IS THIS CHRISTMAS?
Yes; it was, as you have said, a very curious Christmas
service for all those people.
What Horace turned his mind to, at intervals, has
been told.
Of the elder members of our little company who sat
there near the head of the side aisle, it may be said, in
general, that they did their best to keep their hearts
and minds engaged in the service, and that sometimes they
succeeded. They succeeded better while they could really
join in the hymns and the prayers than they did when it
came to the sermon. Good Dr. Gill, overruled by one of
those lesser demons, whose work is so apparent though so
inexplicable in this finite world, had selected for the
text of his sermon of gladness the words, "Search and
look." And so it happened--it was what did not often
happen with him--he must needs repeat those words often,
at the beginning and end, indeed, of every leading
paragraph of the sermon. Now this duty of searching and
looking had been just what all the elder members of
the Molyneux family had been solidly doing--each in his
way or hers, directly or by sympathy--in the last forty-
eight hours. To get such relief as they might from it,
they had come to church, to look rather higher if they
could. So that it was to them more a misfortune than a
matter of immediate spiritual relief that their dear old
friend, who loved each one of them with an intimate and
peculiar love, happened to enlarge on his text just as he
did.
If poor Mr. Molyneux, by dint of severe self-command,
had succeeded in abstracting his thoughts from disgrace
almost certain,--from thinking over, in horrible variety,
the several threads of inquiry and answer by which that
disgrace was to be avoided or precipitated,--how was it
possible to maintain such abstraction, while the worthy
preacher, wholly unconscious of the blood he drew with
every word, ground out his sentences in such words as
these:--
"Search and look, my brethren. Time passes faster
than we think. Our gray hairs gather apace above our
foreheads. And the treasure which we prized beyond price
in years bygone has perhaps, amid the cares of this
world, or in the deceitfulness of riches, been thrust on
one side, neglected, at last forgotten. How is it with
you, dear friends? Are you the man? Are you the woman?
Have you put on one side the very treasure of your
life,--as some careless housewife might lay aside on
a forgotten shelf this parcel or that, once so precious
to her? Dear friends, as the year draws to a close,
awaken from such neglect! Brush away the dust from these
forgotten caskets! Lift them from their hiding-places
and set them forth, even in your Christmas festivities.
Search and look!"
Poor Mrs. Molyneux had never wished before so
earnestly that a sermon might be done. She dared not
look round to see her husband for a while, but after one
of these invocations--not quite so terrible as the rest,
perhaps--she stole a glance that way, to find--that she
might have spared her anxiety. Two nights of "searching
and looking" had done their duty by the poor man, and
though his head was firm braced against the column which
rose from the side of their pew, his eyes were closed,
and his wife was relieved by the certainty that he was
listening, as those happy members of the human family
listen who assure me that they hear when their lids are
tight pressed over their eyeballs. As for Beverly, he
was assuming the resolute aspect of a sailor under fire,
and was imagining himself taking the whole storm of Fort
Constantine as he led an American squadron into the Bay
of Sevastopol. Tom did not know what the preacher said,
but was devising the method of his interview with
Greenhithe. Matty did know. Dear girl! she knew very
well. And with every well-rounded sentence of the sermon
she was more determined as to the method of her
appeal to Mrs. Gilbert, the widow of the notary. She
would search and look there.
Yes! and it was well for every one of them that they
went to that service. The sermon at the worst was but
twenty minutes. "Twenty minutes in length," said
Beverly, wickedly, "and no depth at all." But that was
not true nor fair; nor was that, either way, the thing
that was essential. By the time they had all sung
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,"
even before the good old Doctor had asked for Heaven's
blessing upon them, it had come. To Mr. Molyneux it
had come in an hour's rest of mind, body, and soul. To
Matty it had come in an hour's calm determination. To
Mrs. Molyneux it had come in the certainty that there
is One Eye which sees through all hiding-places and
behind all disguises. To the children it had come,
because the hour had called up to them a hundred memories
of Galilee and Nazareth, of Mary Mother, and of children
made happy, to supplement and help out their legends of
Santa Claus. Yes, and even Beverly the brave, and Tom
the outraged, as they stood to receive the benediction of
the preacher, were more of men and less of firebrands
than they were. They all stood with reverence; they
paused a moment, and then slowly walked down the aisle.
