University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

CHRISTMAS day passed in whirlwinds of snow; and
we within doors were doubly quiet for the sporting
elements without. Our few simple presents were given
and received with a mixed pleasure. There had been
doubts whether we should receive—whether we could
afford to give; and to make much preparation we had
wanted both time and spirits. Then there was the strong
contrast with former years,—how keenly I felt it when
Mr. Howard came in with a paper of candies, and laying
it on the table, said he had brought us that for Christmas!
I would rather he had forgotten the day.

Towards evening the wind lulled, and though snow-flakes
still fell doubtfully and at intervals, Kate and I resolved to
walk to the Bird's Nest. We seldom went by the high road
now, it was too roundabout a way for our frequent visits;
but we had struck out a little foot-path which going across
wood and meadow brought us to the Nest much sooner;
and though its narrowness left our dresses to take the benefit
of the snow, it was too pretty to be abandoned for such
a trifle. So literally this time, we “made tracks” for the
little path which fell into our own garden ground.

The weather was quiet, except as now and then a puff of
wind would sweep over the white country, and put first
pearls and then diamonds upon our eyebrows and lashes,—

then whirling away—its course marked by the light white
cloud which it raised.

The chickadees were in full force, and they alone broke
the stillness: while their black caps told as beautifully
upon the waste of snow, as their merry notes amid the
universal hush. We stopped to look at them. Upon a
bush close to our path there were perhaps a dozen—in
every variety of attitude and position; the little black
heads turned up, and down, and sideways; and having
from their round, full-feathered plumpness, a look particularly
comical. While one bird was perpendicular, another
horizontal, one perched and another swinging beneath a
branch, their heads never at rest; and from every twig in
succession came the joyous “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!” And
all the time their little gladsome eyes watched us—half as
it seemed in curiosity, half in commiseration that we too
were not Blackcaps. One might have fancied that they
sang,

I think if they had really put the question Kate and I
might have answered “yes”; but with a chirp, and a flutter
that showered the snow from its resting-place, the flock
sprang to their wings—if I may use the expression—and
we silently walked on. It was time; the light came more
and more askance, and neither for birds nor bad walking
must we loiter now. Yet fast as we step it is not so light
that we cannot see the glimmering fire through the white
muslin curtains as we reach the cottage.

“How those curtains look like Miss Easy!” said Kate,
—“simple, pure, and quiet as she is.”

“And transparent to `the light within,'” I added.

“Yes,—I wish every one had as bright a light, and as
gentle a medium for it to shine through. But then the
world would be too pleasant. Ah Gracie! we shall not
see many such this side `the kingdom.' How evidently
she is bound for it! how plainly the expression of her face
tells which way she is looking!”

The cottage was deprived of its green setting, and to the
rough stone walls the snow clung in patches, and the roof
bore its white burden with very grave quietness: yet the
many little tracks upon the walk where no other feet had
yet been, told of the revels of chickadees; and the elm
waved its long branches not cheerlessly in a late gleam
of sunlight, which came from the west, a very “beam of
tranquillity.”

We had long given up knocking at Miss Easy's door;
so opening it gently, Kate and I passed in and entered the
parlour. The room had that soft, uncertain light—the
interregnum between sun and fire—which is the very
atmosphere of dreamland,—even the fire seemed weaving
visions, as it flickered and flashed and sighed and had the
conversation all to itself. Nobody heeded it; and the
bright coals fell and the white ashes gathered, and nobody
heeded them.

Miss Easy was not there, but a great chair stood before
the hearth, and in it was Mr. Rodney. We recognised him
at once, though with his head sunk in his hands, he sat like
one whose thoughts are travelling painfully the long-quitted
roads of former life; but after one glance at him Kate and
I looked at each other—yes, it was Mr. Rodney himself.
Wolfgang lay near him, but the dog's pricked-up ears were
quickly lowered, and his tail gave us a quiet greeting as
his head went down to its former attitude of repose. We
stood still a few moments, and then were about to go as
softly as we had come, when Miss Easy entered by another
door.

“Why my dear girls!” she said, “where did you
come from? I am so glad to see you, yes. And you
took this long walk in the snow to wish me a merry
Christmas? But what in the world were you going away
for?”

“Not because of me, I hope,” said Mr. Rodney, as he
came forward and gave us a greeting that had all the
warmth of old times. “Friends should not run away from
each other after so long a separation,” he added more
sadly.

“Don't they look well?” said Miss Easy, coaxing the
fire into a bright blaze and then coming back to untie our

hoods,—“don't they look well? and haven't they grown
and improved?—yes.”

