“That would be something like your fir-tree prank, Tom,” said his

sister. “Can you believe,” she added, turning to the visitor, “that Tom

lopped the branches of a tall young fir-tree all the way up, leaving

little bits for foothold, and then climbed up it one day in an awful

storm of wind, and clung on at the top, rocking backwards and forwards?

And when papa sent word for him to come down, he said parental authority

was superseded at sea by the rules of the service. It was a dreadful

storm, and the tree snapped very soon after he got safe to the ground.”

“Storm!” sneered Tom, “a capful of wind. Well, it did blow half a gale

at the last. But oh! it was glorious!”

“Let us see what we can make of the crackers,” said the tutor—and he

pulled some out of his pocket. They were put in a dish upon the table,

for the company to choose from; and the terriers jumped and snapped, and

tumbled over each other, for they thought that the plate contained

eatables. Animated by the same idea, but with quieter steps, Master

MacGreedy also approached the table.

“The dogs are noisy,” said the tutor, “too noisy. We must have

quiet—peace and quiet.” His lean hand was once more in his pocket, and

he pulled out a box, from which he took some powder, which he scattered

on the burning log. A slight smoke now rose from the hot embers, and

floated into the room. Was the powder one of those strange compounds

that act upon the brain? Was it a magician’s powder? Who knows? With it

came a sweet, subtile fragrance. It is strange—every one fancied he had

smelt it before, and all were absorbed in wondering what it was, and

where they had met with it. Even the dogs sat on their haunches with

their noses up, sniffing in a speculative manner.

“It’s not lavender,” said the grandmother slowly, “and it’s not

rosemary. There is a something of tansy in it (and a very fine tonic

flavor too, my dears, though it’s _not_ in fashion now). Depend upon it,

it’s a potpourri, and from an excellent receipt, sir”—and the old lady

bowed courteously towards the tutor. “My mother made the best potpourri

in the county, and it was very much like this. Not quite, perhaps, but

much the same, much the same.”

The grandmother was a fine old gentlewoman “of the old school,” as the

phrase is. She was very stately and gracious in her manners, daintily

neat in her person, and much attached to the old parson of the parish,

who now sat near her chair. All her life she had been very proud of her

fine stock of fair linen, both household and personal; and for many

years past had kept her own grave-clothes ready in a drawer. They were

bleached as white as snow, and lay amongst bags of dry lavender and

potpourri. Many times had it seemed likely that they would be needed,

for the old lady had had severe illnesses of late, when the good parson

sat by her bedside, and read to her of the coming of the Bridegroom, and

of that “fine linen, clean and white,” which is “the righteousness of

the saints.” It was of that drawer, with its lavender and potpourri

bags, that the scented smoke had reminded her.

“It has rather an overpowering odor,” said the old parson, “it is

suggestive of incense. I am sure I once smelt something like it in the

Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. It is very delicious.”

The parson’s long residence in his parish had been marked by one great

holiday. With the savings of many years he had performed a pilgrimage to

the Holy Land; and it was rather a joke against him that he illustrated

a large variety of subjects by the reference to his favorite topic, the

holiday of his life.

“It smells of gunpowder,” said Jim, decidedly, “and something else. I

can’t tell what.”

“Something one smells in a seaport town,” said Tom.

“Can’t be very delicious then,” Jim retorted.

“It’s not _quite_ the same,” piped the widow; “but it reminds me very

much of an old bottle of attar of roses that was given to me when I was

at school, with a copy of verses, by a young gentleman who was brother

to one of the pupils. I remember Mr. Jones was quite annoyed when he

found it in an old box, where I am sure I had not touched it for ten

years or more; and I never spoke to him but once, on Examination Day

(the young gentleman, I mean). And it’s like—yes, it’s certainly like a

hair-wash Mr. Jones used to use. I’ve forgotten what it was called, but

I know it cost fifteen shillings a bottle; and Macready threw one over a

few weeks before his dear papa’s death, and annoyed him extremely.”

Whilst the company were thus engaged, Master MacGreedy took advantage of

the general abstraction to secure half a dozen crackers to his own

share; he retired to a corner with them, where he meant to pick them

quietly to pieces by himself. He wanted the gay paper, and the motto,

and the sweetmeats; but he did not like the report of the cracker. And

then what he did want, he wanted all to himself.

“Give us a cracker,” said Master Jim, dreamily.

The dogs, after a few dissatisfied snorts, had dropped from their

sitting posture, and were lying close together on the rug, dreaming, and

uttering short commenting barks and whines at intervals. The twins were

now reposing lazily at the tutor’s feet, and did not feel disposed to

exert themselves even so far as to fetch their own bonbons.

“There’s one,” said the tutor, taking a fresh cracker from his pocket.

One end of it was of red and gold paper, the other of transparent green

stuff with silver lines. The boys pulled it.

* * * * * *

The report was louder than Jim had expected.

“The firing has begun,” he murmured, involuntarily; “steady, steady!”

these last words were to his horse, who seemed to be moving under him,

not from fear, but from impatience.

What had been the red and gold paper of the cracker was now the scarlet

and gold lace of his own cavalry uniform. He knocked a speck from his

sleeve, and scanned the distant ridge, from which a thin line of smoke

floated solemnly away, with keen, impatient eyes. Were they to stand

inactive all the day?

Presently the horse erects his head. His eyes sparkle—he pricks his

sensitive ears—his nostrils quiver with a strange delight. It is the

trumpet! Fan farrâ! Fan farrâ! The brazen voice speaks—the horses

move—the plumes wave—the helmets shine. On a summer’s day they ride

slowly, gracefully, calmly down a slope, to Death or Glory. Fan farrâ!

Fan farrâ! Fan farrâ!

* * * * * *

Of all this Master Tom knew nothing. The report of the cracker seemed to

him only an echo in his brain of a sound that had been in his ears for

thirty-six weary hours. The noise of a heavy sea beating against the

ship’s side in a gale. It was over now, and he was keeping the midnight

watch on deck, gazing upon the liquid green of the waves, which heaving

and seething after storm, were lit with phosphoric light, and as the

ship held steadily on her course, poured past at the rate of twelve

knots an hour in a silvery stream. Faster than any ship can sail his

thoughts travelled home, and as old times came back to him, he hardly

knew whether what he looked at was the phosphor-lighted sea, or green

gelatine paper barred with silver. And did the tutor speak? Or was it

the voice of some sea monster sounding in his ears?

“The spirits of the storm have gone below to make their report. The

treasure gained from sunk vessels has been reckoned, and the sea is

illuminated in honor of the spoil.”

* * * * * *

The visitor now took a cracker and held it to the young lady. Her end

was of white paper with a raised pattern; his of dark-blue gelatine with

gold stars. It snapped, the bonbon dropped between them, and the young

man got the motto. It was a very bald one—

“My heart is thine.

Wilt thou be mine?”

He was ashamed to show it to her. What could be more meagre? One could

write a hundred better couplets “standing on one leg,” as the saying is.

He was trying to improvise just one for the occasion, when he became

aware that the blue sky over his head was dark with the shades of night,

and lighted with stars. A brook rippled near with a soothing monotony.

The evening wind sighed through the trees, and wafted the fragrance of

the sweet bay-leaved willow towards him, and blew a stray lock of hair

against his face. Yes! _She_ also was there, walking beside him, under

the scented willow bushes. Where, why, and whither he did not ask to

know. She was with him—with him; and he seemed to tread on the summer

air. He had no doubt as to the nature of his own feelings for her, and

here was such an opportunity for declaring them as might never occur

again. Surely now, if ever, he would be eloquent! Thoughts of poetry

clothed in words of fire must spring unbidden to his lips at such a

moment. And yet somehow he could not find a single word to say. He beat

his brains, but not an idea would come forth. Only that idiotic cracker

motto, which haunted him with its meagre couplet.

“My heart is thine,

Wilt thou be mine?”

Meanwhile they wandered on. The precious time was passing. He must at

least make a beginning.

“What a fine night it is!” he observed. But, oh dear! That was a

thousand times balder and more meagre than the cracker motto; and not

another word could he find to say. At this moment the awkward silence

was broken by a voice from a neighboring copse. It was a nightingale

singing to his mate. There was no lack of eloquence, and of melodious

eloquence, there. The song was as plaintive as old memories, and as full

of tenderness as the eyes of the young girl were full of tears. They

were standing still now, and with her graceful head bent she was

listening to the bird. He stooped his head near hers, and spoke with a

simple natural outburst almost involuntary.

“Do you ever think of old times? Do you remember the old house, and the

fun we used to have? and the tutor whom you pelted with horse-chestnuts

when you were a little girl? And those cracker bonbons, and the motto

_we_ drew—

‘My heart is thine.

Wilt thou be mine?’”

She smiled, and lifted her eyes (“blue as the sky, and bright as the

stars,” he thought) to his, and answered “Yes.”

Then the bonbon motto was avenged, and there was silence. Eloquent,

perfect, complete, beautiful silence! Only the wind sighed through the

fragrant willows, the stream rippled, the stars shone and in the

neighboring copse the nightingale sang, and sang, and sang.

* * * * * *

When the white end of the cracker came into the young lady’s hand, she

was full of admiration for the fine raised pattern. As she held it

between her fingers it suddenly struck her that she had discovered what

the tutor’s fragrant smoke smelt like. It was like the scent of

orange-flowers, and had certainly a soporific effect upon the senses.

She felt very sleepy, and as she stroked the shiny surface of the

cracker she found herself thinking it was very soft for paper, and then

rousing herself with a start, and wondering at her own folly in speaking

thus of the white silk in which she was dressed, and of which she was

holding up the skirt between her finger and thumb, as if she were

dancing a minuet.

“It’s grandmamma’s egg-shell brocade!” she cried. “Oh, Grandmamma! Have

you given it to me? That lovely old thing! But I thought it was the

family wedding-dress, and that I was not to have it till I was a bride.”

“And so you are, my dear. And a fairer bride the sun never shone on,”

sobbed the old lady, who was kissing and blessing her, and wishing her,

in the words of the old formula—

“Health to wear it,

Strength to tear it,

And money to buy another.”

“There is no hope for the last two things, you know,” said the young

girl; “for I am sure that the flag that braved a thousand years was not

half so strong as your brocade; and as to buying another, there are none

to be bought in these degenerate days.”