"Where is your father, Horace?" said Mrs. Molyneux,
a little anxiously, as she came where she could
speak aloud. Horace was waiting for her.
"Papa? He went away with the gentleman who came in
after service began; they crossed the street and took a
carriage together."
"And did papa leave no message?"
"Why, no; he did not turn round. The strange man--
the man in the rough coat--just touched him and spoke to
him half-way down the aisle. Then papa whispered to him
and he whispered back. Then, as soon as they came into
the vestibule here, papa led him out at that side door,
and did not seem to remember me. They almost ran across
the street, and took George Gibb's hack. I knew the
horses."
"That's too bad," said Laura; "I thought papa would
walk home with us and tell us the story of the bears."
Poor Mrs. Molyneux thought it was too bad, too; but
she said nothing.
And Matty, when she joined her mother, said,--
"I shall feel a thousand times happier, mamma, if I
go and see Mrs. Gilbert now." And she explained who Mrs.
Gilbert was. "Perhaps it may do some good. Anyway, I
shall feel as if I were doing something. I will be home
in time to finish the tree and things, for Horace will
like to help me."
And the poor girl looked her entreaties so eagerly
that her mother could not but assent to her plan.
So she made Beverly go up the avenue with her,--Beverly,
who would have swum the Potomac and back for her, had she
asked him,--as he was on his way to join his father at
the Bureau.
As they came out upon the broad sidewalk, that odious
Greenhithe, with some one whom Beverly called a
blackguard of his crew, pushed by them, and he had the
impudence to turn and touch his hat to Matty again.
Matty's hand trembled on Beverly's arm, but she would
not speak for a minute, only she walked slower and
slower.
Then she said: "I am so afraid, Bev, that Tom and he
will get into a quarrel. Tom declares he will go into
Willard's and find out whether he does know anything."
But Beverly, very mannish, tried to reassure her and
make her believe that Tom would be very self-restrained
and perfectly careful.
On Christmas Day the Jew's dry-goods store, which had
taken the place of old Mr. Gilbert's notary's office, was
closed--not perhaps so much from the Israelite's
enthusiasm about Christmas as in deference to what in New
England is called "the sense of the street." Matty,
however, acting from a precise knowledge of Washington
life, rang boldly at the green door adjacent, Beverly
still waiting to see what might turn up; and when a brisk
"colored girl" appeared, Matty inquired if Mrs. Munroe
was at home.
Now all that Matty knew of Mrs. Munroe was that her
name was on a well-scoured brass plate on the door.
Mrs. Munroe was in. Beverly said he would wait in
the passage. Mrs. Munroe proved to be a nice, motherly
sort of a person, who, as it need hardly be said, was
stone-deaf. It required some time for Matty to adjust
her speaking apparatus to the exigency, but when this was
done, Mrs. Munroe explained that Mr. Gilbert was dead,--
that an effort had been made to continue the business
with the old sign and the old good will, under the
direction of a certain Mr. Bundy, who had sometimes been
called in as an assistant. But Mr. Bundy, after some
years, paid more attention to whiskey than he did to
notarying, and the law business had suffered. Finally,
Mr. Bundy was brought home by the police one night with
a broken head, and then Mrs. Gilbert had withdrawn the
signs, cancelled the lease, turned Mr. Bundy out-of-
doors, and retired to live with a step-sister of her
brother's wife's father near the Arsenal; good Mrs.
