At the very time Mr Dulcimer was assisting Miss Wynter across the
stepping-stones, the stranger whose unexpected appearance the previous
night had so startled Madame De Vigne was pacing leisurely up the
valley in the direction of the waterfall.
When, on inquiring for Madame De Vigne at the hotel that morning, he
was told that she had gone out for the day with a picnic party, his
suspicious nature at once took the alarm. Might she not by some means
have discovered his presence in the hotel? he asked himself; and might
not this story of the picnic be nothing more than a subterfuge, by
means of which she would obtain a start of several hours in her efforts
to escape from him? He at once ordered a fly and set off in pursuit. On
reaching the place where the wagonettes had been left, he found that if
he persisted in his search for Madame De Vigne, he would be compelled
to do the rest of the distance on foot. He disliked walking, but in
this case there was no help for it; accordingly, he set out on his way
to the glen with such grace as there might be in him.
He was a man to all appearance about forty years of age—he might
be a little older; but his figure was still as lithe and active as
that of many a man of twenty. He had jet-black hair, and his closely
cropped beard and moustache were of the same hue. He had large, white,
carnivorous-looking teeth, and small black eyes as piercing as gimlets,
with now and then a strange, furtively suspicious look glancing at you
out of their corners. His features were aquiline, rather finely cut,
and his complexion sallow. By the majority of people he would have been
accounted a fairly handsome man. He was fashionably dressed, but it was
after the fashion of a Parisian dandy, not that of a London swell; and
there is a vast difference in the styles of the two.
When he had passed through the wicket which gave admittance to the glen
and was within a few yards of the bridge, he paused and gazed around.
Not a creature was to be seen, for, before this, Dick and Bella had
gone on a further journey of exploration and were no longer visible.
‘So! This must be the place where they told me that I should find her,’
said the stranger to himself in French. ‘But she is not here. Well, I
can wait.’ He advanced a few yards farther up the glen. ‘We could not
have a better place for our meeting. There will be no one to overhear
what we shall have to say to each other. Ah, _ma chère_ Mora, what a
surprise for you! How enchanted you will be to find that your brave
Hector is not dead, as they wrote and told you he was, but alive, and
burning to embrace you! What happiness for both of us!’
He had been climbing slowly up the ravine, and by this time he had
reached the spot where Mora had been sitting but a short time before.
Her sketch-book attracted his eye; he took it up and opened it.
‘Hers! Here is her name. She cannot be far away. A man’s head—a
likeness evidently. The same again—and yet again. I must find out the
name of this monsieur. I shall have much pleasure to introduce myself
to him.’ A slight noise startled him. He shut the book and raised his
eyes. ‘Ah! here comes my angel,’ he exclaimed. ‘_Sacre bleu!_ she is
handsomer than ever.’
For the moment Mora did not perceive him. When she did, she put a hand
quickly to her heart and gave a great gasp.
‘Ah!’ What a volume of meaning that little word conveyed!
Monsieur De Miravel—for such was the name he now chose to be known
by—advanced a step or two smilingly, and bowed with all a Frenchman’s
grace. ‘_Me voici!_’ he said. ‘Hector—thy husband—not dead, but alive
and’——
She stopped him with an imperious gesture. ‘Wretch—coward—felon!’ she
exclaimed, and her voice seemed to express the concentrated passion and
hatred of years. ‘I could never quite believe that I had been fortunate
enough to lose you for ever. I had a presentiment that I should some
day see you again. Why have you followed me? But I need not ask. It is
to rob me again, as you robbed me before. _Voleur!_’
She stood before him drawn up to the full height of her magnificent
beauty, her bosom heaving, her eyes dilating, her head thrown slightly
back, her clenched hands hanging by her sides, her shoulders a little
raised. Even the scoundrel whom she had addressed could not help
admiring her as she towered before him in all the splendour of her
passion.
A small red spot flamed on either cheek, but his voice had still a
smile in it when next he spoke. ‘Ah ha!’ he said. ‘You are still the
same charming Mora that you always were! You still call me by the same
pretty names! How it brings back the days of long ago!’
‘How much money do you want of me?’ she demanded abruptly. ‘What price
do you expect me to pay that I may rid myself of your presence?’