Mr. Rodney smiled—

“They certainly have, Miss Easy, and they look well;
but—is nothing the matter at home? is all well there too?”

“Yes, perfectly,” Kate said; and I looked up rather
wonderingly and asked,

“Why? Mr. Rodney—what makes you say that?”

“Something in the eyes I was looking at, Gracie,” he
answered; “but perhaps the shade was in my own.”

“There mustn't be a shade in anybody's eyes,” said Miss
Easy,—“I am so glad to see you all here together, once
more!—yes. And now Katie love, sit down and tell me
how you have spent this long stormy day; yes—I want to
know.”

“The day has not been so very long, Miss Easy—considering
its quietness and the little Christmas feeling that I
have had,—we were too busy to do much in the way of
present-making. But your engravings looked like Santa
Claus, and gave us a great deal of pleasure.”

“And you see what a present I had,” said Miss Easy
looking with glistening eyes at her guest. “I found him
here this morning just as you did this afternoon, yes; and
I have hardly recollected what the day was. And only
think! there lay Wolfgang at his feet, and he hasn't stirred
from him since. I declare,” said Miss Easy wiping her
eyes, “it quite touched me.”

Mr. Rodney laid his hand upon the dog's head, which
Wolfgang acknowledged by one of his looks of mute affection,
and for a little the fire crackled and blazed unheeded
as before. Then our two friends spoke again, in tones low
at first, and very grave, as if each read the other's thoughts;
but brightening and strengthening as word and eye almost,
passed from the ruins of earth to “that city which hath
foundations.”

And Kate and I, listening with charmed ears, noticed not
the waning light, till Miss Avarintha and candles came in,
—then we started up in surprise at our own forgetfulness.

“Now just sit down!” said the lady, “I didn't know you
were here, and I've twenty things to say to you. Are
your father and mother in health?”

“Yes ma'am,” said Kate, “but we must take another
time to hear the twenty things. We have staid too long
already—it is quite late.”

“You need not look so anxiously at the window,” said
Mr. Rodney—“you will not be afraid with me, if it is a
little dark.”

“No, but we are not going with you, Mr. Collingwood,”
said Kate—“at least you are not going with us. We are
not at all afraid—it is not far.”

“O no!” I said; “and you must be very tired—you
cannot want a walk, Mr. Rodney.”

“I am sure I shall take one, whether you let me go with
you or not. I must go to the Lea to-night, Miss Easy,” he
added, turning to her, “but you shall see me again in the
morning.”

“Why should you go there, of all places?” said Miss
Bain—“it will only make you feel sad,—you ought to stay
here and get up your spirits. It isn't right to indulge yourself
so—a pensive state of mind is very unhealthy.”

No one answered this speech, but after a minute's silence
Miss Easy said, gently laying her hand on his arm,

“You will come back to-morrow? yes, you promise me
that? then I will not keep you longer, for I know these
children want to be off.”

And Wolfgang roused himself to follow us, keeping close
to his master as if he feared another separation.

The clouds were scattered now, and the new moon's
faint light just served to show the snow's full beauty.
My thoughts went back to our first Christmas in that
region—when we had dined at Daisy Lea, and had walked
home in such a night—but how different! Perhaps Kate's
mind had taken the same course, for after a while she
said,

“It is strange that the snow cannot keep its lightness,
even where there has been no heavy weight to press it
down!”

“And what reality were you looking at through that
shadow?” said Mr. Rodney.

“I was thinking of a time years ago, when we said the
newfallen snow was like our own spirits,” said Kate with a
scarcely perceptible sigh.

Again we walked on in silence, and then Mr. Rodney
said,

“You have told me nothing of this long year as it has
passed at Glen Luna. I know from Miss Easy that you
have been well, but what have the months brought besides
health?”

“A little experience—a little more of real life than we
ever had before,” Kate answered.

“The shade was not all in my own eyes then.”

We had taken the road home, for the little path was too
narrow and dark for pleasant walking at that hour; and
now we were passing the same slopes and fields that we
had first seen in all the luxuriance of summer dress. Unbroken
white now, the bare trees cast the faintest of
shadows, and almost looked shadowy themselves in that
pale light.

“Miss Kate,” said Mr. Rodney, “the snow will as you
say lose its lightness—will melt away entirely; and yet the
earth is thereby much more fertilized than if that reflector
for the sunbeams were abiding.”

“Yes,” she answered, though her voice trembled a little,
“I know—I feel that to be true. And yet—”

“And yet,” he said gently, “sometimes you forget what
Baxter says—`there is no mirth like the mirth of believers,
which faith doth fetch from the blood of Christ, and from
the promises of the word, and from experiences of mercy,
and from the serious fore-apprehensions of our everlasting
blessedness.'”

