Part 6 (2/2)
”Quick, Lawrence, the bell will ring for breakfast presently.”
He drew cautiously from the stocking a small box, tied and sealed with wax.
”All very grand,” he began, with a shrug of the shoulders, when his wife caught it from his hands.
”Open the other, first,” she said.
He tore off the paper, and presently came to a note addressed to ”Lawrence Curtis, Esq.” in a beautifully neat hand. Opening it cautiously, he glanced at the bottom, and saw the names of his entire cla.s.s, when his countenance changed at once.
”Really,” he said, ”I had no idea of this,” reading aloud, ”'Will our dear teacher please accept the enclosed slippers as a trifling token of our grat.i.tude?'
”They are beautiful! very tasteful; exactly what I wanted! I must have them made up at once. Oh! here is the cash for that purpose! Well, my friends, I'm very grateful. Now I'm encouraged to try again,” taking up the box, and quizzically glancing into the blus.h.i.+ng face before him.
It contained a watch-chain of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p, manufactured of hair and gold, attached to which was an ornament in the shape of a heart, and a key in the form of a hand.
”My heart and my hand are all I have to give,” she whispered, kissing his forehead, while a tear glistened in her eye. ”The chain was made from the hair you cut from my head when I was so very sick.”
He raised the precious token to his lips, exclaiming with great tenderness, ”I shall wear it as long as I live. What would the world be to me, Cecilia, without your heart and hand?”
There was a service in the church at ten, and at noon all the really aged people in the parish had been invited to a dinner at Woodlawn.
”I want to have a regular house-warming,” Mr. Curtis had said to his wife. ”I want to warm it with the good will of all our villagers.” So it was decided that the old people should come to dinner, the married persons and children to tea, and the young people of both s.e.xes in the evening.
I wish I could paint a picture of the happy faces that gathered around the festal board during that lovely Christmas Day. There was the good pastor and his family improving this pleasant occasion to speak a word here and there as it was needed among their flock. There were Mr. and Mrs. Hunt, leading Susy who had just returned from the hospital. There was Thomas Grant, his face red as a beet, gallanting a very sensible looking girl who was soon to become his wife. There were swarms of laddies and la.s.ses, kept in constant good humor by Albert Dodge, who had returned to Oxford for the occasion. There were groups of children headed by Bertie, playing all sorts of games, or gathering in a circle around the Squire, who told them funny stories.
”You have learned the secret of living,” remarked the Pastor, when he came to take leave. ”In promoting the happiness and welfare of those about us we ensure our own.”
”That is the rule by which my wife is training our boy,” answered the gentleman. ”No other house-warming could have pleased us so well as this.”
CHAPTER XII.
VIOLETS AND VIOLETTA.
When spring came, Bertie went one morning into his mamma's chamber with a bunch of the earliest violets.
The curtains were dropped before the large bay window, and though it was not cold a pleasant fire crackled in the open grate.
”Why, mamma, are you sick?” Bertie asked, running quickly to the side of the bed.
”Have you seen papa?” said mamma, smiling. ”He went out to tell you I have a present for you.”
”No, mamma, I didn't see him.”
She turned down the sheet and showed him a tiny baby lying by her side, trying to suck its own little rosy finger.
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