Part 34 (2/2)

FROM A. TO Z.

x.x.x.

MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT.

”For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot.”

--HAMLET.

It was a clear winter evening. Mr. Sylvester sat in his library, musing before a bright coal fire, whose superabundant heat and blaze seemed to make the loneliness of the great empty room more apparent. He had just said to himself that it was Christmas eve, and that he, of all men in the world, had the least reason to realize it, when the door-bell rang.

He was expecting Bertram, whose advancement to the position of cas.h.i.+er in place of Mr. Wheelock, now thoroughly broken down in health, had that day been fully determined upon in a late meeting of the Board of Directors. He therefore did not disturb himself. It was consequently a startling surprise, when a deep, pleasant voice uttered from the threshold of the door, ”I have brought you a Christmas present;” and looking up, he saw Miss Belinda standing before him, with Paula at her side.

”My child!” was his involuntary exclamation, and before the young girl knew it, she was folded against his breast with a pa.s.sionate fervor that more than words, convinced her of the depth of the sacrifice which had held them separate for so long. ”My darling! my little Paula!”

She felt her heart stand still. Gently disengaging herself, she looked in his face. She found it thin and wan, but lit by such a pleasure she could not keep back her smile. ”You are glad, then, of your little Christmas present?” said she.

He smiled and shook his head; he had no words with which to express a joy like this.

Miss Belinda meanwhile stood with a set expression on her face, that, to one who did not know her, would immediately have proclaimed her to be an ogress of the very worst type. Not a glance did she give to the unusual splendor about her, not a wavering of her eye betokened that she was in any way conscious that she had just stepped from the threshold of a very humble cottage, into a home little short of a palace in size and the splendor of its appointments. All her attention was concentrated on the two faces before her.

”The ride on the cars has made Paula feverish,” cried she, in sharp clear tones that rang with unexpected brusqueness through the curtained alcoves of that lordly apartment.

They both started at this sudden introduction of the prosaic into the hush of their happy meeting, but remembering themselves, drew Miss Belinda forward to the fire and made her welcome in this house of many memories.

It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago.

She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread.

But the aspect of her little room calmed her. It was just as she had left it; not an article had been changed. ”It is as if I had gone out one door and come in another,” she whispered. All the months that had intervened seemed to float away. She felt this even more when upon again descending, she found Bertram in the library. His frank and interesting face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother's. ”I am at home again,” she kept whispering to herself, ”I am at home.”

Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester's side, where she sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half forgotten in her happiness.

”You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?”

asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance. ”I was not forgotten when you left the city streets?”

She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face, with its n.o.bly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary months of separation.

”I did not believe you would forget,” he gently pursued, ”but I scarcely dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again. It is such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness.”

The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence. She recovered herself and slowly shook her head. ”It is not a dismal one to me. I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it. I have missed your counsel,” she said; ”brightness is nothing without depth.”

His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away. He seemed to hold an instant's communion with himself; suddenly he said, ”And depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies. It is not from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the winds and suns.h.i.+ne of heaven.”

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