‘Softly, _ma chère_, softly. I have not been at all this great trouble
and expense to discover you, without having something to say to you. I
want to talk what you English call business.’
‘Name your price and leave me.’
‘Taisez-vous, je vous prie. You are here, and you must listen to me.
You cannot help yourself.’
Madame De Vigne bit her lip, but did not reply.
De Miravel sat down, crossed his legs, leant back a little, and looked
up at her with half-shut eyes. ‘Five years ago,’ he began, ‘you
received a certain letter in which you were informed that I was dead.
That letter, by some strange error, was forwarded to the wrong person.
It was not I, your husband, who was dead, but another man of the same
name—another Hector Laroche. When the mistake was discovered, you had
left the place where you had previously been living, and no one knew
what had become of you. Two years ago I found myself in Paris again.
When I had arranged my private affairs, which had suffered during my
long absence, I began to make inquiries concerning the wife from whom I
had been so cruelly torn, and whom my heart was bleeding to embrace.’
‘_Menteur!_’ ground out Mora between her teeth.
He waved, as it were, the epithet aside with an airy gesture of his
hand, and continued: ‘For a long time I could hear nothing concerning
her, and I began to fear that I had lost her for ever. But at length a
clue was put into my hands. I discovered that, in consequence of the
death of a relative, my incomparable wife had come into a fortune of
twelve thousand francs a year—that she had changed her name from Madame
Laroche to that of her aunt, Madame De Vigne, and that she and her
sister had gone to make their home in England. Naturally, I follow my
wife to England, and here, to-day, _me voici!_’
‘Your price—name your price,’ was all that the lady deigned to answer.
‘Pardon. I am not in want of money—at present. It was my wife whom I
sought everywhere, and now that I have found her, I do not intend ever
to leave her again.’
‘Liar and villain!’
‘Doucement, je vous prie. Listen! I am no longer so young as I once
was. I have travelled—I have seen the world—I am _blasé_. I want a
home—I want what you English call my own fireside. Where, then, should
be my home—where should be my fireside, but with my wife—the wife
from whom I have been torn for so many cruel years, but whom, _parole
d’honneur_, I have never ceased to love and cherish in my heart!’
‘Oh! this is too much,’ murmured Mora under her breath, the fingers
of one hand griping those of the other like a vice. The tension was
becoming greater than she could bear.
‘But there need be no scandal, no éclaircissement among my dear wife’s
English friends,’ went on De Miravel with the same hard, set smile.
‘I have thought of all that. Madame Laroche is dead—Hector Laroche is
dead. In their place we have here, Madame De Vigne, a charming widow;
and Monsieur De Miravel, a bachelor not too antique to marry. Monsieur
De Miravel has known and admired Madame De Vigne before her marriage
to her late husband. What more natural than that he should admire her
still, that he should make her an offer of his hand, and that she
should accept it? So one day Madame De Vigne and Monsieur De Miravel
are quietly married, and, _pouf!_ all the respectable English friends
have dust thrown in their eyes!’
For a moment or two Mora stared at him in silence; then she said in a
low voice: ‘And you propose this to me!—to me!’
‘Sérieusement, ma chère—sérieusement. It is a beautiful little scheme.’
‘If you will not take your price and leave me, I at least can leave
you,’ she answered in low, determined tones. ‘No power on earth can
compel me to live with you for a single hour as your wife, and no power
shall. I would sooner drop dead at your feet.’
The Frenchman bent his head and sniffed at the flower in his
button-hole. When he lifted his face again there was a strange
expression in his eyes, which his unhappy wife remembered only too
well, and caused her to shudder in spite of herself. She felt that the
scorpion’s sting of what he had to say to her was yet to come. When he
next spoke, there was the same cold, cruel glitter in his eyes that
travellers tell us is to be seen in the eyes of a cobra at the moment
it is about to strike.