Munroe was not certain whether on Delaware Avenue, or
whether on T Street, U Street, or V Street. And, indeed,
whether the lady's name were Butman before she married
her second husband, and Lichtenfels afterward--or whether
his name were Butman and hers Lichtenfels, Mrs. Munroe
was not quite sure. Nor could she say whether Mr.
Gilbert took the account books and registers --there
were heaps on heaps of them, for Mr. Gilbert had been a
notary ever since General Jackson's day--or whether Bundy
did not take them, or whether they were not sold for old
paper, Mrs. Munroe was not sure. For all this happened--
all the break-up and removal--while Mrs. Munroe was on a
visit to her sister not far from Brick Church above
Little Falls, on your way to Frederic. And Mrs. Munroe
offered this visit as a constant apology for her not
knowing more precisely every detail of her old friend's
business.
This explanation took a good deal of time, through
all of which poor Beverly was fretting and fuming and
stamping his cold feet in the passage, hearing the
occasional questions of his sister, uttered with thunder
tone in the "setting-room" above, but hearing no word of
the placid widow's replies.
When Matty returned and held a consultation with him,
the question was, whether to follow the books of account
to Georgetown, where Mr. Bundy was understood to be still
residing, or to the neighborhood of the Arsenal, in the
hope of finding Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Lichtenfels, or Mrs.
Butman, as the case might be. Readers should understand
that these two points, both unknown to the young people,
are some six miles asunder, the original notary's office
being about half-way between them. Beverly was more
disposed to advise following the man. He was of a mind
to attack some one of his own sex. But the
enterprise was, in truth, Matty's enterprise. Beverly
had but little faith in it from the beginning, and Matty
was minded to follow such clue as they had to Mrs.
Gilbert, quite sure that, woman with woman, she should
succeed better with her than, man with man, Beverly with
Bundy. Beverly assented to this view the more willingly,
because Matty was quite willing to undertake the quest
alone. She was very brave about it indeed. "Plenty of
nice people at the Arsenal," or near it, whom she could
fall back upon for counsel or information. So they
parted. Matty took a street car for the east and south,
and Beverly went his ways to the Bureau of Internal
Improvement to report for duty to his father.
This story must not follow the details of Matty's
quest for the firm of "Gilbert, Lichtenfels, or Butman."
Certain it is that she would never have succeeded had she
rested simply on the directory or on such crude
information as Mrs. Munroe had so freely given. But
Matty had an English tongue in her head,--a courteous,
which is to say a confiding, address with strangers; she
seemed almost to be conferring a favor at the moment when
she asked one, and she knew, in this business, that there
was no such word as fail. After one or two false
starts--some very stupid answers, and some very blunt
refusals--she found her quarry at last, by as simple a
process as walking into a Sunday-school of colored
children, where she heard singing in the basement of
a little chapel.
In a few words Matty explained her errand to the
Superintendent, and that it was necessary that she should
find Mrs. Gilbert before dark.
"Ting!" one stroke of the bell called hundreds of
eager voices to silence.
"Who knows where Mrs. Gilbert lives? Is it at Mrs.
Butman's house or Mrs. Lichtenfels'?"
Twenty eager hands contended with each other for the
honor of giving the information, and in three minutes
more, Matty, all encouraged by her success, was on her
way.
And Mrs. Gilbert was at home. Good fortune number
two! Matty's star was surely in the ascendant! Matty
sent in her card, and the nice old lady presented herself
at once, remembered who Matty was, remembered how much
business Mr. Molyneux used to bring to the office, and
how grateful Mr. Gilbert always was. She was so glad to
see Matty, and she hoped Mr. Molyneux was well, and Mrs.
Molyneux and all those little ones! She used to see them
every Sunday as they went to church, if they went on the
avenue.
Thus encouraged, Matty opened on her sad story, and
was fairly helped from stage to stage by the wonder,
indignation, and exclamations of the kind old lady. When
Matty came to the end, and made her understand how much
depended on the day-book, register, and ledger of her
husband, it was a fair minute before she spoke.