The old lady’s reply was probably very gracious, for she liked to be

complimented on the virtues of old things in general, and of her

egg-shell brocade in particular. But of what she said her granddaughter

heard nothing. With the strange irregularity of dreams, she found

herself, she knew not how, in the old church. It was true. She was a

bride, standing there with old friends and old associations thick around

her, on the threshold of a new life. The sun shone through the stained

glass of the windows, and illuminated the brocade, whose old-fashioned

stiffness so became her childish beauty, and flung a thousand new tints

over her sunny hair, and drew so powerful a fragrance from the orange

blossom with which it was twined, that it was almost overpowering. Yes!

It was too sweet—too strong. She certainly would not be able to bear it

much longer without losing her senses. And the service was going on. A

question had been asked of her, and she must reply. She made a strong

effort, and said “Yes,” simply and very earnestly, for it was what she

meant. But she had no sooner said it than she became uneasily conscious

that she had not used the right word. Some one laughed. It was the

tutor, and his voice jarred and disturbed the dream, as a stone troubles

the surface of still water. The vision trembled, and then broke, and the

young lady found herself still sitting by the table and fingering the

cracker paper, whilst the tutor chuckled and rubbed his hands by the

fire, and his shadow scrambled on the wall like an ape upon a tree. But

her “Yes” had passed into the young man’s dream without disturbing it,

and he dreamt on.

* * * * * *

It was a cracker like the preceding one that the grandmother and the

parson pulled together. The old lady had insisted upon it. The good

rector had shown a tendency to low spirits this evening, and a wish to

withdraw early. But the old lady did not approve of people “shirking”

(as boys say) either their duties or their pleasures; and to keep a

“merry Christmas” in a family circle that has been spared to meet in

health and happiness, seemed to her to be both the one and the other.

It was his sermon for next day which weighed on the parson’s mind. Not

that he was behindhand with that part of his duties. He was far too

methodical in his habits for that, and it had been written before the

bustle of Christmas week began. But after preaching Christmas sermons

from the same pulpit for thirty-five years, he felt keenly how difficult

it is to awaken due interest in subjects that are so familiar, and to

give due force to lessons so often repeated. So he wanted a quiet hour

in his own study before he went to rest, with the sermon that did not

satisfy him, and the subject that should be so heart-stirring and ever

new—the Story of Bethlehem.

He consented, however, to pull one cracker with the grandmother, though

he feared the noise might startle her nerves, and said so.

“Nerves were not invented in my young days,” said the old lady, firmly;

and she took her part in the ensuing explosion without so much as a

wink.

As the crackers snapped, it seemed to the parson as if the fragrant

smoke from the yule-log were growing denser in the room. Through the

mist from time to time the face of the tutor loomed large, and then

disappeared. At last the clouds rolled away, and the parson breathed

clear air. Clear, yes, and how clear! This brilliant freshness, these

intense lights and shadows, this mildness and purity in the night

air——

“It is not England,” he muttered, “it is the East. I have felt no air

like this since I breathed the air of Palestine.”

Over his head, through immeasurable distances, the dark-blue space was

lighted by the great multitude of the stars, whose glittering ranks have

in that atmosphere a distinctness and a glory unseen with us. Perhaps no

scene of beauty in the visible creation has proved a more hackneyed

theme for the poet and the philosopher than a starry night. But not all

the superabundance of simile and moral illustration with which the

subject has been loaded can rob the beholder of the freshness of its

grandeur or the force of its teaching; that noblest and most majestic

vision of the handiwork of God on which the eye of man is here permitted

to rest.

As the parson gazed he became conscious that he was not alone. Other

eyes beside his were watching the skies to-night. Dark, profound,

patient, eastern eyes, used from the cradle to the grave to watch and

wait. The eyes of star-gazers and dream-interpreters; men who believed

the fate of empires to be written in shining characters on the face of

heaven, as the “Mene, Mene,” was written in fire on the walls of the

Babylonian palace. The old parson was one of the many men of real

learning and wide reading who pursue their studies in the quiet country

parishes of England, and it was with the keen interest of intelligence

that he watched the group of figures that lay near him.

“Is this a vision of the past?” he asked himself. “There can be no doubt

as to these men. They are star-gazers, magi, and, from their dress and

bearing, men of high rank; perhaps ‘teachers of a higher wisdom’ in one

of the purest philosophies of the old heathen world. When one thinks,”

he pursued, “of the intense interest, the eager excitement which the

student of history finds in the narrative of the past as unfolded in

dusty records written by the hand of man, one may realize how absorbing

must have been that science which professed to unveil the future, and to

display to the eyes of the wise the fate of dynasties written with the

finger of God amid the stars.”

The dark-robed figures were so still that they might almost have been

carved in stone. The air seemed to grow purer and purer; the stars shone

brighter and brighter; suspended in ether the planets seemed to hang

like lamps. Now a shooting meteor passed athwart the sky, and vanished

behind the hill. But not for this did the watchers move; in silence they

watched on—till, on a sudden, how and whence the parson knew not,

across the shining ranks of that immeasurable host, whose names and

number are known to God alone, there passed in slow but obvious motion

one brilliant solitary star—a star of such surpassing brightness that

he involuntarily joined in the wild cry of joy and greeting with which

the Men of the East now prostrated themselves with their faces to the

earth.

He could not understand the language in which, with noisy clamor and

gesticulation, they broke their former profound and patient silence, and

greeted the portent for which they had watched. But he knew now that

these were the Wise Men of the Epiphany, and that this was the Star of

Bethlehem. In his ears rang the energetic simplicity of the Gospel

narrative, “When they saw the Star, they rejoiced with exceeding great

joy.”

With exceeding great joy! Ah! happy magi, who (more blest than Balaam

the son of Beor), were faithful to the dim light vouchsafed to you; the

Gentile church may well be proud of your memory. Ye travelled long and

far to bring royal offerings to the King of the Jews, with a faith not

found in Israel. Ye saw him whom prophets and kings had desired to see,

and were glad. Wise men indeed, and wise with the highest wisdom, in

that ye suffered yourselves to be taught of God.

Then the parson prayed that if this were indeed a dream he might dream

on; might pass, if only in a vision, over the hill, following the

footsteps of the magi, whilst the Star went before them, till he should

see it rest above that city, which, little indeed among the thousands of

Judah, was yet the birthplace of the Lord’s Christ.

“Ah!” he almost sobbed, “let me follow! On my knees let me follow into

the house and see the Holy Child. In the eyes of how many babies I have

seen mind and thought far beyond their powers of communication, every

mother knows. But if at times, with a sort of awe, one sees the immortal

soul shining through the prison-bars of helpless infancy, what, oh! what

must it be to behold the Godhead veiled in flesh through the face of a

little child!”

The parson stretched out his arms, but even with the passion of his

words the vision began to break. He dared not move for fear it should

utterly fade, and as he lay still and silent, the wise men roused their

followers, and led by the Star, the train passed solemnly over the

distant hills.

Then the clear night became clouded with fragrant vapor, and with a sigh

the parson awoke.

* * * * * *

When the cracker snapped and the white end was left in the grandmother’s

hand, she was astonished to perceive (as she thought) that the white

lace veil which she had worn over her wedding bonnet was still in her

possession, and that she was turning it over in her fingers. “I fancied

I gave it to Jemima when her first baby was born,” she muttered

dreamily. It was darned and yellow, but it carried her back all the

same, and recalled happy hours with wonderful vividness. She remembered

the post-chaise and the postillion. “He was such a pert little fellow,

and how we laughed at him! He must be either dead or a very shaky old

man by now,” said the old lady. She seemed to smell the scent of

meadow-sweet that was so powerful in a lane through which they drove;

and how clearly she could see the clean little country inn where they

spent the honeymoon! She seemed to be there now, taking off her bonnet

and shawl, in the quaint clean chamber, with the heavy oak rafters, and

the jasmine coming in at the window, and glancing with pardonable pride

at the fair face reflected in the mirror. But as she laid her things on

the patchwork coverlet, it seemed to her that the lace veil became fine

white linen, and was folded about a figure that lay in the bed; and when

she looked round the room again everything was draped in white—white

blinds hung before the windows, and even the old oak chest and the press

were covered with clean white cloths, after the decent custom of the

country; whilst from the church tower without the passing bell tolled

slowly. She had not seen the face of the corpse, and a strange anxiety

came over her to count the strokes of the bell, which tell if it is a

man, woman, or child who has passed away. One, two, three, four, five,

six, seven! No more. It was a woman, and when she looked on the face of

the dead she saw her own. But even as she looked the fair linen of the

grave clothes became the buoyant drapery of another figure, in whose

face she found a strange recognition of the lineaments of the dead, with

all the loveliness of the bride. But ah! more, much more! On that face

there was a beauty not doomed to wither, before those happy eyes lay a

future unshadowed by the imperfections of earthly prospects, and the

folds of that robe were white as no fuller on earth can white them. The

window curtain parted, the jasmine flowers bowed their heads, the spirit

passed from the chamber of death, and the old lady’s dream was ended.

* * * * * *

Miss Letitia had shared a cracker with the widow. The widow squeaked

when the cracker went off, and then insisted upon giving up the smart

paper and everything to Miss Letitia. She had always given up everything

to Mr. Jones, she did so now to Master MacGreedy, and was quite

unaccustomed to keep anything for her own share. She did not give this

explanation herself, but so it was.

The cracker that thus fell into the hands of Miss Letitia was one of

those new-fashioned ones that have a paper pattern of some article of

dress wrapped up in them instead of a bonbon. This one was a paper

bonnet made in the latest _mode_—of green tissue paper; and Miss

Letitia stuck it on the top of her chignon with an air that the widow

envied from the bottom of her heart. She had not the gift of “carrying

off” her clothes. But to the tutor, on the contrary, it seemed to afford

the most extreme amusement; and as Miss Letitia bowed gracefully hither

and thither in the energy of her conversation with the widow, the green

paper fluttering with each emphasis, he fairly shook with delight, his

shadow dancing like a maniac beside him. He had scattered some more

powder on the coals, and it may have been that the smoke got into her

eyes, and confused her ideas of color, but Miss Letitia was struck with

a fervid and otherwise unaccountable admiration for the paper ends of

the cracker, which were most unusually ugly. One was of a sallowish

salmon-color, and transparent, the other was of brick-red paper with a

fringe. As Miss Letitia turned them over, she saw, to her unspeakable

delight, that there were several yards of each material, and her

peculiar genius instantly seized upon the fact that in the present rage

for double skirts there might be enough of the two kinds to combine into

a fashionable dress.