‘Mademoiselle your sister—what a beautiful young lady she is!’ he said,
speaking even more softly than he had done before, and balancing his
cane on a couple of fingers as he spoke. ‘I saw her this morning for
the first time. She is to be married in a little while to the son of a
rich English _milord_. Is it not so? _Eh bien!_ I wonder what this rich
_milord_, this Sir William, would say, and what the young gentleman,
his son, would say, if they were told that the sister of the charming
Mademoiselle Clarice was the wife of a _déporté_—of Hector Laroche,
a man who had worked out a sentence of penal servitude at Noumea. Of
course the rich Sir William would at once take Monsieur Laroche to
lunch with him at his club, and the young gentleman would present him
with a little cheque for five or six thousand francs; and he would be
asked to give the bride away at the wedding, and he would sign his name
in the register, thus—“Hector Laroche, _ex-déporté_, number 897.”’
For a moment or two it seemed to Mora as if earth and heaven were
coming together.
‘So, fiend! miscreant! that is your scheme, is it?’
‘I have shown you my cards,’ he answered with a shrug. ‘I have hidden
nothing from you. So now, _chère_ Madame De Vigne, you have only to
give your promise to marry your devoted De Miravel; and the moment you
do that, Hector Laroche dies and is buried out of sight for ever, and
neither Sir William nor his son will know that such a _vaurien_ ever
existed.’
‘Leave me—leave me!’ she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
He glanced at her keenly. It was evident that just at present she could
bear no more. It was not his policy to drive her to extremities. He
rose from his seat.
‘I will go and promenade myself for a little while,’ he said. ‘In half
an hour I will return.’
He raised his hat as he might have done to a duchess. She stood a
little aside, to let him pass, but did not allow her eyes to rest on
him for a moment. He turned and took the path which led up the ravine.
Mora sank down wearily on the seat he had vacated. At that moment she
felt as if she would have been grateful for the earth to open and
swallow her up. She was appalled at the blackness of the gulf to the
edge of which her husband had just dragged her. What should she do?
Whither should she turn? To whom should she look for help? Alas! in all
the wide world there was no one who could help her—least of all the man
whose strong protecting love had seemed but yesterday as though it were
able to shield her from every harm.
‘I am in the coils of a Python that will slowly but surely strangle
me,’ she said. ‘Yes—death alone can release me. And only yesterday
I was so happy! If I could but have died at the moment Harold
pressed his lips to mine! Why does he not come? I must tell him
everything—everything. And after that?’ She shuddered, and rose to her
feet. ‘And he loves me so much!’ she said with a heart-broken sigh.
‘Poor Harold! Poor Harold!’
Scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she turned and took the same
path that she had taken before when she went to watch for Colonel
Woodruffe’s coming up the valley. Her one burning desire now was to see
him; beyond that, her mind at present refused to go.
* * * * *
‘I am afraid that as an ambassador the colonel was a failure.’
The speaker was Mr Etheridge, and it was to Clarice Loraine that his
remark was addressed.
Mr Etheridge had had pointed out to him and had duly admired the
view so much extolled by the young girl, and the two were now slowly
sauntering back to their starting-point. By this time Clarice felt
herself quite at ease with her companion, so much so, indeed, that in
her prettily confidential way she had told him all about how Archie and
she became acquainted, how they grew to love each other, how Archie
proposed and was accepted, and how surprised they all were afterwards
to find that he was a baronet’s son. Then she went on to tell him of
Archie’s letter to his father, the first result of which was Colonel
Woodruffe’s visit at the vicarage.
‘Well, and what happened after the colonel’s visit?’ continued Mr
Etheridge.
‘Archie wrote again, twice; but there came no answer till yesterday,
when he received the telegram which summoned him to meet his father in
London.’
‘Supposing Sir William should refuse his consent, what would the result
be in that case?’
‘That is more than I can tell,’ she answered with a little trembling of
her lips. ‘But before Archie left us, my sister told him that he went
away a free man—that if his father were opposed to the marriage, we
should look upon his promise as if it had never been given; and that if
we never saw him again, we should know the reason why, and never blame
him in our thoughts.’
‘And you agreed with what your sister said?’
‘With every word of it.’
‘That was very brave of you. But what had Mr Archie to say to such an
arrangement?’
‘He laughed it to scorn. He said he would do all that lay in his power
to win his father’s consent, but that—that’——
‘In any case, he would hold you to your promise, and come back and
claim you for his wife? Mr Archie would find himself a very poor man if
Sir William were to cut off his allowance.’