"We will see, my dear, we will see. I wish it may be
so, but I 'm all afeard. It would not be like him, my
dear. It would not be like any of them. But come with
me, my dear, we will see--we will see."
Then, as Matty followed her, through devious ways,
out through the kitchen, across a queer bricked yard,
into a half stable, half woodshed, which the good woman
unlocked, she went on talking:--
"You see, my dear child, that though notaries are
called notaries, as if it were their business to give
notice, the most important part of their business is
keeping secrets. Now, when a man's note goes to protest,
the notary tells him what has happened, which he knew
very well before; and then he comes to the notary and
begs him not to tell anybody else, and of course he does
not. And the business of a notary's account books, as my
husband used to say, is to tell just enough, and not to
tell any more.
"Why, my dear child, he would not use blotting-paper
in the office,--he would always use sand. `Blotting-
paper! Never!' he would say; 'Blotting-paper tells
secrets!'"
With such chatter they came to the little chilly
room, which was shelved all around, and to Matty's glad
eyes presented rows of green and blue and blue and red
boxes,--and folio and quarto books of every date, from
1829 to 1869, forty years in which the late Mr. Gilbert
had been confirming history, keeping secret what he
knew, but making sure what, but for him, might have been
doubted by a sceptic world.
Things were in good order. Mrs. Gilbert was proud to
show that they were in good order. The day-book for 1863
was at hand. Matty knew the fatal dates only too well.
And the fatal entries were here!
How her heart beat as she began to read!
Cr.
To Thomas Molyneux Esq., (B. I. I.) official
authentication of signature of Felipe Gazza . . . $1.25
Same, authentication of signature of Jose B. Du
Camara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25
Same, authentication of signature of Jacob H.
Cole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25
And this was all! Poor Matty copied it all, but all the
time she begged Mrs. Gilbert to tell her if there was not
some note-book or journal that would tell more. And kind
Mrs. Gilbert looked eagerly for what she called the
"Diry." At the proper dates on the cash-book, at
intervals of a week or two, Matty found similar entries--
the names of the two Spaniards appearing in all these--
but other names in place of Cole's just as Tom had told
her already. By the time she had copied all of these,
Mrs. Gilbert had found the "Diry." Eager, and yet heart-
sick, Matty turned it over with her old friend.
This was all:--
"Mr. Molyneux here. Very private. Papers in R. G. E."
And then followed a little burst of unintelligible
short-hand.
Poor Matty! She could not but feel that here would
not be evidence good for anything, even in a novel. But
she copied every word carefully, as a chief clerk's
daughter should do. She thanked the kind old lady, and
even kissed her. She looked at her watch. Heavens! how
fast time had gone! and the afternoons were so short!
"Yes, my dear Miss Molyneux; but they have turned, my
dear, the day is a little longer and a little lighter."
Did the old lady mean it for an omen, or was it only
one of those chattering remarks on meteors and weather
change of which old age is so fond? Matty wondered, but
did not know. Fast as she could, she tripped bravely on
to the avenue for her street car.
"The day is longer and lighter."
Meanwhile Tom was following his clue in the public
rooms at Willard's, to which, as he prophesied, Mr.
Greenhithe had returned after the unusual variation in
his life of a morning spent in the sanctuary. Tom bought
a copy of the Baltimore "The Sun," and went into one of
the larger rooms resorted to by travellers and loafers,
and sat down. But Mr. Greenhithe did not appear there.
Tom walked up and down through the passages a little
uneasily, for he was sure the ex-clerk had come into the
hotel. He went up and looked in at the ladies'
sitting-rooms, to see if perhaps some Duchess of
Devonshire, of high political circles, had found it worth
while to drag Mr. Greenhithe up there by a single hair.
No Mr. Greenhithe! Tom was forced to go down and drink
a glass of beer to see if Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty.
But at that moment, though Mr. Greenhithe was generally
thirsty in the middle of the day, and although many men
were thirsty at the time Tom hung over his glass of
lager, Mr. Greenhithe was not thirsty there. It was only
as Tom passed the billiard-room that he saw Mr.
