University of Virginia Library

16. XVI.
NEW YEAR'S IN TWO PLACES.

New Year's day dawned clear, and bright, and cold.
Simon Goldthwaite looked out of the window of the
little den he called his private counting-room. The
streets literally swarmed with gentlemen on their way
to the parlors of their lady friends. Now and then
a sleigh dashed by, with its sleek, prancing horses, its
liveried servants, and the bright young face of its mistress
raised to the manly countenance bending over
her; the cheeks flushed, the eyes sparkling like beads,
and the whole expression speaking that genuine happiness
which so rarely lingers after the first fresh enthusiasm
of youth. He seemed to take pleasure in
the sight, and then he turned away with a little inward
chuckle of satisfaction.

“Poor boy,” he said aloud, “why should I not help
him to bring his mother to the city? I have no one
else to help. How pleased he will be when I tell him
his salary is raised to one thousand a year. After all,
four hundred of it isn't much to pay out of my own

pocket; I can't give it to him any other way, for he's
too proud to let me help him if he knew it. Heigho,
he'll think the firm are getting generous;” and he
chuckled again, rubbing his hands as if excessively
delighted.

“Hallo! Dick, my boy, good news for you.
You've got the situation, and your salary raised to a
thousand dollars.”

“A thousand dollars! Am I dreaming? I must
go and thank them this moment.”

Simon smiled—“You must do no such thing. I
have known them longer than you, and they would
not like it. Now I suppose we shall have brave
doings. I shall have to go all over the city to hunt
you up a house. Let me see, it shall be in Brooklyn,
and near South Ferry. That will be so pleasant.
They can come across on the pleasant summer days,
and go to walk on the Battery, and then up Broadway
to the store. It will be the best walk for Mabel.”

“Oh, Mr. Goldthwaite, how kind, how good; you
have planned it all. It is just what I should like.
How I wish you were a woman.”

“Would you marry me?” asked Simon, with imperturbable
gravity—“would you, really?” and as
if with greatly increased self-complacency, he stroked
an apology for a whisker of terribly uncertain color.

“Nonsense, but I am so happy. I wished you
were a woman, so I could kiss you.”

For a moment Simon's brow was shaded. Unheeded
the tears gathered in his eyes, and his voice
trembled. “The last kiss I ever received, my mother
gave me, the night before she died. All these
years since no lips were ever pressed to brow or
cheek of mine. Sometimes I think I can feel it still,
and hear over again the tones of her good-night
blessing. Oh, this friendless life has seemed a weary
journey oftentimes. Thank God, my dear boy, that
your boyhood was not left motherless.”

“I do, and I thank Him, too, for the sisters he has
given me. I got a letter from Emmie this morning.
Dear little Sunbeam, how happy she will be, that she
can come to live with me at last. Such a little philosopher.
The rest of the village girls, it seems, are
having new bonnets, and she couldn't afford any. Her
account of the display at their one milliner's shop, is
really laughable. I believe I can afford to treat her
to a present of a new bonnet on the strength of my recent
good fortune.”

“To be sure you can. I'll pay you for all that
copying you did for me, on that very condition, and
I'll go with you and help select. Come, we shall
both be at leisure for an hour or two. There must be
one for each of them.”

They sauntered along Broadway in the very
gayest spirits. At length Simon paused, and indicated
a hat which had completely captivated his

fancy. “That's the very thing for little Sunbeam
now, isn't it?” The bonnet in question was bright red,
with flowers of a deep yellow. Dick could hardly
suppress a hearty laugh, as he attempted to imagine
Emmie's sweet, sunshiny face, and intelligent, brown
eyes, with such remarkable surroundings; but he only
said, quietly, that he was sure it wouldn't quite suit
her complexion. In the very next window was one
which he decided to secure, with the fullest approbation
of the obliging Simon. It was white, with lining
and strings of pale rose color, and plumes as soft and
delicate as December snow-flakes. There was another
of deep azure silk. He fancied it would just
match the untroubled blue of Mabel's dream-haunted
eyes; and he went home, the triumphant possessor of
them both. He could never remember so happy a
New Year, and yet he was only a merchant's clerk, on
a small salary, alone in the great city, with no friends,
save that one honest, kind-hearted man. He could
not rest contented until he had coaxed Simon across
South Ferry, and fixed on a half-dozen cosy houses,
any one of which he fancied would be a pretty nest
for the home-birds who were to migrate thither with
the spring sunshine. Long, and very eloquent with
love and hope, was the letter he wrote that evening
to the dear ones in Mohawk Village, while Simon sat
silently by in his arm-chair, enjoying his young friend's
happiness, and yet thinking half sorrowfully the while,
of what might be, if he, himself, were not quite so old,
and a little bit more handsome.