‘That is a prospect which does not seem to frighten him in the least.’
‘But doubtless it would not be without its effect upon you, Miss
Loraine. You would hardly care to tie yourself for life to a pauper.’
‘O Mr Etheridge, what a strange opinion you must have formed of me! I
would marry Archie if he had not a sovereign to call his own.’
‘The charming imprudence of a girl in love. Then you would marry him in
opposition to his father’s wishes?’
‘Now you ask me a question that I cannot answer. That, and that only,
would cause me to hesitate.’
‘Why should the wishes of a selfish valetudinarian—of a man whom you
have never seen—cause you to hesitate, or be allowed to come between
you and the happiness of your life?’
‘Ah! but could I ever be really happy with the knowledge for ever in
my mind that I had been the cause of separating a father from his son,
and that by becoming Archie’s wife I had blighted the fairest prospects
of his life? And then, perhaps—who can tell?—after a time he might
become a little tired of me—men do sometimes tire of their wives, don’t
they?—and then he might begin to remember and regret all that he had
sacrificed in marrying me; and that, I think, would nearly break my
heart.’
The old man laid his hand caressingly on her arm for a moment. ‘Well,
well, we must hope for the best,’ he said. ‘We must hope that Sir
William will not prove a very flinty-hearted papa.’
She smiled up gratefully in his face. ‘Tell me, Mr Etheridge, is Sir
William a very terrible person to have to do with?’
He broke into a little laugh. ‘Terrible, miss? No; hardly that, I
think; but eccentric, if you please. The fact is that Sir William is
one of those men of whom it can never be predicated with certainty what
view he will take, or what conclusion he will arrive at, with regard to
any matter that may be brought before him. He has an obnoxious habit
of thinking and deciding for himself, and is seldom led by the opinions
of others. Yes, undoubtedly Sir William is a very eccentric man.’
They had got back to the bridge by this time. ‘Why, I declare, yonder
comes Colonel Woodruffe!’ exclaimed Clarice. ‘I am _so_ pleased—and so
will Mora be.’
‘Evidently the colonel is a favourite,’ said Mr Etheridge drily.
‘Of course he is. Everybody likes Colonel Woodruffe. But probably you
know him already, Mr Etheridge?’
‘I have met him occasionally at Sir William’s house. I have no doubt he
would remember me if you were to mention my name.’
‘I will go and speak to him, if you will excuse me for a few moments.’
Clarice sped quickly across the bridge. Mr Etheridge sat down on the
parapet and fanned himself with his hat.
The colonel, who had been gazing round him in some perplexity, hurried
forward the moment he perceived Miss Loraine.
‘Good-morning, Colonel Woodruffe,’ said the girl as she held out her
hand. ‘I am delighted to find that you have discovered us.’
‘Your sister told me that you were all to be at High Ghyll to-day, so
I have driven round in search of you. But where are the rest of the
party?’
‘Gone in search of the picturesque, I have no doubt. Mora was here a
little while ago; and see’—pointing with her finger—‘yonder are her
sketch-book and shawl, so that she cannot be far away.’
The colonel had been gazing over Clarice’s shoulder at Mr Etheridge.
‘Whom have you yonder?’ he asked. ‘I seem to know his face.’
‘Such a dear old gentleman!—Mr Etheridge, Sir William Ridsdale’s
secretary.’
‘Sir William Ridsdale’s secretary!’ echoed the colonel with an air of
stupefaction.
‘Yes; he recognised you the moment he saw you. He says that he has met
you occasionally at Sir William’s house.’
‘Oh, indeed! But what has brought him here, may I ask?’
‘He has come all the way from Spa with a letter for Archie from his
father. But when he reached here this morning, he found that Archie
had been telegraphed for last evening to meet his father in London.—It
seems very strange, doesn’t it? But then, as Mr Etheridge says, Sir
William is a very eccentric man.’
‘Very eccentric, indeed,’ responded the colonel absently.
‘So that of course accounts for it.—But yonder comes Mora.’
The colonel turned eagerly. ‘Then, with your permission, I will leave
you to Mr Etheridge.’