Greenhithe was playing a game of billiards, by way of
celebrating the new birth of a regenerated world.
What to do now! Tom could not, in common decency, go
in to look on at the game of a man he wanted to choke.
Yet Tom would have given all his chances for rank in the
Academy to know what Greenhithe was talking about. Tom
slowly withdrew.
As he withdrew, whom should be meet but one of his
kindest friends, Commodore Benbow? When the boys made
their "experimental cruise" the year before, they had
found Commodore Benbow's ship at Lisbon. The Commodore
had taken a particular fancy to Tom, because he had known
his mother when they were boy and girl. Tom had even
been invited personally to the flag-ship, and was to have
been presented at Court, but that they sailed too soon.
To tell the whole truth, the Commodore was not
overpleased to see his protege hanging about the bar
and billiard-room on Christmas Day. For himself, his
whole family were living at Willard's, but he knew Tom's
father was not living there, and he thought Tom might be
better employed.
Perhaps Tom guessed this. Perhaps he was in despair.
Anyway he knew "Old Benbow," as the boys called him,
would be a good counsellor. In point of statistics "Old
Benbow" was just turned forty, had not a gray hair in his
head, could have beaten any one of Tom's class, whether
in gunning or at billiards, could have demonstrated every
problem in Euclid while they were fiddling over the
forty-seventh proposition. He was at the very prime of
well-preserved power, but young nineteen called him "Old
Benbow," as young nineteen will, in such cases.
Bold with despair, or with love for his father, Tom
stopped "Old Benbow" and asked him if he would come into
one of the sitting-rooms with him. Then he made this
venerable man his confidant. The Commodore had seen the
slurs in the "Scorpion" and the "Argus" and the "Evening
Journal." "A pity," said he, "that Newspaper Row, that
can do so much good, should do so much harm. What is
Newspaper Row? Three or four men of honor, three or four
dreamers, three or four schoolboys, three or four fools,
and three or four scamps. And the public, Molyneux,--
which is to say you and I,--accept the trumpet blast
of one of these heralds precisely as we do that of
another. Practically," said he, pensively, "when we were
detached to serve with the 33d Corps in Mobile Bay, I
found I liked the talk of those light-infantry men who
had been in every scrimmage of the war, quite as much as
I did that of the bandmen who played the trumpets on
parade. But this is neither here nor there. I thought
of coming round to see your father, but I knew I should
bother him. What can I do, my boy?"
Then Tom told him, rather doubtfully, that he had
reason to fear that Mr. Greenhithe was at the bottom of
the whole scandal. He said he wished he did not think
that Mr. Greenhithe had himself stolen the papers. "If
I am wrong, I want to know it," said he; "if I am right,
I want to know it. I do not want to be doing any man
injustice. But I do not want to keep old Eben Ricketts
down at the department hunting for a file of papers which
Greenhithe has hidden in his trunk or put into the fire."
"No!--no!--no, indeed," said "old Benbow," musing.
"No!--No!--No!--"
Then after a pause, "Tom," said he, "come round here
in an hour. I know that young fellow your friend is
playing with, and I wish he were in better company than
he is. I think I know enough of the usages of modern
society to `interview' him and his companion, though
times have changed since I was of your age in that
regard. Come here in an hour, or give me rather more,
come here at half-past two, and we will see what we
will see."
So Tom went round to the Navy Department, and here he
found the faithful Eben--faithful to him, though utterly
faithless as to any success in the special quest which
was making the entertainment of the Christmas holiday.
Vainly did Tom repeat to him his formula,--
"If the Navy did the work, the Navy has the vouchers."
"My dear boy," Eben Ricketts repeated a hundred
times, "though the Navy did the work, the Navy did not
provide the pork and beans; it did not arrange in advance
for the landing, least of all did it buy the greasers.