“Forget it because I have so little of it,” Kate said presently.

“Well,” he answered, in the same pleasant, encouraging
tone, “it is something to know what we want,—it is more
to know how the want may be supplied; but the arch will
fail of its purpose without the key-stone. Let faith bind
the remedy to the need, and the work is perfect. The lack
of this makes many a half-way christian; and it often hinders
the realization of that promise—`They that fear the
Lord shall not want any good thing.'”

“Will you come in Mr. Rodney?” said Kate as we
reached our own door.

“Not to-night.”

“You have done us more than one kindness by taking
this long walk!”

“And you are not going away any more!” I said. “I
am so glad!”

“We will not talk of that now, Gracie, but I trust your
power of remembrance could stretch over more than one
year—if I should try it.”

I was not quite satisfied with the indication of these last
words; and when Miss Bain paid us a visit next morning
I repeated my remark about Mr. Rodney's staying at
home.

“Bless me!” was the somewhat disdainful reply,—“the
idea of his doing anything half so wise!”

“And what foolish thing does he mean to do?” said Mrs.
Howard.

“Why—of course that's as people take it,—but here he's
just come home in great affliction—or ought to be—and
instead of visiting about among his friends and trying to
get his spirits up—taking a little relaxation you know, Mrs.
Howard—he's going straight off to college or somewhere;
and the next thing I hear will be that he is dying of a pain
in his chest, or some other mathematical disorder.”

“I hope not,” said my stepmother, quite unable to repress
a smile.

“But Mrs. Howard,” said Miss Avarintha—“really
ma'am you ought not to laugh,—just imagine him bending
all day over his books—and he a young man of such erect
carriage and symmetrical proportions! Why it's perfectly
melancholy!”

“Very melancholy indeed, if it injures his health; but I
should think he had sense enough to guard against that.”

“My dear ma'am he hasn't a bit!—he told me gravely
this morning that he had no time to lose, or throw away,
or something—complimentary to his friends too, as I said.
Just think of it!—and he so young too! why he might
settle down and get married and study for a profession
afterwards.”

“If he cared nothing about his wife.”—

“If he did! Now Mrs. Howard were you ever married
to a man who hadn't been through college? and Mr. Rodney
has been part through, besides.”

“Never,” said my stepmother laughing,—“Mr. Howard
graduated with all the honours. But I must venture to
assert my opinion that a man had better study before marriage
than after.”

“Why? for pity's sake?”

“More time and fewer claims upon it.”

“You don't mean that people oughtn't to read nor anything
of that sort after they're married?—why there's Mr.
Howard spends hours and hours at his books, I'm sure,—
didn't you say so once when I asked you? Why if a man
did nothing but look after his wife, what would become of
his mind ma'am?”

“His wife's mind might oftener become something than
it does now,” said my stepmother. “But I am no advocate
for idleness in any department, Miss Avarintha; though I
must say that I think intellectual men often slight too
much their non-intellectual duties. They are so busy making
a clear way for their heads, that the walk of their practical
every-day life becomes sadly encumbered.”

“Then what would you have Mr. Rodney do?—suppose
his health fails.”

“I'm sure I was laying down no rules for Mr. Rodney,”
said Mrs. Howard.

“No ma'am—of course! but I want your opinion—young
men in general, for instance.”

“That's a pretty large for instance. I think `young
men in general' are in no danger from over application to
anything—the more they study the better.”

“My dear Mrs. Howard! you really are too evasive.
Should a man give up his books when he gets a wife?”

“By no means; but he should see to it that they are not
obstacles in the way of his wife's happiness.”

“As if they could be!” said Miss Bain indignantly, for
she was lady-patroness of books in general—“why Mrs.
Howard, I have always maintained that you were the happiest
woman in the world, because Mr. Howard was so
fond of study and all that! A pretty life a woman must
lead when her husband's head is nothing but a head! It
had better be something else and be in the clouds.”

My stepmother's smile was quite beyond Miss Bain's
comprehension, neither was it explained, but she said.—

“We are talking in the abstract, you know: if you apply
all my words to myself, I shall have to stop. But I
have seen many a married student, and have seen him—
with his head in the clouds as you say—go stumbling along
over the obstacles which had accumulated through his abstraction,
and hardly know what they were or how they
came.”

“Very well, and what harm then?”