‘We shall see you at luncheon, of course?’
‘You may rely upon me not to miss that,’ answered the colonel with a
laugh.
Clarice kissed her hand to her sister, and then went back to Mr
Etheridge. She wanted to afford the colonel an opportunity for a
_tête-à-tête_ with Mora, so she at once proposed another ramble to Mr
Etheridge, who assented with alacrity.
The moment Colonel Woodruffe drew near Mora De Vigne, he saw that
something was amiss. She looked an altogether different woman from her
whom he had parted from only a few hours before with a tender light of
love and happiness in her eyes. His heart misgave him as he walked up
to her.
‘What has happened?’ he asked in anxious tones as he took her hand.
‘What has wrought this change in you? Your hand is like ice.’
She gazed up into his face for a moment or two without speaking, with
a dumb, pitiful wistfulness in her eyes, that affected him strangely.
Then she said: ‘Why did you not read the letter which I gave you last
evening?’
He gazed at her for a moment. ‘You know my reasons for not reading it.
But why do you ask that now?’
‘Because, if you had read it, you would have saved me from having
to tell so much to-day, which, in that case, you would have known
yesterday.’
‘Pardon me, but you speak in enigmas.’
‘You have read of earthquakes, although you may never have felt the
shock of one. One minute all is fair, bright, and beautiful; the
next, there is nothing but ruin, disaster, and death. Since I saw you
yesterday, the foundations of my life, which I thought nothing could
ever shake more, have crumbled into utter ruin around me.’
‘How can that be, while I am here to guard and cherish you? Yesterday,
you gave me your love—your life. What power on earth can tear them from
me?’
‘Ah me! Listen, and you shall learn.’
She sat for a few moments with bent head, as if scarcely knowing how to
begin. The colonel was standing a little way from her, one of his arms
twined round the slender stem of a sapling.
‘What I am about to tell you is the life-story of a most unhappy
woman,’ she said, lifting her head and gazing sadly into his eyes. ‘My
father was an Englishman, who was engaged for many years in business
near Paris. I was educated in a convent, as girls are educated in
France. I had left the convent about a year, and was keeping my
father’s house—my mother having died meanwhile, and my sister being
away at school—when a certain Monsieur Laroche became a frequent
visitor. Before long, my father told me that his affairs were deeply
involved. Laroche was the only man who could or would save him, and
that only on condition that I became his wife. I was little more than
a child in worldly knowledge; I knew that in France the question of
a girl’s marriage is always settled by her parents; so, although I
already detested the man, I yielded to my father’s entreaties, and
became Madame Laroche. Within a year, my father died—by his own hand.’
‘My poor Mora!’
‘Whatever wreck of property he left behind, my husband contrived
to obtain possession of. But before that time, I knew him to be an
inveterate gambler, and worse! Of my life at that time I care not now
to speak. Can there be many such men as he in the world—such tigers in
human form? I hope not.
‘Some time after, when my life had become a burden almost greater than
I could bear, there came news of the death of my godmother, and that
she had left me a legacy of two thousand pounds. The money had not been
six hours in my possession, before my husband broke open my bureau and
robbed me of the whole of it, together with my own and my mother’s
jewels. I was left utterly destitute. A few months later came the war,
the siege of Paris, and the famine. Oh! that terrible time. I often
live it over again in my dreams even now.’
‘And you have gone through all this!’ said the colonel.
‘I had no tidings of my husband till the war was over,’ resumed Mora.
‘Then came news indeed. He had been detected cheating at cards—there
had been a quarrel—the lights had been blown out, and the man who had
accused him had been shot through the heart. My husband was tried,
found guilty, and condemned to a long term of penal servitude.’
‘A happy riddance for you and every one,’ remarked the colonel with a
shrug.
‘I had friends who did not desert me in my extremity. I gave lessons
in English, and so contrived to live. One day there came an official
notification that my husband was dead. He had died in prison, and had
been buried in a convict’s grave. Was it wicked to feel glad when I
read the news? If so, then was I wicked indeed.’
‘No one but a hypocrite could have pretended to feel otherwise than
glad.’
