s the soul of generosity so far as money is
concerned.”
“And a letter--such a nice one--and some warm stockings of her own
knitting from my kind old friend Mrs. Bond,” concluded Floy.
“How splendid!” said Hetty. “You shall sit here and answer it, and the
other if you like, while I see about dinner; and this afternoon we’ll
take a walk and look at the fine things in the shop windows.”