It had never struck her before that a dirty salmon went well with brick

red. “They blend so becomingly, my dear,” she murmured; “and I think the

under skirt will sit well, it is so stiff.”

The widow did not reply. The fumes of the tutor’s compound made her

sleepy, and though she nodded to Miss Letitia’s observations, it was

less from appreciation of their force, than from inability to hold up

her head. She was dreaming uneasy, horrible dreams, like nightmares; in

which from time to time there mingled expressions of doubt and

dissatisfaction which fell from Miss Letitia’s lips. “Just half a yard

short—no gores—false hem” (and the melancholy reflection that)

“flounces take so much stuff.” Then the tutor’s face kept appearing and

vanishing with horrible grimaces through the mist. At last the widow

fell fairly asleep, and dreamed that she was married to the Blue Beard

of nursery annals, and that on his return from his memorable journey he

had caught her in the act of displaying the mysterious cupboard to Miss

Letitia. As he waved his scimitar over her head, he seemed unaccountably

to assume the form and features of the tutor. In her agitation the poor

woman could think of no plea against his severity, except that the

cupboard was already crammed with the corpses of his previous wives, and

that there was no room for her. She was pleading this argument when Miss

Letitia’s voice broke in upon her dream with decisive accent:

“There’s enough for two bodies.”

The widow shrieked and awoke.

“High and low,” explained Miss Letitia. “My dear, what _are_ you

screaming about?”

“I am very sorry indeed,” said the widow; “I beg your pardon, I am sure,

a thousand times. But since Mr. Jones’s death I have been so nervous,

and I had such a horrible dream. And, oh dear! oh dear!” she added,

“what is the matter with my precious child? Macready, love, come to your

mamma, my pretty lamb.”

Ugh! ugh! There were groans from the corner where Master MacGreedy sat

on his crackers as if they were eggs, and he hatching them. He had only

touched one, as yet, of the stock he had secured. He had picked it to

pieces, had avoided the snap, and had found a large comfit like an egg

with a rough shell inside. Every one knows that the goodies in crackers

are not of a very superior quality. There is a large amount of white

lead in the outside thinly disguised by a shabby flavor of sugar. But

that outside once disposed of, there lies an almond at the core. Now an

almond is a very delicious thing in itself, and doubly nice when it

takes the taste of white paint and chalk out of one’s mouth. But in

spite of all the white lead and sugar and chalk through which he had

sucked his way, MacGreedy could not come to the almond. A dozen times

had he been on the point of spitting out the delusive sweetmeat; but

just as he thought of it he was sure to feel a bit of hard rough edge,

and thinking he had gained the kernel at last, he held valiantly on. It

only proved to be a rough bit of sugar, however, and still the

interminable coating melted copiously in his mouth; and still the clean,

fragrant almond evaded his hopes. At last with a groan he spat the

seemingly undiminished bonbon on to the floor, and turned as white and

trembling as an arrow-root blancmange.

In obedience to the widow’s entreaties the tutor opened a window, and

tried to carry MacGreedy to the air; but that young gentleman utterly

refused to allow the tutor to approach him, and was borne howling to bed

by his mamma.

With the fresh air the fumes of the fragrant smoke dispersed, and the

company roused themselves.

“Rather oppressive, eh?” said the master of the house, who had had his

dream too, with which we have no concern.

The dogs had had theirs also, and had testified to the same in their

sleep by low growls and whines. Now they shook themselves, and rubbed

against each other, growling in a warlike manner through their teeth,

and wagging peaceably with their little stumpy tails.

The twins shook themselves, and fell to squabbling as to whether they

had been to sleep or no; and, if either, which of them had given way to

that weakness.

Miss Letitia took the paper bonnet from her head with a nervous laugh,

and after looking regretfully at the cracker papers put them in her

pocket.

The parson went home through the frosty night. In the village street he

heard a boy’s voice singing two lines of the Christmas hymn—

“Trace we the Babe Who hath redeemed our loss

From the poor Manger to the bitter Cross;”

and his eyes filled with tears.

The old lady went to bed and slept in peace.

“In all the thirty-five years we have been privileged to hear you, sir,”

she told the rector next day after service, “I never heard such a

Christmas sermon before.”

The visitor carefully preserved the blue paper and the cracker motto. He

came down early next morning to find the white half to put with them. He

did not find it, for the young lady had taken it the night before.

The tutor had been in the room before him, wandering round the scene of

the evening’s festivities.

The yule-log lay black and cold upon the hearth, and the tutor nodded to

it. “I told you how it would be,” he said; “but never mind, you have had

your day, and a merry one too.” In the corner lay the heap of crackers

which Master MacGreedy had been too ill to remember when he retired. The

tutor pocketed them with a grim smile.

As to the comfit, it was eaten by one of the dogs, who had come down

earliest of all. He swallowed it whole, so whether it contained an

almond or not, remains a mystery to the present time.

AMELIA AND THE DWARFS.

My godmother’s grandmother knew a good deal about the fairies. _Her_

grandmother had seen a fairy rade on a Rodmas Eve, and she herself could

remember a copper vessel of a queer shape which had been left by the

elves on some occasion at an old farm-house among the hills. The

following story came from her, and where she got it I do not know. She

used to say it was a pleasant tale, with a good moral in the inside of

it. My godmother often observed that a tale without a moral was like a

nut without a kernel, not worth the cracking. (We called fireside

stories “cracks” in our part of the country.) This is the tale.

AMELIA.

A couple of gentlefolk once lived in a certain part of England. (My

godmother never would tell the name either of the place or the people,

even if she knew it. She said one ought not to expose one’s neighbors’

failings more than there was a due occasion for.) They had an only

child, a daughter, whose name was Amelia. They were an easy-going,

good-humored couple; “rather soft,” my godmother said, but she was apt

to think anybody “soft” who came from the southern shires, as these

people did. Amelia, who had been born farther north, was by no means so.

She had a strong, resolute will, and a clever head of her own, though

she was but a child. She had a way of her own too, and had it very

completely. Perhaps because she was an only child, or perhaps because

they were so easy going, her parents spoiled her. She was, beyond

question, the most tiresome little girl in that or any other

neighborhood. From her baby days her father and mother had taken every

opportunity of showing her to their friends, and there was not a friend

who did not dread the infliction. When the good lady visited her

acquaintances, she always took Amelia with her, and if the acquaintances

were fortunate enough to see from the windows who was coming, they used

to snatch up any delicate knick-knacks, or brittle ornaments lying

about, and put them away, crying, “What is to be done? Here comes

Amelia!”

When Amelia came in, she would stand and survey the room, whilst her

mother saluted her acquaintances; and if anything struck her fancy, she

would interrupt the greetings to draw her mother’s attention to it, with

a twitch of her shawl, “Oh, look, mamma, at that funny bird in the glass

case!” or perhaps, “Mamma, mamma! There’s a new carpet since we were

here last;” for, as her mother said, she was “a very observing child.”

Then she would wander round the room, examining and fingering

everything, and occasionally coming back with something in her hand to

tread on her mother’s dress, and break in upon the ladies’ conversation

with—“Mamma, mamma! What’s the good of keeping this old basin! It’s

been broken and mended, and some of the pieces are quite loose now. I

can feel them:” or—addressing the lady of the house—“That’s not a real

ottoman in the corner. It’s a box covered with chintz. I know, for I’ve

looked.”

Then her mamma would say, reprovingly, “My _dear_ Amelia!”

And perhaps the lady of the house would beg, “Don’t play with that old

china, my love; for though it is mended, it is very valuable;” and her

mother would add, “My dear Amelia, you must not.”

Sometimes the good lady said, “You _must_ not.” Sometimes she

tried—“You must _not_.” When both these failed, and Amelia was

balancing the china bowl on her finger ends, her mamma would get

flurried, and when Amelia flurried her, she always rolled her r’s, and

emphasized her words, so that it sounded thus:

“My dear-r-r-r-Ramelia! You must not.”

At which Amelia would not so much as look round, till perhaps the bowl

slipped from her fingers, and was smashed into unmendable fragments.

Then her mamma would exclaim, “Oh, dear-r-r-r, oh, dear-r-r-r-Ramelia!”

and the lady of the house would try to look as if it did not matter, and

when Amelia and her mother departed, would pick up the bits, and pour

out her complaints to her lady friends, most of whom had suffered many

such damages at the hands of this “very observing child.”

When the good couple received their friends at home, there was no

escaping from Amelia. If it was a dinner party, she came in with the

dessert, or perhaps sooner. She would take up her position near some

one, generally the person most deeply engaged in conversation, and

either lean heavily against him or her, or climb on to his or her knee,

without being invited. She would break in upon the most interesting

discussion with her own little childish affairs, in the following

style—

“I’ve been out to-day. I walked to the town. I jumped across three

brooks. Can you jump? Papa gave me sixpence to-day. I am saving up my

money to be rich. You may cut me an orange; no, I’ll take it to Mr.

Brown, he peels it with a spoon and turns the skin back. Mr. Brown! Mr.

Brown! Don’t talk to mamma, but peel me an orange, please. Mr. Brown!

I’m playing with your finger-glass.”

And when the finger-glass full of cold water had been upset on to Mr.

Brown’s shirt-front, Amelia’s mamma would cry—“Oh dear, oh

dear-r-Ramelia!” and carry her off with the ladies to the drawing-room.

Here she would scramble on to the ladies’ knees, or trample out the

gathers of their dresses, and fidget with their ornaments, startling

some luckless lady by the announcement, “I’ve got your bracelet undone

at last!” who would find one of the divisions broken open by force,

Amelia not understanding the working of a clasp.

Or perhaps two young lady friends would get into a quiet corner for a

chat. The observing child was sure to spy them, and run on to them,

crushing their flowers and ribbons, and crying—“You two want to talk

secrets, I know. I can hear what you say. I’m going to listen, I am. And

I shall tell, too.” When perhaps a knock at the door announced the nurse

to take Miss Amelia to bed, and spread a general rapture of relief.