It was New Year's also on Mount Vernon street.
The seasons of the year are terribly republican in
their character, and the day was not a bit brighter for
our lady Juno, than for the tired beggar woman, resting
for a moment on her steps, whom the quadroon
had just before so haughtily repulsed. Juno was in
her dressing-room. The dainty shutters of satinwood,
picked out with gold, were carefully closed, to
exclude the sunlight, and the room was brilliantly illuminated
with gas, for she wished to try the effect of
the gaslight on a costume which must be worn late
into the night. She sat with a cashmere dressing-gown
falling in graceful folds about her, while her
quadroon maid knelt at her feet, adjusting the tiny
white satin slippers. Her robe for the occasion was a
moire antique, white, with rippling waves of light all
over it, and spotted here and there, as if dashed with
dew-drops. Over this she was to wear a dress of
Mechlin lace, exquisite in its pattern, and fine and
soft enough for the coronation robes of a fairy queen.
Dupont had given his most classic touches to her hair,
and ornamented it with a wreath of delicate orange
blossoms, manufactured with the purest oriental
pearls set in silver. Her dress lay on the lounge before
her, the little feet were properly chaussée, and

the quadroon was ready for the completion of her
task; but still Master Warren chose to linger, and
still Juno looked up with her brightest smile to the
handsome face bending over her. “But, mother dearest,”
he said, earnestly, “must you insist? Grace does
not wish it herself, and it will be positive pain to me.”

“Pain to have your betrothed wife sit for callers
with your own mother?”

“You understand me, mother. You must surely
know I love Grace too well, and appreciate her too
highly, to be willing the scene of Christmas evening
should be re-enacted.”

“It may not be; at any rate, the experiment is
worth trying. If Miss Atherton is to be your wife,
she must live here, and living here, she cannot seclude
herself from society. That unfortunate story
may perhaps be forgotten in time; at any rate, we
must not seem to notice it. The poor child's manners
are awkward to the last degree in society, and we
must have her a little more accustomed to it, before
she is introduced as your bride. Go now, I am
waiting to dress; and please let her know it is my
very earnest wish that she should be present in the
drawing-room before eleven.”

All that week, the poor girl's heart had ached
wearily. Her longed for summons home had not yet
arrived, and more than ever her simple country habits
seemed out of place among the magnificence with

which she was surrounded. She listened to Mrs. Clifford's
wishes with a sigh so deep it made Warren's
heart ache. She was sitting in the library, and she
rose to go up stairs. He sprang to her side, and drew
her head impulsively to his bosom. But the action
called no flush to her cheek, no sparkle to her eye,
and he said, half reproachfully, “Grace, what ails
you? What makes you so calm, and still, and cold?
Are you sick? has any thing vexed you?”

There was a mournful, pathetic look in the blue
eyes which sought his own; a look which haunted
him for years afterwards. “No,” she said, very quietly,
—“I am not sick; I am not vexed; I am lonesome.”

“And yet I am with you, Gracie,” he said, reproachfully.

“I know it, but I had rather you were with me at
home. I am pining for Glenthorne. It is too stately
for me here, I can't live; I'm a wild, mountain daisy,
and I don't want to be put here with your fuchsias
and French roses.”

“You are ill. You never would speak so despairingly
if you were not. I suppose you must go and
dress; my mother is very much in earnest about it.
But if you find the parade is tiring you, just steal
away to your own room, and no one shall find fault.”

Even his tender words failed to gladden her, as
they would have done two weeks before. Listlessly
she went up stairs, and twined her golden tresses over

her finger. Then she put on a dress of deep azure
silk. It was a simple costume, but very becoming to
the almost ethereal style of her face and figure. When
she descended to the drawing-room, she found Mrs.
Clifford and Miss Sommers already surrounded by a
group of gentlemen. Warren had lingered still in
the hope of seeing her before he went out, and meeting
her at the door, he conducted her to a seat beside
a stand of choice engravings. For the first few moments
she had leisure to look about her. Miss Sommers,
elegantly arrayed in rose-colored satin, was
playing the sentimental young lady, after the most
approved fashion, to a young gentleman whose collar
turned down à la Byron, and “eyes in a fine frenzy
rolling,” betrayed the incipient poet. She was just informing
him what a very nice young lady she thought
Leila, and how she had doted on brides, ever since she
saw a certain distinguished actress appear in the costume
of Miss Lammermuir. Juno was conversing with
a distinguished looking man in military costume, and
the other gentlemen, joining in the conversation only
now and then, seemed sufficiently entertained by the
reflection of their own faces in their patent-leather
boots. The day passed very wearily. There were a
few who took the trouble to talk to Grace, and there was
no repetition of the insults of the Christmas evening.
But she was too sad to be very entertaining, and at
length, as if by a tacit consent, they abandoned her to
her silence and her table of engravings. There was
one which especially fascinated her. There were
bleak, barren hills in the background, and over them
the moon was rising, lifting her face, wan and spectral,
from the black clouds folded round her. Then there
was a chain of rugged rocks, against which the sea
surged and dashed like mad, and on the cliff jutting
farthest out to sea, stood a young girl. She was evidently
a fisherman's daughter. Her face was very
beautiful. Her loose cloak was blown backward, and
so were the long folds of her hair. Her eyes were
straining to catch a view of a far-off skiff, which had
well-nigh gone to pieces in its battle with the waves.
In her expression there was a strange blending of hope,
and the most abject, miserable despair. The hope had
almost gone out, and in the despair there was something
strangely sublime. It was such a look as a lost
angel might have worn, who had tried in vain to scale
the steeps of Heaven. To Grace there was a prophecy
in those troubled, mournful eyes. She turned it a
dozen different ways, and in each new light it seemed
to grow more and more drearily mournful. And so she
sat, while the first sun of the New Year was going down
slowly. She did not seem to comprehend any thing
around. The voices did not enter her ear; the faces
and figures might have been those of phantoms.
Her soul was heavy with a dim, underfined presentiment
of some terrible evil.