I will look where you like, for love of your father and
you; but that file of vouchers is not here, never was
here, and never will be found here."
An assistant like this is not an encouraging
companion or adviser.
And, in short, the vouchers were not found in the
Navy Department, in that particular midday search. At
twenty-five minutes past two Tom gave it up unwillingly,
bade Eben Ricketts good-by, washed from his hands the
accretions of coal-dust, which will gather even on
letter-boxes in Navy Departments, and ran across in front
of the President's House, to Willard's. He looked up at
the White House, and wondered how the people there were
spending their Christmas Day.
Commodore Benbow was waiting for him. He took him up
into his own parlor.
"Molyneux, your Mr. Greenhithe is either the most
ingenious liar and the best actor on God's earth, or he
knows no more of your lost papers than a child in heaven.
"I went back to the billiard-room, after you left me.
I walked up to Millet--that was Lieutenant Millet playing
with Greenhithe--and I shook hands. He had to introduce
me to your friend. Then I asked them both to come here,
told Millet I had some papers from Montevideo that he
would be glad to see, and that I should be glad of a call
when they had done their game. Well, they came. I am
sorry to say your friend--"
"Oh, don't, my dear Commodore Benbow, don't call him
my friend, even in a joke; it makes me feel awfully."
"I am glad it does," said the Commodore, laughing.
"Well, I am very sorry to say that the black sheep had
been drinking more of the whisky downstairs than was good
for him; and, no fault of mine, he drank more of my
Madeira than he should have done, and, Tom, I do not
believe he was in any condition to keep secrets. Well,
first of all, it appeared that he had been in Bremen and
Vienna for six months. He only arrived in New York
yesterday morning."
Tom's face fell.
"And, next--you may take this for what it is worth--
but I believe he spoke the truth for once; he
certainly did if there is any truth in liquor or in
swearing. For when I asked Millet what all this stuff
about your father meant, Greenhithe interrupted, very
unnecessarily and very rudely, and said, with more oaths
than I will trouble you with, that the whole was a damned
lie of the newspaper men; that they had lied about him
(Greenhithe) and now were lying about old Molyneux; that
Molyneux had been very hard on him and very unjust to
him, but he would say that he was honest as the clock--
honest enough to be mean. And that he would say that to
the committee, if they would call on him, and so on and
so on."
"Much good would he do before the committee," said
poor Tom.
And thus ended Tom's branch of the investigation.
"Come to me, if I can help you, my boy," said Old Benbow.
"It is always the darkest, old fellow, the hour before
day."
Tom was astronomer enough to know that this old saw
was as false as most old saws. But with this for his
only comfort, he returned to the bureau to seek Beverly
and his father.
Neither Beverly nor his father was there! Tom went
directly home. His mother was eager to see him.
She had come home alone, and, save Horace and Laura
and Flossy and Brick, she had seen nobody but a messenger
from the bureau.
Brick was the family name for Robert, one of the
youngest of this household.
Of Beverly's movements the story must be more briefly
told. They took more time than Tom's; as much indeed as
his sister's, after they parted. But they were conducted
by means of that marvel of marvels, the telegraph,--the
chief of whose marvels is that it compels even a long-
winded generation like ours to speak in very short metre.
Beverly began with Mr. Bundy at Georgetown.
Georgetown is but a quiet place on the most active of
days. On Christmas Day Beverly found but little stirring
out of doors.
Still, with the directory, with the advice of a
saloon-keeper and the information of a police officer,
Beverly tracked Mr. Bundy to his lair.
It was not a notary's office, it was a liquor shop of
the lowest grade, with many badly painted signs, which
explained that this was "Our House," and that here Mr.
Bundy made and sold with proper license--let us be
grateful--Tom and Jerry, Smashes, Cocktails, and did
other "deeds without a name." On this occasion, however,
even the door of "Our House" was closed. Mr. Bundy had
gone to a turkey-shooting match at Fairfax Court House.