Then Amelia would run to trample and worry her mother, and after much

teasing, and clinging, and complaining, the nurse would be dismissed,

and the fond mamma would turn to the lady next to her, and say with a

smile—“I suppose I must let her stay up a little. It is such a treat to

her, poor child!”

But it was no treat to the visitors.

Besides tormenting her fellow-creatures, Amelia had a trick of teasing

animals. She was really fond of dogs, but she was still fonder of doing

what she was wanted not to do, and of worrying everything and everybody

about her. So she used to tread on the tips of their tails, and pretend

to give them biscuit, and then hit them on the nose, besides pulling at

those few, long, sensitive hairs which thin-skinned dogs wear on the

upper lip.

Now Amelia’s mother’s acquaintances were so very well-bred and amiable,

that they never spoke their minds to either the mother or the daughter

about what they endured from the latter’s rudeness, wilfulness, and

powers of destruction. But this was not the case with the dogs, and they

expressed their sentiments by many a growl and snap. At last one day

Amelia was tormenting a snow-white bull-dog (who was certainly as

well-bred and as amiable as any living creature in the kingdom), and she

did not see that even his patience was becoming worn out. His pink nose

became crimson with increased irritation, his upper lip twitched over

his teeth, behind which he was rolling as many warning Rs as Amelia’s

mother herself. She finally held out a bun towards him, and just as he

was about to take it, she snatched it away and kicked him instead. This

fairly exasperated the bull-dog, and as Amelia would not let him bite

the bun, he bit Amelia’s leg.

Her mamma was so distressed that she fell into hysterics, and hardly

knew what she was saying. She said the bull-dog must be shot for fear he

should go mad, and Amelia’s wound must be done with a red-hot poker for

fear _she_ should go mad (with hydrophobia). And as of course she

couldn’t bear the pain of this, she must have chloroform, and she would

most probably die of that; for as one in several thousands dies annually

under chloroform, it was evident that her chance of life was very small

indeed. So, as the poor lady said, “Whether we shoot Amelia and burn the

bull-dog—at least I mean shoot the bull-dog and burn Amelia with a

red-hot poker—or leave it alone; and whether Amelia or the bull-dog has

chloroform or bears it without—it seems to be death or madness

everyway!”

And as the doctor did not come fast enough, she ran out without her

bonnet to meet him, and Amelia’s papa, who was very much distressed too,

ran after her with her bonnet. Meanwhile the doctor came in by another

way, found Amelia sitting on the dining-room floor with the bull-dog,

and crying bitterly. She was telling him that they wanted to shoot him,

but that they should not, for it was all her fault and not his. But she

did not tell him that she was to be burnt with a red-hot poker, for she

thought it might hurt his feelings. And then she wept afresh, and kissed

the bull-dog, and the bull-dog kissed her with his red tongue, and

rubbed his pink nose against her, and beat his own tail much harder on

the floor than Amelia had ever hit it. She said the same things to the

doctor, but she told him also that she was willing to be burnt without

chloroform if it must be done, and if they would spare the bull-dog. And

though she looked very white, she meant what she said.

But the doctor looked at her leg, and found it was only a snap, and not

a deep wound; and then he looked at the bull-dog, and saw that so far

from looking mad, he looked a great deal more sensible than anybody in

the house. So he only washed Amelia’s leg and bound it up, and she was

not burnt with the poker, neither did she get hydrophobia; but she had

got a good lesson on manners, and thenceforward she always behaved with

the utmost propriety to animals, though she tormented her mother’s

friends as much as ever.

Now although Amelia’s mamma’s acquaintances were too polite to complain

before her face, they made up for it by what they said behind her back.

In allusion to the poor lady’s ineffectual remonstrances, one gentleman

said that the more mischief Amelia did, the dearer she seemed to grow to

her mother. And somebody else replied that however dear she might be as

a daughter, she was certainly a very _dear_ friend, and proposed that

they should send in a bill for all the damage she had done in the course

of the year, as a round robin to her parents at Christmas. From which it

may be seen that Amelia was not popular with her parents’ friends, as

(to do grown-up people justice) good children almost invariably are.

If she was not a favorite in the drawing-room, she was still less so in

the nursery, where, besides all the hardships naturally belonging to

attendance on a spoilt-child, the poor nurse was kept, as she said, “on

the continual go” by Amelia’s reckless destruction of her clothes. It

was not fair wear and tear, it was not an occasional fall in the mire,

or an accidental rent or two during a game at “Hunt the Hare,” but it

was constant wilful destruction, which nurse had to repair as best she

might. No entreaties would induce Amelia to “take care” of anything. She

walked obstinately on the muddy side of the road when nurse pointed out

the clean parts, kicking up the dirt with her feet; if she climbed a

wall she never tried to free her dress if it had caught; on she rushed,

and half a skirt might be left behind for any care she had in the

matter. “They must be mended,” or, “They must be washed,” was all she

thought about it.

“You seem to think things clean and mend themselves, Miss Amelia,” said

poor nurse one day.

“No, I don’t,” said Amelia, rudely. “I think you do them; what are you

here for?”

But though she spoke in this insolent and unladylike fashion, Amelia

really did not realize what the tasks were which her carelessness

imposed on other people. When every hour of nurse’s day had been spent

in struggling to keep her wilful young lady regularly fed, decently

dressed, and moderately well-behaved (except, indeed, those hours when

her mother was fighting the same battle downstairs); and when at last,

after the hardest struggle of all, she had been got to bed not more than

two hours later than her appointed time, even then there was no rest for

nurse. Amelia’s mamma could at last lean back in her chair and have a

quiet chat with her husband, which was not broken in upon every two

minutes, and Amelia herself was asleep; but nurse must sit up for hours

wearing out her eyes by the light of a tallow candle, in fine-darning

great, jagged and most unnecessary holes in Amelia’s muslin dresses. Or

perhaps she had to wash and iron clothes for Amelia’s wear next day. For

sometimes she was so very destructive, that towards the end of the week

she had used up all her clothes and had no clean ones to fall back upon.

Amelia’s meals were another source of trouble. She would not wear a

pinafore; if it had been put on, she would burst the strings, and

perhaps in throwing it away knock her plate of mutton broth over the

tablecloth and her own dress. Then she fancied first one thing and then

another; she did not like this or that; she wanted a bit cut here and

there. Her mamma used to begin by saying, “My dear-r-Ramelia, you must

not be so wasteful,” and she used to end by saying, “The dear child has

positively no appetite;” which seemed to be a good reason for not

wasting any more food upon her; but with Amelia’s mamma it only meant

that she might try a little cutlet and tomato sauce when she had half

finished her roast beef, and that most of the cutlet and all the mashed

potato might be exchanged for plum tart and custard; and that when she

had spooned up the custard and played with the paste, and put the plum

stones on the tablecloth, she might be tempted with a little Stilton

cheese and celery, and exchange that for anything that caught her fancy

in the dessert dishes.

The nurse used to say, “Many a poor child would thank God for what you

waste every meal time, Miss Amelia,” and to quote a certain good old

saying, “Waste not want not.” But Amelia’s mamma allowed her to send

away on her plates what would have fed another child, day after day.

UNDER THE HAYCOCKS.

It was summer, and haytime. Amelia had been constantly in the hayfield,

and the haymakers had constantly wished that she had been anywhere else.

She mislaid the rakes, nearly killed herself and several other persons

with a fork, and overturned one haycock after another as fast as they

were made. At tea time it was hoped that she would depart, but she

teased her mamma to have the tea brought into the field, and her mamma

said, “The poor child must have a treat sometimes,” and so it was

brought out.

After this she fell off the haycart, and was a good deal shaken, but not

hurt. So she was taken indoors, and the haymakers worked hard and

cleared the field, all but a few cocks which were left till the morning.

The sun set, the dew fell, the moon rose. It was a lovely night. Amelia

peeped from behind the blinds of the drawing-room windows, and saw four

haycocks, each with a deep shadow reposing at its side. The rest of the

field was swept clean, and looked pale in the moonshine. It was a lovely

night.

“I want to go out,” said Amelia. “They will take away those cocks before

I can get at them in the morning, and there will be no more jumping and

tumbling. I shall go out and have some fun now.”

“My dear Amelia, you must not,” said her mamma; and her papa added, “I

won’t hear of it.” So Amelia went upstairs to grumble to nurse; but

nurse only said, “Now, my dear Miss Amelia, do go quietly to bed, like a

dear love. The field is all wet with dew. Besides, it’s a moonlight

night, and who knows what’s abroad? You might see the fairies—bless us

and sain us!—and what not. There’s been a magpie hopping up and down

near the house all day, and that’s a sign of ill-luck.”

“I don’t care for magpies,” said Amelia; “I threw a stone at that one

to-day.”

And she left the nursery, and swung downstairs on the rail of the

banisters. But she did not go into the drawing-room; she opened the

front door and went out into the moonshine.

It was a lovely night. But there was something strange about it.

Everything looked asleep, and yet seemed not only awake but watching.

There was not a sound, and yet the air seemed full of half sounds. The

child was quite alone, and yet at every step she fancied some one behind

her, on one side of her, somewhere, and found it only a rustling leaf or

a passing shadow. She was soon in the hayfield, where it was just the

same; so that when she fancied that something green was moving near the

first haycock she thought very little of it, till, coming closer, she

plainly perceived by the moonlight a tiny man dressed in green, with a

tall, pointed hat, and very, very long tips to his shoes, tying his

shoestring with his foot on a stubble stalk. He had the most wizened of

faces, and when he got angry with his shoe, he pulled so wry a grimace

that it was quite laughable. At last he stood up, stepping carefully

over the stubble, went up to the first haycock, and drawing out a hollow

grass stalk blew upon it till his cheeks were puffed like footballs. And

yet there was no sound, only a half-sound, as of a horn blown in the far

distance, or in a dream. Presently the point of a tall hat, and finally

just such another little weazened face poked out through the side of the

haycock.

“Can we hold revel here to-night?” asked the little green man.

“That indeed you cannot,” answered the other; “we have hardly room to

turn round as it is, with all Amelia’s dirty frocks.”