Juno Clifford, sitting there, looking like a royal
bride in her costly robes, watched her furtively and
enjoyingly, while Miss Margaretta coined a sneer or
two for her especial benefit; but they were both unheeded.

The next morning a note with the Glenthorne
postmark roused her from the listlessness into which
she was falling. Juno had declared herself too ill to
appear at breakfast, and both Warren and Miss Atherton
were sitting by her bedside, when the welcome
missive was brought in.

“I am going home to-morrow,” she said, when she
had concluded its perusal, and her tone had something
of its old cheerfulness.

“Not to-morrow, surely. Mr. Clifford leaves to-day
for Washington, and I am so ill I would not dare to
stay without Warren. You cannot go home alone.”

“Oh yes, I shall have no difficulty; you know I
came without him My mother has sent for me, and
I must go.”

“But he fully intended to go with you.”

“Never mind, you need him more than I, and I
shall do very well.” At that moment Warren's eyes
met her own with a reproachful look, which seemed
to say, “Has my presence ceased to be welcome?”
She rose, and retreated hastily to her own room. She
had a kind of feeling that Warren never looked at her
without recalling the scene of Christmas evening,

and this thought gave her a feeling of constraint.
She longed to escape from it all, to her own free, happy
home; and yet she loved him—he must have indeed
been blind to doubt that—loved him with a love as
eternal as the soul which conceived it. She read the
precious letter over and over again, kissing the words,
and blistering the paper with her tears. There were
sentences, fairly eloquent with the gushing tenderness
of a mother's love for her only child. They told of the
fond welcome which awaited her—of the songs her pet
birds sang in the winter mornings when she was not
there to hear them; of the buds on her rose-tree, and
of the good, kind Mary, so patient in her great sorrow;
busy every where, but most of all in making her young
lady's room look bright and neat. She must come—
they were all ready, waiting for her, they should be so
much happier when she was there. She pressed the
loving words to her lips, and her heart overflowed with
a tearful thanksgiving for this blessed place of refuge.

Juno parted with her the next morning with many
outward expressions of regret. Grace listened to her
words, and was folded to her heart, as in a dream.
She scarcely heeded Miss Sommers' half-mocking farewell,
but she clung to Warren's arm almost despairingly,
as he led her to the carriage. She had not
realized, before, how terrible would be the parting.
That hour she felt how far dearer was her betrothed
husband, than all things earthly; dearer even than her

own life. During the short drive to the depot, there
were but few words spoken. Her head lay silently upon
his breast. There was time for but a hurried good-bye—a
hasty promise to write often, to see her
soon, and then, utterly regardless of the gazing eyes
around him, he strained her for one moment passionately
to his heart. Then he had a glimpse, as the cars
started, of a pale, tearless face looking from the window
with a weary, sorrowful glance, very pitiful in one so
young. He went back into the presence of his fascinating
mother, with that sad face haunting him; and
reading the sorrow in his eyes, Juno Clifford began to
realize that the game on which she hazarded all things
was but a desperate chance.

That afternoon, in Mohawk Village, a happy party
were gathered round a blazing fireside, while Emmie
Hereford read her brother's letter. She had tried on
her new bonnet at least a half-dozen times, and extemporized
as many dances before the mirror in her extravagant
joy. Now she sat with her lashes demurely
drooped, half veiling the sunshine in her brown eyes.
“And so, mother dearest, we are to go to Dick next
spring? Won't it be joy to live together again? Mabel
will feel it most of all; and my Lady Juno Clifford
can have back her cottage upon her hands.” And the
mother, answering, smiled with the tears dimming her
kind eyes, and breathed a silent prayer that God would
bless the absent son and brother.

That afternoon, a white-haired man, unmistakably
growing old, stood beside his gentle wife on the steps
of Glenthorne Cottage. The stage stopped at the
door, and a slight, pale girl came forward, and was
folded in their arms. They showered tenderest kisses
on the young, sad face; they breathed blessings over
her; and Grace Atherton, coming back worn and wearied
from her sojourn in the wondrous regions of Up-Town,
blessed God afresh for the love of home, akin
to the love of heaven.