UNDER THE MISLETOE.
The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never placed in that of
any, younger man, except for a moment; but the heart that warmed the hand
henceforward held all the world.
We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader, and the girl
we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking in the garden of
Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and we shall close the book, and still
she will be Hope Wayne.
How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler but tell his story
as it is? It is not at his will that heroes marry, and heroines are given
in marriage. He merely watches events and records results; but the
inevitable laws of human life are hidden in God's grace beyond his
knowledge.
There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and every year with
greater beauty and wider recognition. He wears the same velvet coat of
many buttons--or its successor in the third or fourth remove--and still
he whistles and sings at his work, still draws back from the easel and
turns his head on one side to look at his picture, and cons it carefully
through the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and,
lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging one
leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his foot, at something
which does not seem to be in the room. Cheerful and gay, he has always a
word of welcome for the loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the
painters; even if the loiterer find him with the foot idly swinging and
the cigar musingly smoking itself away.
Nor is the painter conscious of any gaping, unhealed wound that
periodically bleeds. There are nights in mid-summer when, leaning from
his window, he thinks of many things, and among others, of a picture he
once painted of the legend of Latmos. He smiles to think that, at the
time, he half persuaded himself that he might be Endymion, yet the
feeling with which he smiles is of pity and wonder rather than of regret.
At Thanksgiving dinners, at Christmas parties, at New Year and Twelfth
Night festivals, no guest so gay and useful, so inventive and delightful,
as Arthur Merlin the painter. Just as Aunt Winnifred has abandoned her
theory it has become true, and all the girls do seem to love the man who
respects them as much as the younger men do with whom they nightly dance
in winter. He romps with the children, has a perfectly regulated and
triumphant sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and only this
Christmas, although he is now--well, Aunt Winnifred has locked up the
Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur as a young man--yet only
this Christmas, at Lawrence Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly
did they run round, it was almost impossible to compute the actual
number of Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children--Arthur Merlin brought
in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something
covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be no peace,
and no blindman's-buff, no stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no
snap-dragon, until the mystery was revealed; The whole crowd of short
frocks and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed
around the painter until he displayed a green branch.
A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a head of
golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence Newt.
"Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries on it?"
"That's a misletoe bough, little Hope."
"But, papa, what's it for?"
The painter was already telling the children what it was for; and when he
had hung it up over the folding-doors such a bubbling chorus of laughter
and merry shrieks followed, there was such a dragging of little girls in
white muslin by little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and
kissing, and happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was
immediately relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend
the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.
But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and, chasing Hope
Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting girls and boys, finally caught
her and led her to the middle of the room and dropped on one knee and
kissed her hand under the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds;
and as Hope Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the
room--bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer--she saw that
the elders were shouting with the children, and that Lawrence Newt and
his wife, and his niece Fanny, and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were
all clapping their hands and laughing.
She laughed too; and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when Ellen Bennet's
oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly reports, in which her name
is coupled with that of her cousin Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat
down to the piano and played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who
handed out Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed
around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her papa's knee
and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair, laughed all the time,
and wished that Christmas came every day in the year, and that she might
always see Mr. Arthur Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.
When the dance was over and the panting children were resting, Gabriel
Newt, Lawrence's youngest boy, said to Arthur,
"Mr. Merlin, what game shall we play now? What game do you like best?"
"The game of life, my boy," replied Arthur.
"Oh, pooh!" said Gabriel, doubtfully, with a vague feeling that Mr.
Merlin was quizzing him.
But the painter was in earnest; and if you are of his opinion, patient
and gentle reader, it is for you to say who, among all the players we
have been watching, held Trumps.