“Ah, bah!” said the dwarf; and he walked on to the next haycock, Amelia

cautiously following.

Here he blew again, and a head was put out as before; on which he said—

“Can we hold revel here to-night?”

“How is it possible?” was the reply, “when there is not a place where

one can so much as set down an acorn cup, for Amelia’s broken victuals.”

“Fie! fie!” said the dwarf, and went on to the third, where all happened

as before; and he asked the old question—

“Can we hold revel here to-night?”

“Can you dance on glass and crockery shreds?” inquired the other.

“Amelia’s broken gimcracks are everywhere.”

“Pshaw!” snorted the dwarf, frowning terribly; and when he came to the

fourth haycock he blew such an angry blast that the grass stalk split

into seven pieces. But he met with no better success than before. Only

the point of a hat came through the hay, and a feeble voice piped in

tones of depression—“The broken threads would entangle our feet. It’s

all Amelia’s fault. If we could only get hold of her!”

“If she’s wise, she’ll keep as far from these haycocks as she can,”

snarled the dwarf, angrily; and he shook his fist as much as to say, “If

she did come, I should not receive her very pleasantly.”

Now with Amelia, to hear that she had better not do something, was to

make her wish at once to do it; and as she was not at all wanting in

courage, she pulled the dwarf’s little cloak, just as she would have

twitched her mother’s shawl, and said (with that sort of snarly whine in

which spoilt children generally speak), “Why shouldn’t I come to the

haycocks if I want to? They belong to my papa, and I shall come if I

like. But you have no business here.”

“Nightshade and hemlock!” ejaculated the little man, “you are not

lacking in impudence. Perhaps your Sauciness is not quite aware how

things are distributed in this world?” saying which he lifted his

pointed shoes and began to dance and sing—

“All under the sun belongs to men,

And all under the moon to the fairies.

So, so, so! Ho, ho, ho!

All under the moon to the fairies.”

As he sang “Ho, ho, ho!” the little man turned head over heels; and

though by this time Amelia would gladly have got away, she could not,

for the dwarf seemed to dance and tumble round her, and always to cut

off the chance of escape; whilst numberless voices from all around

seemed to join in the chorus, with—

“So, so, so! Ho, ho, ho!

All under the moon to the fairies.”

“And now,” said the little man, “to work! And you have plenty of work

before you, so trip on, to the first haycock.”

“I shan’t!” said Amelia.

“On with you!” repeated the dwarf.

“I won’t!” said Amelia.

But the little man, who was behind her, pinched her funny-bone with his

lean fingers, and, as everybody knows, that is agony; so Amelia ran on,

and tried to get away. But when she went too fast, the dwarf trod on her

heels with his long-pointed shoe, and if she did not go fast enough, he

pinched her funny-bone. So for once in her life she was obliged to do as

she was told. As they ran, tall hats and wizened faces were popped out

on all sides of the haycocks, like blanched almonds on a tipsy cake; and

whenever the dwarf pinched Amelia, or trod on her heels, they cried “Ho,

ho, ho!” with such horrible contortions as they laughed, that it was

hideous to behold.

“Here is Amelia!” shouted the dwarf when they reached the first haycock.

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed all the others, as they poked out here and there

from the hay.

“Bring a stock,” said the dwarf; on which the hay was lifted, and out

ran six or seven dwarfs, carrying what seemed to Amelia to be a little

girl like herself. And when she looked closer, to her horror and

surprise the figure was exactly like her—it was her own face, clothes,

and everything.

“Shall we kick it into the house?” asked the goblins.

“No,” said the dwarf; “lay it down by the haycock. The father and mother

are coming to seek her now.”

When Amelia heard this she began to shriek for help; but she was pushed

into the haycock, where her loudest cries sounded like the chirruping of

a grasshopper.

It was really a fine sight to see the inside of the cock.

Farmers do not like to see flowers in a hayfield, but the fairies do.

They had arranged all the buttercups, &c., in patterns on the haywalls;

bunches of meadow-sweet swung from the roof like censers, and perfumed

the air; and the ox-eye daisies which formed the ceiling gave a light

like stars. But Amelia cared for none of this. She only struggled to

peep through the hay, and she did see her father and mother and nurse

come down the lawn, followed by the other servants, looking for her.

When they saw the stock they ran to raise it with exclamations of pity

and surprise. The stock moaned faintly, and Amelia’s mamma wept, and

Amelia herself shouted with all her might.

“What’s that?” said her mamma. (It is not easy to deceive a mother.)

“Only the grasshoppers, my dear,” said papa. “Let us get the poor child

home.”

The stock moaned again, and the mother said, “Oh dear! oh

dear-r-Ramelia!” and followed in tears.

“Rub her eyes,” said the dwarf; on which Amelia’s eyes were rubbed with

some ointment, and when she took a last peep, she could see that the

stock was nothing but a hairy imp with a face like the oldest and most

grotesque of apes.

“——and send her below;” said the dwarf. On which the field opened, and

Amelia was pushed underground.

She found herself on a sort of open heath, where no houses were to be

seen. Of course there was no moonshine, and yet it was neither daylight

nor dark. There was as the light of early dawn, and every sound was at

once clear and dreamy, like the first sounds of the day coming through

the fresh air before sunrise. Beautiful flowers crept over the heath,

whose tints were constantly changing in the subdued light; and as the

hues changed and blended, the flowers gave forth different perfumes. All

would have been charming but that at every few paces the paths were

blocked by large clothes-baskets full of dirty frocks. And the frocks

were Amelia’s. Torn, draggled, wet, covered with sand, mud, and dirt of

all kinds, Amelia recognized them.

“You’ve got to wash them all,” said the dwarf, who was behind her as

usual; “that’s what you’ve come down for—not because your society is

particularly pleasant. So the sooner you begin the better.”

“I can’t,” said Amelia (she had already learnt that “I won’t” is not an

answer for every one); “send them up to nurse, and she’ll do them. It is

her business.”

“What nurse can do she has done, and now it’s time for you to begin,”

said the dwarf. “Sooner or later the mischief done by spoilt children’s

wilful disobedience comes back on their own hands. Up to a certain point

we help them, for we love children, and we are wilful ourselves. But

there are limits to everything. If you can’t wash your dirty frocks, it

is time you learnt to do so, if only that you may know what the trouble

is you impose on other people. _She_ will teach you.”

The dwarf kicked out his foot in front of him, and pointed with his long

toe to a woman who sat by a fire made upon the heath, where a pot was

suspended from crossed poles. It was like a bit of a gipsy encampment,

and the woman seemed to be a real woman, not a fairy—which was the

case, as Amelia afterwards found. She had lived underground for many

years, and was the dwarfs’ servant.

And this was how it came about that Amelia had to wash her dirty frocks.

Let any little girl try to wash one of her dresses; not to half wash it,

not to leave it stained with dirty water, but to wash it quite clean.

Let her then try to starch and iron it—in short, to make it look as if

it had come from the laundress—and she will have some idea of what poor

Amelia had to learn to do. There was no help for it. When she was

working she very seldom saw the dwarfs; but if she were idle or

stubborn, or had any hopes of getting away, one was sure to start up at

her elbow and pinch her funny-bone, or poke her in the ribs, till she

did her best. Her back ached with stooping over the wash-tub; her hands

and arms grew wrinkled with soaking in hot soapsuds, and sore with

rubbing. Whatever she did not know how to do, the woman of the heath

taught her. At first, whilst Amelia was sulky, the woman of the heath

was sharp and cross; but when Amelia became willing and obedient, she

was good-natured, and even helped her.

The first time that Amelia felt hungry she asked for some food.

“By all means,” said one of the dwarfs; “there is plenty down here which

belongs to you;” and he led her away till they came to a place like the

first, except that it was covered with plates of broken meats; all the

bits of good meat, pie, pudding, bread and butter, &c., that Amelia had

wasted beforetime.

“I can’t eat cold scraps like these,” said Amelia turning away.

“Then what did you ask for food for before you were hungry?” screamed

the dwarf, and he pinched her and sent her about her business.

After a while she became so famished that she was glad to beg humbly to

be allowed to go for food; and she ate a cold chop and the remains of a

rice pudding with thankfulness. How delicious they tasted! She was

surprised herself at the good things she had rejected. After a time she

fancied she would like to warm up some of the cold meat in a pan, which

the woman of the heath used to cook her own dinner in, and she asked for

leave to do so.

“You may do anything you like to make yourself comfortable, if you do it

yourself,” said she; and Amelia, who had been watching her for many

times, became quite expert in cooking up the scraps.

As there was no real daylight underground, so also there was no night.

When the old woman was tired she lay down and had a nap, and when she

thought that Amelia had earned a rest, she allowed her to do the same.

It was never cold, and it never rained, so they slept on the heath among

the flowers.

They say that “It’s a long lane that has no turning,” and the hardest

tasks come to an end some time, and Amelia’s dresses were clean at last;

but then a more wearisome work was before her. They had to be mended.

Amelia looked at the jagged rents made by the hedges, the great gaping

holes in front where she had put her foot through; the torn tucks and

gathers. First she wept, then she bitterly regretted that she had so

often refused to do her sewing at home that she was very awkward with

her needle. Whether she ever would have got through this task alone is

doubtful, but she had by this time become so well-behaved and willing

that the old woman was kind to her, and, pitying her blundering

attempts, she helped her a great deal; whilst Amelia would cook the old

woman’s victuals, or repeat stories and pieces of poetry to amuse her.

“How glad I am that I ever learnt anything?” thought the poor child;

“everything one learns seems to come useful some time.”

At last the dresses were finished.

“Do you think I shall be allowed to go home now?” Amelia asked of the

woman of the heath.

“Not yet,” said she; “you have got to mend the broken gimcracks next.”

“But when I have done all my tasks,” Amelia said; “will they let me go

then?”

“That depends,” said the woman, and she sat silent over the fire; but

Amelia wept so bitterly, that she pitied her and said—“Only dry your

eyes, for the fairies hate tears, and I will tell you all I know and do

the best for you I can. You see, when you first came you were—excuse

me!—such an unlicked cub; such a peevish, selfish, wilful, useless, and

ill-mannered little miss, that neither the fairies nor anybody else were

likely to keep you any longer than necessary. But now you are such a

willing, handy, and civil little thing, and so pretty and graceful

withal, and I think it is very likely that they will want to keep you

altogether. I think you had better make up your mind to it. They are

kindly little folk, and will make a pet of you in the end.”