The period of his return was very doubtful. He had never
done anything but keep this drinking-room since old Mrs.
Gilbert turned him out of doors.
With this information Master Beverly returned to
town. He then began on his own line of search. Relying
on Tom's news, he went to the office of the Western
Union Telegraph and concocted this despatch, which he
thought a masterpiece.
GREENSBURG, Westmoreland Co., Pa.
TO ROBERT JOHN WHILTHAUGH:
When and where can I see you on important business?
Answer.
BEVERLY MOLYNEUX, for THOMAS MOLYNEUX.
Then he took a walk, and after half an hour called at
the office again. The office was still engaged in
calling Greensburg. Greensburg was eating its Christmas
dinner. But at last Greensburg was called. Then Beverly
received this answer:--
Whilthaugh has been dead more than a year.
GREENSBURG.
To which Beverly replied:--
Where does his wife live, or his administrator?
To which Greensburg, having been called a second time
with difficulty, replied:--
His wife is crazy, and we never heard of any property.
GREENSBURG.
With this result of his investment as a non-dividend
member of the great Western Union Mutual Information
Club, Beverly returned home, chewing the cud of sweet and
bitter fancies.
"There is no speech nor language," sang the choir in
St. Matthews as he passed, "where their voice is not
heard. Their line is gone out through all the
earth--" And Tom heard no more, as he passed on.
As he walked, almost unwillingly, up the street to
the high steps of his father's house, Matty, out of
breath, overtook him.
"What have you found, Bev?"
"Nothing," said the boy, moodily. And poor Matty had
to confess that she had hardly more to tell.
They came into the house by the lower entrance, that
they need not attract their mother's attention. But she
was on the alert. Even Horace and the younger children
knew by this time that something was wrong.
Horace's story about the strange man and papa was the
last news of papa. Papa had not been at the bureau. The
bureau people waited for him till two, and he did not
come. Then Stratton had come round to see if he was to
keep open any longer. Stratton had told Mrs. Molyneux
that her husband had not been there since church.
Where in the world was he?
Poor Mrs. Molyneux had not known where to send or to
go. She had just looked in at the Doctor's, but he was
not there.
Tom had appeared first to her tedious waiting. Tom
would not tell her, but he even went and looked in on
Newspaper Row, which he had been abusing so. For Tom's
first thought was that a formal information had been
lodged somewhere, and that his father was arrested.
But Newspaper Row evidently was unsuspicious of any
arrest.
Tom even walked down to the old jail, and made an
absurd errand to see the Deputy-Marshal. But the Deputy-
Marshal was at his Christmas dinner.
Tom told all this in the hall to Beverly and to
Matty.
Everything had failed, and papa was gone. Who could
the man in the shaggy coat be?
The three went together into the parlor.
For a little, Matty and Horace and Tom and Beverly
then made a pretence of arranging the tree. But, in
truth, Mrs. Molyneux, in the midst of all her care, had
done that, while they were all away.
Dinner was postponed half an hour, and they gathered,
all in the darkness, looking at the sickliest blaze that
ever rambled over half-burned Cumberland coal.
The Brick came climbing up on Tom's knees and bade
him tell a story; but even Laura saw that something was
wrong, and hushed the child, and said she and Flossy
would sing one of their carols. And they sang it, and
were praised; and they sang another, and were praised.
But then it was quite dark, and nobody had any heart to
say one word.
"Where is papa?" said the Brick.
"Where indeed?" everybody wanted to say, and no one
did.
But then the door-bell rang, and Chloe brought in a
note.
"He's waiting for an answer, mum."
And Tom lighted the gas. It popped up so bright that
little Flossy said,--
"The people that sat in darkness saw a great light--"
This was just as Mrs. Molyneux tore open the note.
For the instant she could not speak. She handed it to
the three.
"FOUND
"Home in half an hour!
"All right! thank God!
T. M."
"Saw a great light, indeed!" said Horace, who, for
once, felt awed.