Part 44 (2/2)
”You will stay to dinner?” pleaded Mrs. Hopkins; ”I have nothing very nice to give you.”
”Shall we, darling?” This to his daughter.
The beautiful eyes added their plea, and the carriage was ordered back to the hotel to return for them at five.
While sitting in the parlor Lily told her father of the mother's gift in the years gone by, adding: ”He is my brother--I can never forsake him”; and the answer had been: ”He shall not be forsaken. I am too grateful for what I have received willingly to sever a single thread that binds you to the friends of your past.”
Mrs. Hopkins was standing in the door when these words were spoken, but turned away with a pain in her heart and a strange pallor on her usually flushed face.
That evening there was a long consultation in the little upper parlor of the village inn, and Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d had repeated the plea: ”You will let her remain with me until the summer heat is over? I cannot return home now if I would, and it would be insufferable here without her! As soon as the maple leaves shall crimson and the birds go where I cannot follow, I will come with her to Philadelphia and stand between you no more. It will take the intervening weeks to prepare my heart to endure the separation. Certainly you cannot refuse me this!” And the whole matter was given to the daughter for a decision. She whispered it at last in the ear of her doting father, as she hung about his neck while he petted and caressed her: ”For Willie's sake, until he is stronger and able to return to Boston I will remain.”
”Pretty hard, my darling, but as there is no appeal the subject is of course closed.”
”But there is another of whom I have not told you, whose heart will rejoice at this decision,” Lily remarked playfully.
”Not a lover I hope,” interposed the father.
”Yes--a true lover! One who has helped me in many a trying hour, and whose advice it has always been safe to follow. You need not draw down that military mustache so threateningly, for this 'lover' is no other than 'Crazy Dimis,' who is even now free from the restraints of the 'county house' and is roaming about somewhere. She appeared to us yesterday out of the honeysuckle swamp, and with her usual earnestness exclaimed, as she pointed her long bony finger at me, 'Little fool, kiss and cry, kiss and cry, don't I know? Life is full of 'em; go, love is waiting--get it;
Eyes must weep--and eyes must hunger, Love must sleep and life must wonder;
don't I know?' And with a loud laugh she darted into the thick shades and life was left to 'wonder.' There is a good deal of common sense in her gibberings, and when three years ago she told me to 'go and make omens' I obeyed, and came to Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d, whose hands were full of cheering 'omens.'”
One week after the northern visit Colonel Hamilton received very decided orders from headquarters to return immediately to his regiment. ”Lee must be intercepted.”
”You must do it all alone, Lillian,” was the quick remark when the telegram was read. ”Howe & Brother will furnish all in the upholstery line that will be desired, and be sure that our home is made fitting the reception of our daughter.”
How full the succeeding days were to the hopeful wife and mother! ”She will be here at the first tinging of the maple trees.” This she had said to her aunt. ”Only a little more than two months in which to make all ready.”
”Such a dainty bit of precious girlhood must not be allowed to step on the common ingrain that covers your old uncle's floors, I take it.” This was a little improvised indignation as the good old uncle listened to the plannings and recountings of the luxuries that were to surround her in the home to be prepared. ”But the fisherman's cot shouldn't be forgotten, Lillian, and so sometimes you will let her come to us?”
”What a wicked, naughty uncle you are!” Lillian exclaimed, while she smothered all further ebullitions of a.s.sumed anger by placing a little white hand over his mouth. ”There! Now to punish you for those words I shall be at the store at five for you to go with me and look over the premises!”
”Want to blacken my fingers with the guilt of spoiling her do you? Well, well! A full half hour lost in palavering; good-bye,” and the jovial uncle went out from his home leaving it full of suns.h.i.+ne.
October dawned bright and beautiful. The hazy mist that brooded over the city was tinted with hues of purple and gold as they became tangled with the many colored leaves that fell through the cool shadows in the public squares, and in a week Lily-Pearl Hamilton would arrive! One cloud only was shadowing the path of Mrs. Hamilton, and that the absence and dangers of him to whom her heart had clung through all the gloomy days; but in a few months his ”three years” would close and then--how happy they would all be!
”If Pearl can succeed in getting Old Auntie and Lizzy safely here, as he a.s.sured me he could do,” she had said, ”my cup will be full to overflowing!”
”How will your mother bear all this?” queried Mrs. Cheevers.
”With no serious result I imagine. The doctor told me the other day that she was not susceptible of a very severe shock, her brain having become so inactive that no injury would probably come to it through excitement.”
Suddenly recollecting that Pearl's mother was to meet her at the new home at ten she hastened away.
”Everything was _perfect_ in the new home,” was Mrs. Hamilton's conclusion, as with Lillian she walked from room to room. ”Not ma.s.sive and oppressive with a superabundance of heavy carvings and marble, but bright and cheerful in its display of luxury and beauty. Your taste is good, my daughter, and I think Pearl will commend it.”
While at the tea-table that night a letter was brought in for Lillian.
<script>