“Oh, no, no!” moaned poor Amelia; “I want to be with my mother, my poor

dear mother! I want to make up for being a bad child so long. Besides,

surely that ‘stock,’ as they called her, will want to come back to her

own people.”

“As to that,” said the woman, “after a time the stock will affect mortal

illness, and will then take possession of the first black cat she sees,

and in that shape leave the house, and come home. But the figure that is

like you will remain lifeless in the bed, and will be duly buried. Then

your people, believing you to be dead, will never look for you, and you

will always remain here. However, as this distresses you so, I will give

you some advice. Can you dance?”

“Yes,” said Amelia; “I did attend pretty well to my dancing lessons. I

was considered rather clever about it.”

“At any spare moments you find,” continued the woman, “dance, dance all

your dances, and as well as you can. The dwarfs love dancing.”

“And then?” said Amelia.

“Then, perhaps some night they will take you up to dance with them in

the meadows above ground.”

“But I could not get away. They would tread on my heels—oh! I could

never escape them.”

“I know that,” said the woman; “your only chance is this. If ever, when

dancing in the meadows, you can find a four-leaved clover, hold it in

your hand and wish to be at home. Then no one can stop you. Meanwhile I

advise you to seem happy, and they may think you are content, and have

forgotten the world. And dance, above all, dance!”

And Amelia, not to be behindhand, began then and there to dance some

pretty figures on the heath. As she was dancing the dwarf came by.

“Ho, ho!” said he, “you can dance, can you?”

“When I am happy, I can,” said Amelia, performing several graceful

movements as she spoke.

“What are you pleased about now?” snapped the dwarf, suspiciously.

“Have I not reason?” said Amelia. “The dresses are washed and mended.”

“Then up with them!” returned the dwarf. On which half a dozen elves

popped the whole lot into a big basket and kicked them up into the

world, where they found their way to the right wardrobes somehow.

As the woman of the heath had said, Amelia was soon set to a new task.

When she bade the old woman farewell, she asked if she could do nothing

for her if ever she got at liberty herself.

“Can I do nothing to get you back to your old home?” Amelia cried, for

she thought of others now as well as herself.

“No, thank you,” returned the old woman; “I am used to this, and do not

care to return. I have been here a long time—how long I do not know;

for as there is neither daylight nor dark we have no measure of

time—long, I am sure, very long. The light and noise up yonder would

now be too much for me. But I wish you well, and, above all, remember to

dance!”

The new scene of Amelia’s labors was a more rocky part of the heath,

where grey granite boulders served for seats and tables, and sometimes

for workshops and anvils, as in one place, where a grotesque and grimy

old dwarf sat forging rivets to mend china and glass. A fire in a hollow

of the boulder served for a forge, and on the flatter part was his

anvil. The rocks were covered in all directions with the knick-knacks,

ornaments, &c., that Amelia had at various times destroyed.

“If you please, sir,” she said to the dwarf, “I am Amelia.”

The dwarf left off blowing at his forge and looked at her.

“Then I wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself,” said he.

“I am ashamed of myself,” said poor Amelia, “very much ashamed. I should

like to mend these things if I can.”

“Well, you can’t say more than that,” said the dwarf, in a mollified

tone, for he was a kindly little creature; “bring that china bowl here,

and I’ll show you how to set to work.”

Poor Amelia did not get on very fast, but she tried her best. As to the

dwarf, it was truly wonderful to see how he worked. Things seemed to

mend themselves at his touch, and he was so proud of his skill, and so

particular, that he generally did over again the things which Amelia had

done after her fashion. The first time he gave her a few minutes in

which to rest and amuse herself, she held out her little skirt, and

began one of her prettiest dances.

“Rivets and trivets!” shrieked the little man, “How you dance! It is

charming! I say it is charming! On with you! Fa, la fa! La, fa la! It

gives me the fidgets in my shoe points to see you!” and forthwith down

he jumped, and began capering about.

“I am a good dancer myself,” said the little man, “Do you know the ‘Hop,

Skip, and Jump’ dance?”

“I do not think I do,” said Amelia.

“It is much admired,” said the dwarf, “when I dance it;” and he

thereupon tucked up the little leathern apron in which he worked, and

performed some curious antics on one leg.

“That is the Hop,” he observed, pausing for a moment.

“The Skip is thus. You throw out your left leg as high and as far as you

can, and as you drop on the toe of your left foot you fling out the

right leg in the same manner, and so on. This is the Jump,” with which

he turned a somersault and disappeared from view. When Amelia next saw

him he was sitting cross-legged on his boulder.

“Good, wasn’t it?” he said.

“Wonderful!” Amelia replied.

“Now it’s your turn again,” said the dwarf.

But Amelia cunningly replied—“I’m afraid I must go on with my work.”

“Pshaw!” said the little tinker. “Give me your work. I can do more in a

minute than you in a month, and better to boot. Now dance again.”

“Do you know this?” said Amelia, and she danced a few paces of a polka

mazurka.

“Admirable!” cried the little man. “Stay”—and he drew an old violin

from behind the rock; “now dance again, and mark the time well, so that

I may catch the measure, and then I will accompany you.”

Which accordingly he did, improvising a very spirited tune, which had,

however, the peculiar subdued and weird effect of all the other sounds

in this strange region.

“The fiddle came from up yonder,” said the little man. “It was smashed

to atoms in the world and thrown away. But ho, ho, ho! There is nothing

that I cannot mend, and a mended fiddle is an amended fiddle. It

improves the tone. Now teach me that dance, and I will patch up all the

rest of the gimcracks. Is it a bargain?”

“By all means,” said Amelia; and she began to explain the dance to the

best of her ability.

“Charming! charming!” cried the dwarf. “We have no such dance ourselves.

We only dance hand in hand, and round and round, when we dance together.

Now I will learn the step, and then I will put my arm round your waist

and dance with you.”

Amelia looked at the dwarf. He was very smutty, and old, and weazened.

Truly, a queer partner! But “handsome is that handsome does;” and he had

done her a good turn. So when he had learnt the step, he put his arm

round Amelia’s waist, and they danced together. His shoe points were

very much in the way, but otherwise he danced very well.

Then he set to work on the broken ornaments, and they were all very soon

“as good as new.” But they were not kicked up into the world, for, as

the dwarfs said, they would be sure to break on the road. So they kept

them and used them; and I fear that no benefit came from the little

tinker’s skill to Amelia’s mamma’s acquaintance in this matter.

“Have I any other tasks?” Amelia inquired.

“One more,” said the dwarfs; and she was led farther on to a smooth

mossy green, thickly covered with what looked like bits of broken

thread. One would think it had been a milliner’s work-room from the

first invention of needles and thread.

“What are these?” Amelia asked.

“They are the broken threads of all the conversations you have

interrupted,” was the reply; “and pretty dangerous work it is to dance

here now, with threads getting round one’s shoe points. Dance a hornpipe

in a herring-net, and you’ll know what it is!”

Amelia began to pick up the threads, but it was tedious work. She had

cleared a yard or two, and her back was aching terribly, when she heard

the fiddle and the mazurka behind her; and looking round she saw the old

dwarf, who was playing away, and making the most hideous grimaces as his

chin pressed the violin.

“Dance, my lady, dance!” he shouted.

“I do not think I can,” said Amelia; “I am so weary with stooping over

my work.”

“Then rest a few minutes,” he answered, “and I will play you a jig. A

jig is a beautiful dance, such life, such spirit! So!”

And he played faster and faster, his arm, his face, his fiddle-bow all

seemed working together; and as he played, the threads danced themselves

into three heaps.

“That is not bad, is it?” said the dwarf; “and now for our own dance,”

and he played the mazurka. “Get the measure well into your head. Lâ, la

fa lâ! Lâ, la fa lâ! So!”

And throwing away his fiddle, he caught Amelia round the waist, and they

danced as before. After which, she had no difficulty in putting the

three heaps of thread into a basket.

“Where are these to be kicked to?” asked the young goblins.

“To the four winds of heaven,” said the old dwarf. “There are very few

drawing-room conversations worth putting together a second time. They

are not like old china bowls.”

BY MOONLIGHT.

Thus Amelia’s tasks were ended; but not a word was said of her return

home. The dwarfs were now very kind, and made so much of her that it was

evident that they meant her to remain with them. Amelia often cooked for

them, and she danced and played with them, and never showed a sign of

discontent; but her heart ached for home, and when she was alone she

would bury her face in the flowers and cry for her mother.

One day she overheard the dwarfs in consultation.

“The moon is full to-morrow,” said one—(“Then I have been a month down

here,” thought Amelia; “it was full moon that night”)—“shall we dance

in the Mary Meads?”

“By all means,” said the old tinker dwarf; “and we will take Amelia, and

dance my dance.”

“Is it safe?” said another.

“Look how content she is,” said the old dwarf; “and, oh! how she dances;

my feet tickle at the bare thought.”

“The ordinary run of mortals do not see us,” continued the objector;

“but she is visible to any one. And there are men and women who wander

in the moonlight, and the Mary Meads are near her old home.”

“I will make her a hat of touchwood,” said the old dwarf, “so that even

if she is seen it will look like a will-o’-the-wisp bobbing up and down.

If she does not come, I will not. I must dance my dance. You do not know

what it is! We two alone move together with a grace which even here is

remarkable. But when I think that up yonder we shall have attendant

shadows echoing our movements, I long for the moment to arrive.”

“So be it,” said the others; and Amelia wore the touchwood hat, and went

up with them to the Mary Meads.

Amelia and the dwarf danced the mazurka, and their shadows, now as short

as themselves, then long and gigantic, danced beside them. As the moon

went down, and the shadows lengthened, the dwarf was in raptures.

“When one sees how colossal one’s very shadow is,” he remarked, “one

knows one’s true worth. You also have a good shadow. We are partners in

the dance, and I think we will be partners for life. But I have not

fully considered the matter, so this is not to be regarded as a formal

proposal.” And he continued to dance, singing, “Lâ, la, fa, lâ, lâ, la,

fa, lâ.” It was highly admired.