‘My sister was with me by that time. I never told her the history of my
marriage, and my husband she had never seen. She knew only that I had
been deserted and was now a widow. Our quiet life went on for a time,
and then, by the death of an aunt, I came into possession of a small
fortune. I changed my name, as requested in my aunt’s will, and after a
little while Clarice and I came to England. The rest you know.’
The colonel looked puzzled. ‘Pardon me,’ he said, ‘if I fail to see why
you have thought it needful to tell me to-day that which I did not wish
or ask to be enlightened about yesterday.’
‘I have told you this to-day because yesterday, a little while after
you left me, I saw—my husband.’
‘Your husband!—But how’—— He stared at her as though he could not say
another word. Mora was now the calmer of the two.
‘The letter which I received five years ago informing me of his death
was sent to me in error. Another man bearing the same name as my
husband—a _déporté_ like him, had died; and somehow one convict would
seem to have been mistaken for the other.’
‘O Mora, Mora, and am I then to lose you!’ cried the colonel.
She did not speak; but at that moment all the anguish of her soul was
revealed in her eyes.
Involuntarily he moved from the place where he had been standing and
sat down by her side.
‘And I love you so dearly!—so dearly!’
‘And I you!’ she answered scarcely above a whisper. ‘I may tell you
this now—for the last time.’
Their hands sought each other, touched and clasped. In the silence
that ensued, the leaves seemed whispering among themselves of that
which they had just heard; while the stream went frothing and fuming
on its way like some wordy egotist who cares for nothing save his own
ceaseless babble.
‘And this miscreant has tracked you?’ said the colonel at length.
‘He was with me but just now. He may return at any moment.’
‘Such vermin as he have seldom more than one thought, one want—Money. I
am rich, and if’——
Mora shook her head. ‘He wants more than money.’
‘Ha!’
‘You do not know Hector Laroche. As I said before, he is a tiger in
human form. He loves gold; but he loves still better to have under his
claws a writhing, helpless, palpitating victim, whom he can torture and
play with and toss to and fro at his pleasure, over whose agonies he
can gloat, and whose heart he can slowly vivisect and smile while he
does it.’
‘And he would make such a victim of you?’
‘He has done it once, and he would do it again. He is now passing under
a false name. What he demands is, that instead of claiming me as the
wife whom he married several years ago, I shall go through a second
form of marriage with him under the name he is now known by, and that
by such means the dark story of his former life shall be buried for
ever.’
‘There is no law, human or divine, that can compel you to accede to
so monstrous a demand,’ exclaimed the colonel in tones resonant with
indignation.
‘As I said before—you do not know the man. Should I refuse to accede
to his wishes, he threatens to go to Sir William Ridsdale—for with
his usual diabolical ingenuity, he has found out all about Clarice’s
engagement—and say to him: “Are you aware that your son is about to
marry a person whose sister is the wife of a _déporté_—of a man who has
undergone a term of penal servitude?” And, O Colonel Woodruffe! if he
does that—if he does that, what will become of my poor Clarice!’
‘A scheme worthy of the Foul Fiend himself!’ exclaimed the colonel as
he sprang to his feet.
There was a painful pause. The colonel was thoroughly taken aback by
what he had just heard. At length he said slowly: ‘Surely—surely there
must be some way of escape.’
Mora shook her head. ‘I know of none,’ she answered simply.
A few moments later, there was a noise of approaching footsteps. The
colonel drew a pace or two farther away.
CHRISTMAS TREES.
THEIR SHADY SIDE.
The few words I am about to write upon the subject of Christmas Trees
for children may perhaps be best illustrated by what originally gave
rise to these remarks—namely, the first festivity of the kind attended
by my own juveniles. It was given by a friend, whose rooms were narrow
in proportion to the numbers of small people she expected, and seniors
were therefore not included in the invitations. I was asked, however,
to go on the morning of the party to inspect the tree when it was set
up and loaded with its treasures. A goodly array they surely formed.