“I did not say harm to him; but Miss Avarintha I have
seen his wife trying to remove those obstacles, or with her
own unassisted strength to get herself and her children over
them. I can tell you it is a sight which might almost disgust
one with books in general! Let a man study—but oh
let him study his wife first!”

The eye that was so seldom roused out of its gentleness,
—the sympathetic, womanly indignation that flushed her
cheek and made her voice tremble, obtained for my stepmother
even Miss Bain's respect and admiration.

“Well I must say,” she remarked, “you are a most
extraordinary person! But do you ever tell Mr. Howard
all this?”

“Sometimes—when I think he's in danger,” said Mrs.
Howard with a smile so sweet and placid that it turned the
edge of Miss Bain's curiosity.

“Bless me!” said that lady suddenly coming back to the
starting point,—“why if Mr. Rodney heard all this he'd
kill himself right away!”

“I hope not,” said my stepmother as with one quieting
long breath she too came back,—“I certainly have advised
no such desperate measures.”

“No ma'am, but he wants to know so much you see;
and if he thought this was his only chance, it's my belief
he'd study himself to death in six months.”

“Maybe he does not intend to get married so soon,”
said my stepmother smiling, “and if a few more months
dilute the poison, it may not prove fatal. And you may
tell him from me, that instead of having no chance to learn
anything after he is married,—the chances will be so many
that he will have hard work to keep pace with them.”

“My dear Mrs. Howard! how queer you are!—what
funny men and women you would make!”

“O she would make such good ones!” said Kate.

“Well I believe she would, if everybody was make-up-able
into Kates and Graces—for you are certainly the best
girls I ever saw in my life. But now you're coming to
dine with us to-morrow, and you musn't say one word of
all this.”

“I will be very good,” said Mrs. Howard.

“Because you see Easy's very anxious—and so am I of
course—that he should rest himself; and he thinks so much
of your sense and all that, Mrs. Howard, I'm sure he'd do
just what you told him to.”

My stepmother shook her head, as if she were sure of no
such thing.

“Who will take care of the Lea now?—Mrs. Crown as
usual?”

“O dear no!” said Miss Avarintha, “Mr. Rodney has
nothing to do with it now, you know,—it belongs to his
brother—Carvill Collingwood. At least he was Carvill
Collingwood, but he only calls himself Carvill at present.”

“A good riddance!” said my father who had come in
while she spoke.

“Yes, sir, so I think—I can't say I'm fond of very long
surnames,—one or two syllables is plenty.”

“But I didn't know this brother was alive?” said Mrs.
Howard.

“Dear me yes! Very fine young man too, only wild—
but that one can't help.”

“I shouldn't think he would care to live at the Lea then,”
said Kate.

“Not going to, my dear; oh no—he'd think himself
buried alive. He'll only come down there now and then
to kill the birds his father was so fond of. Mr. Rodney
will take away all that belongs to him at once, which isn't
very much to be sure; and what Mrs. Crown will do I am
not informed—probably she will choose to reside somewhere
in the neighbourhood, and perhaps she'll stay at the
Lea house still, if Mr. Carvill makes it worth her while.
But that's not likely, for these harebrained young men
never know what to do with their property. Easy's quite
troubled to think of the old place going into such hands,

but I tell her it's no use.—I daresay he'll be a delightful
neighbour and wake us all up.”

“I don't wish to be waked up,” said my father knitting
his brows and walking out of the room.

“Mr. Howard is so strict,” said Miss Bain laughing.
“But Mr. Carvill is going to be married Kate, so you
needn't even look that way. Bless me!—what a face!
why he's not a Turk or a Mussulman, child,—and if he was,
I'm sure the Turks are very handsome, and turbans very
becoming. I can tell you there's many a girl would jump
at Carvill, for as wild as he is.”

“I am not at all allied to the kangaroos,” said Kate.

“But who is the jumper in this case Miss Avarintha?”
said I.

“Jumper!” said Miss Bain in high indignation—“what
in the world is the child thinking of!—kangaroos indeed!
the idea of calling Clemence St. Cloud a jerboa!”

“Nay we did not touch upon that species,” said Kate,
“she is French then?”

“To be sure she is, so you'd better not laugh at her.
She's a most exquisite young creature they say—brought
up in a convent,—so I suppose she knows everything.”

“Well but is she coming to the Lea too?” said my
stepmother.

“Bless me, ma'am, how can I tell?—no I should think
not,—from all I hear of her she's not the sort of person to
run about after her husband.”

“Only to jump at him,” said I.

Miss Bain had half a mind to be vexed, but we laughed
so heartily that she could but laugh too, protesting that
we were “as ridiculous as possible;” and so we parted in
good humour.