The Mary Meads lay a little below the house where Amelia’s parents

lived, and once during the night her father, who was watching by the

sick bed of the stock, looked out of the window.

“How lovely the moonlight is!” he murmured; “but, dear me! there is a

will-o’-the-wisp yonder. I had no idea the Mary Meads were so damp.”

Then he pulled the blind down and went back into the room.

As for poor Amelia, she found no four-leaved clover, and at cockcrow

they all went underground.

“We will dance on Hunch Hill to-morrow,” said the dwarfs.

All went as before; not a clover plant of any kind did Amelia see, and

at cockcrow the revel broke up.

On the following night they danced in the hayfield. The old stubble was

now almost hidden by green clover. There was a grand fairy dance—a

round dance, which does not mean, as with us, a dance for two partners,

but a dance where all join hands and dance round and round in a circle

with appropriate antics. Round they went, faster and faster, the pointed

shoes now meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel now kicked

out behind like spikes, and then scamper, caper, hurry! They seemed to

fly, when suddenly the ring broke at one corner, and nothing being

stronger than its weakest point, the whole circle were sent flying over

the field.

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed the dwarfs, for they are good-humored little folk,

and do not mind a tumble.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Amelia, for she had fallen with her fingers on a

four-leaved clover.

She put it behind her back, for the old tinker dwarf was coming up to

her, wiping the mud from his face with his leathern apron.

“Now for our dance!” he shrieked. “And I have made up my mind—partners

now and partners always. You are incomparable. For three hundred years I

have not met with your equal.”

But Amelia held the four-leaved clover above her head, and cried from

her very heart—“I want to go home!”

The dwarf gave a hideous yell of disappointment, and at this instant the

stock came stumbling head over heels into the midst, crying—“Oh! the

pills, the powders, and the draughts! oh, the lotions and embrocations!

oh, the blisters, the poultices, and the plasters! men may well be so

short-lived!”

And Amelia found herself in bed in her own home.

AT HOME AGAIN.

By the side of Amelia’s bed stood a little table, on which were so many

big bottles of medicine, that Amelia smiled to think of all the stock

must have had to swallow during the month past. There was an open Bible

on it too, in which Amelia’s mother was reading, whilst tears trickled

slowly down her pale cheeks. The poor lady looked so thin and ill, so

worn with sorrow and watching, that Amelia’s heart smote her, as if some

one had given her a sharp blow.

“Mamma, mamma! Mother, my dear, dear, mother!”

The tender, humble, loving tone of voice was so unlike Amelia’s old

imperious snarl, that her mother hardly recognized it; and when she saw

Amelia’s eyes full of intelligence instead of the delirium of fever, and

that (though older and thinner and rather pale) she looked wonderfully

well, the poor worn-out lady could hardly restrain herself from falling

into hysterics for very joy.

“Dear mamma, I want to tell you all about it,” said Amelia, kissing the

kind hand that stroked her brow.

But it appeared that the doctor had forbidden conversation; and though

Amelia knew it would do her no harm, she yielded to her mother’s wish

and lay still and silent.

“Now, my love, it is time to take your medicine.”

But Amelia pleaded—“Oh, mamma, indeed I don’t want any medicine. I am

quite well, and would like to get up.”

“Ah, my dear child!” cried her mother, “what I have suffered in inducing

you to take your medicine, and yet see what good it has done you.”

“I hope you will never suffer any more from my wilfulness,” said Amelia;

and she swallowed two tablespoonfuls of a mixture labelled, “To be well

shaken before taken,” without even a wry face.

Presently the doctor came.

“You’re not so very angry at the sight of me to-day my little lady, eh?”

he said.

“I have not seen you for a long time,” said Amelia; “but I know you have

been here, attending a stock who looked like me. If your eyes had been

touched with fairy ointment, however, you would have been aware that it

was a fairy imp, and a very ugly one, covered with hair. I have been

living in terror lest it should go back underground in the shape of a

black cat. However, thanks to the four-leaved clover, and the old woman

of the heath, I am at home again.”

On hearing this rhodomontade, Amelia’s mother burst into tears, for she

thought the poor child was still raving with fever. But the doctor

smiled pleasantly, and said—“Ay, ay, to be sure,” with a little nod, as

one should say, “We know all about it;” and laid two fingers in a casual

manner on Amelia’s wrist.

“But she is wonderfully better, madam,” he said afterwards to her mamma;

“the brain has been severely tried, but she is marvellously improved: in

fact, it is an effort of nature, a most favorable effort, and we can but

assist the rally; we will change the medicine.” Which he did, and very

wisely assisted nature with a bottle of pure water flavored with

tincture of roses.

“And it was so very kind of him to give me his directions in poetry,”

said Amelia’s mamma; “for I told him my memory, which is never good,

seemed going completely, from anxiety, and if I had done anything wrong

just now, I should never had forgiven myself. And I always found poetry

easier to remember than prose,”—which puzzled everybody, the doctor

included, till it appeared that she had ingeniously discovered a rhyme

in his orders

‘To be kept cool and quiet,

With light nourishing diet.’

Under which treatment Amelia was soon pronounced to be well.

She made another attempt to relate her adventures, but she found that

not even the nurse would believe in them.

“Why you told me yourself I might meet with the fairies,” said Amelia,

reproachfully.

“So I did, my dear,” nurse replied, “and they say that it’s that put it

into your head. And I’m sure what you say about the dwarfs and all is as

good as a printed book, though you can’t think that ever I would have

let any dirty clothes store up like that, let alone your frocks, my

dear. But for pity sake, Miss Amelia, don’t go on about it to your

mother, for she thinks you’ll never get your senses right again, and she

has fretted enough about you, poor lady; and nursed you night and day

till she is nigh worn out. And anybody can see you’ve been ill, miss,

you’ve grown so, and look paler and older like. Well, to be sure, as you

say, if you’d been washing and working for a month in a place without a

bit of sun, or a bed to lie on, and scraps to eat, it would be enough to

do it; and many’s the poor child that has to, and gets worn and old

before her time. But, my dear, whatever you think, give in to your

mother; you’ll never repent giving in to your mother, my dear, the

longest day you live.”

So Amelia kept her own counsel. But she had one confidant.

When her parents brought the stock home on the night of Amelia’s visit

to the haycocks, the bull-dog’s conduct had been most strange. His usual

good-humor appeared to have been exchanged for incomprehensible fury,

and he was with difficulty prevented from flying at the stock, who on

her part showed an anger and dislike fully equal to his.

Finally the bull-dog had been confined in the stable, where he remained

the whole month, uttering from time to time such howls, with his snub

nose in the air, that poor nurse quite gave up hope of Amelia’s

recovery.

“For indeed, my dear, they do say that a howling dog is a sign of death,

and it was more than I could abear.”

But the day after Amelia’s return, as nurse was leaving the room with a

tray which had carried some of the light nourishing diet ordered by the

doctor, she was knocked down, tray and all, by the bull-dog, who came

tearing into the room, dragging a chain and dirty rope after him, and

nearly choked by the desperate efforts which had finally effected his

escape from the stable. And he jumped straight on the end of Amelia’s

bed, where he lay, _thudding_ with his tail, and giving short whines of

ecstacy. And as Amelia begged that he might be left, and as it was

evident that he would bite any one who tried to take him away, he became

established as chief nurse. When Amelia’s meals were brought to the

bedside on a tray, he kept a fixed eye on the plates, as if to see if

her appetite were improving. And he would even take a snack himself,

with an air of great affability.

And when Amelia told him her story, she could see by his eyes, and his

nose, and his ears, and his tail, and the way he growled whenever the

stock was mentioned, that he knew all about it. As, on the other hand,

he had no difficulty in conveying to her by sympathetic whines the

sentiment “Of course I would have helped you if I could; but they tied

me up, and this disgusting old rope has taken me a month to worry

through.”

So, in spite of the past, Amelia grew up good and gentle, unselfish and

considerate for others. She was unusually clever, as those who have been

with the “Little People” are said always to be.

And she became so popular with her mother’s acquaintances that they

said—“We will no longer call her Amelia, for it was a name we learnt to

dislike, but we will call her Amy, that is to say, ‘Beloved.’”

* * * * * *

“And did my godmother’s grandmother believe that Amelia had really been

with the fairies, or did she think it was all fever ravings?”

“That, indeed, she never said, but she always observed that it was a

pleasant tale with a good moral, which was surely enough for anybody.”

THE END.

* * * * *

SPOONS

BY FRANCES HENSHAW BADEN

The clear, smooth brow of Mrs. St. James clouded and contracted

unmistakably. As she stood at the window, her eyes wandering about the

beautiful grounds surrounding her home, they rested on two figures

seated in a rustic arbor. They were her daughter Alice and young Gerald

Clifton. Now Mrs. St. James would have preferred seeing any other of the

young gentlemen of her acquaintance with Alice, than the present one.

She turned impatiently from the window, saying:

“My remonstrance is useless. She is perfectly infatuated—and her father

scarcely less so. I can’t imagine what he is thinking about. He has not

a care about his child making a brilliant match. There is Albert Hyde,

young Lord Clavering, and half a dozen others, any of whom she could

marry; all eligible, and should be considered really more desirable and

worthy. But no—this young man, with neither wealth nor position, has, I

fear, secured the hearts of both Alice and her father. And I really

think, unless something providential prevents, she will marry him.”

The lovely Alice, quite unconscious of the unfavorable eyes which had

lingered on them, was listening with delight to a beautiful poem her

lover was reading. Suddenly he closed the book, and looking earnestly on

his companion, said:

“Your mother dislikes me very much, Alice. I fear I shall never win her

favor.”

“No, no, not dislikes you; but there are others she likes better,

perhaps. But papa will yet win her over. He loves you, and mamma dearly

loves him. So in time all will be well,” answered Alice, with a sweet,

assuring smile.

“I trust so, Alice. And in time I will prove worthy of your love and

your father’s confidence. I will make a name for you, love, with

heaven’s blessing.”