Toys of every kind, most of them very costly; for my friend had been
regardless of expense. He calculated that eighty pounds would scarcely
cover the outlay upon the articles provided. When I considered how
easy to please in their playthings children often are; how tenderly
the battered doll or dilapidated horse is sometimes cherished; how the
sixpenny toy with the charm of novelty upon it, will put out of favour
its guinea predecessor—for children, unlike adults, do not estimate
things because of their money value—I could not help thinking this
was a sad waste of money. The delicate machinery of those expensive
mechanical toys would also run great risk of being put out of order or
broken among the crowd of eager children, with no parents present to
guard them from injury. Altogether, the gorgeous Christmas tree seemed
destined to be ‘a thing of beauty and of joy’ for a very short time
indeed.
The eventful evening arrived, and great was the excitement. My small
daughter was a pretty child, and very comely she looked in her dainty
lace-trimmed frock and pink ribbons, when, with her young brother, she
came fluttering into my boudoir; nurse, proud and pleased, escorting
the pair and carrying their wraps. With true feminine instinct, the
little damsel betook herself to the tall pier-glass, surveying her
finery therein with much satisfaction. ‘I daresay,’ she said, turning
round after a prolonged gaze, ‘that I shall be the nicest-dressed
little girl at the party!’
‘No, indeed—that you won’t,’ promptly interposed nurse. ‘Don’t you go
to think such a thing, dear. You’ll see, when you get into the room,
there’ll be a-many little ladies just as nice as yourself, perhaps even
nicer.’ Which speech was a sacrifice of candour on the part of nurse,
who was given to regard her young charge as being as good as the best,
though she felt called on by duty to nip vanity in the bud.
The morning after a night’s dissipation is generally a trying one,
when excitement has passed off and reaction set in. Late hours and
hot rooms, fruits and pastries and unwholesome liquids at times when
healthy slumbers would otherwise have been the order of the night, are
apt to have a damaging effect upon the temper. The present occasion was
no exception to the rule. My children were not looking their happiest
when they appeared carrying a load of things which they laid roughly
down and proceeded to turn over with a listless air.
‘What lovely toys!’ I exclaimed. It was truly an _embarras de
richesses_. There were treasures that, if gradually bestowed, would
have driven the recipients wild with delight. ‘What fortunate young
people you are!’ I added, examining the glittering heap that they were
surveying so discontentedly. ‘Don’t you think so?’
‘The little B——s got much better things!’ they murmured.
‘This doll, so beautifully dressed’——
‘Ah, if you had seen the one Mary got!’ pouted the little girl, pushing
with her foot the despised doll. ‘It opened and shut its eyes, and had
a pearl necklace and embroidered shoes. And Mary was so conceited and
disagreeable about it; and so ill-natured, she’d scarcely let me look
at it. I hate Mary B——!’
‘You were great friends with her,’ cried the young brother, ‘until she
got that better doll; and you were just as conceited, too, about your
own, until hers cut it out.’
‘Oh, _you_ needn’t talk, after the way you behaved to poor little Fred
H——. Would you believe it, mamma? he quarrelled with that poor child—a
little mite of a fellow, not half his size—hustling and bullying him,
and wanting to drag away his book that he got for a prize.’
‘No; I did not want to drag it away from him. Don’t tell stories. ’Twas
to be an exchange. I got a ridiculous toy-horse—a little rubbishy
thing, only fit for a baby like him; and he said he would take it and
give me the book—a lovely _Robinson Crusoe_, that he couldn’t read. And
then the stupid little fellow howled when I went to get it from him.’
‘And you flew into a rage, and smashed the toy; and the governess said
it was a shame, and’——
‘Oh, come!’ I said, interrupting recriminations that were getting
angry, and putting a stop to the dispute.
It was not the moment for impressing moral truths upon the young pair;
but while deferring these to a more fitting opportunity, I made my
own reflections upon Christmas trees in general and this party in
particular.
It was plain that envy, hatred, and much uncharitableness had resulted
from it—feelings latent, alas! in our poor human nature, that need not
premature development. Discontent too, and rivalry and greed were, it
would seem from the nature of the entertainment, liable to be aroused
in childish breasts. So I locked away the disparaged prizes, until
later on, when the satiety produced by a glut had passed off and
envious comparisons were forgotten.
We had merry gatherings of small people at wholesome hours, and happy
little feasts, and games and romps in every-day clothes. But this was
my children’s first—and last—Christmas Tree.
THE MISSING CLUE.