A week or so after, Sydney St. James was returning home from his

editorial office. He had had a harassing day, and was very tired. He

wanted rest, and a quiet evening; saying to himself, “I trust we shall

have no company, unless Gerald; he never wearies me. Bless the boy! I am

growing strangely fond of him!” He entered the house, made his way to

the parlor, where he was accustomed to find his family. Alas! for his

hopes of rest and quiet. There, instead of the usual pleasant greeting

from his wife, the bright smile and loving embrace of his daughter, he

found the first very much excited, with flashing eyes and glowing

cheeks; the latter sobbing, her face hidden in the cushion of the sofa.

Hastily approaching her, he raised her head tenderly and asked:

“What is it, love?”

Another rush of tears; then her head nestled in her father’s bosom.

“What has happened?” he asked, in real anxiety looking to his wife.

“Well, I always knew something was wrong about him, and how very

presumptuous he was; but I never did suppose he would descend to such a

low, crim—”

“Mamma! oh! don’t, pray!” sobbed Alice.

“He! Who? What is it?” asked Mr. St. James, growing more and more

anxious.

“Well, your great favorite, Mr. Clifton, was here at noon, to take leave

of Alice, before leaving for Scotland. We were about going out shopping

when he came; so of course were detained. I drew off my gloves, and laid

them, with my porte-monnaie, handkerchief and sunshade, on the center

table. I saw him take up the porte-monnaie, and look at it; I thought

just admiring it. You know it was that pearl and inlaid one you gave me

at Christmas. Well, after a little while I went into the next room,

immediately returning when I heard him about leaving. I bade him good-by

in the hall, and proceeded to draw on my gloves again, intending to go

on our proposed excursion. I missed the porte-monnaie; but, thinking

Alice had put it in her pocket, I was not anxious. When she was again

ready to start, I said:

“‘You have the money?’

“‘No,’ she replied.

“We began to look about, but our hunt was in vain. You can readily

arrive at the conclusion, and the cause of Alice’s mortification and

grief,” said Mrs. St. James, in a manner and tone that looked and

sounded very much like she was rather glad of it.

“And do you for a moment imagine, or would have me, that Clifton—” Mr.

St. James hesitated.

“Stole it? Certainly.”

Another sob from Alice, with the cry:

“Don’t—don’t, mamma!”

“Tut, tut, tut, wife. Hush, Alice, love. There is some mistake. I’d risk

all my worldly possessions—aye, and my life—on Gerald’s honesty and

noble nature,” said Mr. St. James.

“You would lose both, then. There is no mistake, my dear. You know he

has been much embarrassed in money matters. I know no one entered this

room but him; and I know the porte-monnaie is gone, and in it a hundred

pounds. You can call it by what name you choose. I have my own idea

about the matter. However, should you put it in the mildest form,

kleptomania would not be a very desirable acquisition to our family.

Alice, I think, feels fully sensible of that. Why you have thought so

much of him I cannot tell.”

“Why?” and the dark brown eyes of Sydney St. James grew more earnest,

and glowed with a tender, loving light; and in a voice full of emotion,

he said: “Why? Because I, who have no son of my own, see in this young

man a reproduction of myself—the struggles of my youth. So much he

brings to my mind those years of trial—oh, those long, weary

heart-sickening years!—when, alone in my humble, cheerless room, I

brewed my own coffee, broiled my chops, and worked—worked, day and

night, so long before I could get any production accepted, and then for

many months after, before I received any remuneration. And then how

small it was! how meagerly dealt out! Aye, and in the very act of which

you accuse him, most forcibly I see the great resemblance between us.

“At the time when the ‘Prison Reform Bill’ was very much engrossing the

public mind, my fortunes took a favorable turn. I wrote a leader on that

subject. It was published, and although I am sure it was no better than

many I had written before, pleased the people. A few days after, when in

the office of the editor of the journal in which my productions were

principally published, that gentleman handed me a note, which opening I

found was from the Secretary of the Premier, saying his lordship would

be pleased to see me, and appointing the next day for my call. Lord

Cedarcliff received me most kindly, complimenting me on that article,

that really proved the making of my present success. That call was the

beginning of my intimacy with his lordship. A few days after, I was

invited to a dinner party given by Lord Cedarcliff. There I met many of

the noble and distinguished men of the time. It was my first dinner

party, and naturally I was considerably embarrassed. However, his

lordship’s kindness, and the marked attention of many of his guests,

placed me more at ease. During the dinner, Lord Cedarcliff called our

attention to a gold spoon, curiously wrought and very valuable. It was

said to have belonged to the camp equipage of Napoleon. The conversation

then, from the Emperor and his battles, naturally turned to those of the

Crimea, and the prolonged siege of Sebastopol. Several of the gentlemen

expressed their views as to how the city might have been taken; and I,

considerably excited by the wine, and like most young men, possessing my

full share of egotism, had my ideas about the matter. So I began to

explain how Sebastopol might have been taken very speedily. With the

handle of the Emperor’s spoon, I marked my plan on the table-cloth.

After a little I became conscious that a silence more than profound,

really painful, had fallen upon the company. I felt confident it could

not have been occasioned by their great interest in my theme. I had

wearied them, most likely, or perhaps I had said or done something very

_outré_. The embarrassment was somewhat relieved by his lordship’s

making the move for our adjournment to the drawing-room. There, however,

I could not fail to observe that I had in some way lost favor. His

lordship was _too_ polite, frigidly so. In truth, the whole atmosphere

seemed changed. At length I excused myself, and left, sadly mystified as

to the change, in not only his lordship’s treatment of me, but likewise

of most of his guests.

“A few days after, I called on Lord Cedarcliff, but was told by the

butler that his lordship was engaged; again, the next day, with the same

result; a third time, with no better success. Determining to press the

matter a little, and find out, if possible, what such treatment meant, I

asked:

“‘When can I see his lordship?’

“Judge of my mortification, when the butler replied:

“‘It will not be agreeable for his lordship to receive Mr. St. James

now, or at any future time.’

“I could not imagine what I had done to merit such a change in the

Premier’s kind feeling. In vain I asked myself, over and over, ‘What did

I say or do at the dinner-table?’ for I was sensible the change took

place there.

“That evening I was engaged to go with a friend to the opera. I felt in

no mood for such enjoyment, I was so depressed by my reception at the

Premier’s mansion. However, my friend would not excuse me, and so I

began getting ready to accompany him. Taking from the closet my only

dress coat—indeed, I may say, my only respectable one—which was kept

for great occasions, I began to brush and dust it—I had not worn it

since the Premier’s dinner party. While thus engaged, the brush struck

against something in the pocket. Putting my hand in to ascertain what it

was, I drew out—oh, horror!—the Emperor’s golden spoon!

“The mystery was solved, then. I had pocketed that spoon while seated at

his lordship’s table. Many times—in fact, I was accustomed, when deeply

interested in conversation, to pocket pens, pencils, knives,

handkerchiefs and napkins; but never before anything of much value. For

a moment I was so overwhelmed with mortification I could only gaze

wildly from the spoon to my friend. Then, hurriedly pulling on my coat,

I caught up my hat, still grasping the spoon, rushed out of the room,

down the stairs, and into the street. My companion started to follow me,

calling out:

“‘St. James, are you mad? Stop! I must go with you!’

“I stopped not nor deigned a word of reply, but rushed on through the

streets until I reached the Premier’s dwelling. I rang the bell, and

when the butler opened the door, I said:

“‘I must see his lordship. Tell him it is a matter of life and death!’

“My excited manner testified to the urgency of my case, so the man

turned to do my bidding. With quick, noiseless steps I followed behind

him. He opened the door of his lordship’s sanctum, but before he opened

his mouth to speak, I rushed past him, and up to the nobleman’s side,

exclaiming:

“‘My lord, here is your spoon—that Emperor’s spoon! On my honor—’

Excited as I was, I could detect a curl of the haughty lip, as if to

signify his lordship’s doubt of my possessing that quality. ‘Ah, I fear

you think I know nothing of such a feeling,’ I continued; ‘but, as

heaven hears me, I had no more idea of having taken that spoon, until

fifteen minutes ago, than your lordship has now of having purloined the

crown jewels.’

“My look, words and manner enforced conviction. After an instant his

lordship grasped my hand, saying:

“‘I believe you, St. James. I wonder, now, how I could ever have doubted

you. I might have known how it was.’

“So excited had I been, I failed to notice the room had other occupants.

A merry laugh reached my ear. Turning, I saw several gentlemen who were

present at the dinner party. They came forward, each grasping my hand

cordially, and apologizing for their suspicions. The story was told many

times after, and afforded considerable amusement. And after a while I

could join in the laugh; but for a long time it was a very sore subject.

“Now, Alice, love, rest easy. I’ll answer for Gerald. We will hear from

him before long; just as soon as he has made the discovery. Come, smile,

now; and—Ah, there is the dinner bell. I cannot have a clouded face

near me. It will take away my appetite.”

Alice tried to smile, but it proved a poor apology for one.

They were just about entering the dining-room, when a servant met them,

holding out an envelope, saying:

“A telegram, sir.”

Quickly opening which, Mr. St. James exclaimed joyously:

“Ah, I knew it! It is from Gerald.”

It was from Peterborough, addressed to Mr. St. James, and read:

“Took, by mistake, an article of value from your house. Will

return with it by the next train.”

“Bless the boy! How could you have doubted him, Alice? _You_, of all

others! I can scarcely forgive you,” her father said, affectionately

chiding her.

Alice’s face was radiant with smiles then, and she whispered in her

father’s ear:

“Gerald will.”

A few hours more and young Clifton was with them, and the porte-monnaie

restored to the owner. The event served to bind more firmly the

affection of Mr. St. James to his favorite, who, in a year after, became

his son-in-law and in time not only fulfilled the great expectation of

St. James, but quite reconciled Mrs. St. James to the fact of Alice’s

husband bearing no lordly title, but one won by his own merit. And that

worthy lady has been more cautious in pronouncing so decidedly upon the

actions of _literary_ folk, since the event of the missing porte-monnaie

and the hearing of her husband’s story; and she is often heard to say

now, that “deep thinkers, who are nearly all the time planning the

future, cannot be expected to be anything else than absent-minded. In

fact, it is a positive proof of a great mind.”

THE END.

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Inconsistencies in

spelling and hyphenation have been retained. A few obvious typesetting

and punctuation errors have been corrected without note.

[End of _Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, The Brownies, and Other Tales_ by Juliana

Horatia Ewing]