90. CHAPTER XC.
UNDER THE MISLETOE.
The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never
placed in that of any younger man, except for a moment; but
the heart that warmed the hand henceforward held all the
world.
We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader,
and the girl we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking
in the garden of Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and
we shall close the book, and still she will be Hope Wayne.
How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler
but tell his story as it is? It is not at his will that heroes
marry, and heroines are given in marriage. He merely watches
events and records results; but the inevitable laws of human
life are hidden in God's grace beyond his knowledge.
There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and
every year with greater beauty and wider recognition. He
wears the same velvet coat of many buttons—or its successor
in the third or fourth remove—and still he whistles and sings
at his work, still draws back from the easel and turns his head
on one side to look at his picture and cons it carefully through
the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and,
lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging
one leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his
foot, at something which does not seem to be in the room.
Cheerful and gay, he has always a word of welcome for the
loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the painters; even if
the loiterer find him with the foot idly swining and the cigar
musingly smoking itself away.
Nor is the painter conscious of any gaping, unhealed wound
that periodically bleeds. There are nights in mid-summer
when, leaning from his window, he thinks of many things, and
among others, of a picture he once painted of the legend of
Latmos. He smiles to think that, at the time, he half persuaded
himself that he might be Endymion, yet the feeling with
which he smiles is of pity and wonder rather than of regret.
At Thanksgiving dinners, at Christmas parties, at New Year
and Twelfth Night festivals, no guest so gay and useful, so inventive
and delightful, as Arthur Merlin the painter. Just as
Aunt Winnifred has abandoned her theory it has become true,
and all the girls do seem to love the man who respects them
as much as the younger men do with whom they nightly dance
in winter. He romps with the children, has a perfectly regulated
and triumphant sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and
only this Christmas, although he is now—well, Aunt Winnifred
has locked up the Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur
as a young man—yet only this Christmas, at Lawrence
Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly did they run round,
it was almost impossible to compute the actual number of
Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children — Arthur Merlin
brought in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy,
something covered with a large handkerchief. Of
course there could be no peace, and no blindman's-buff, no
stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no snap-dragon, until
the mystery was revealed. The whole crowd of short frocks
and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed
around the painter until he displayed a green branch.
A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a
head of golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence
Newt.
“Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries
on it?”
“That's a misletoe bough, little Hope.”
“But, papa, what's it for?”
The painter was already telling the children what it was
for; and when he had hung it up over the folding-doors such
a bubbling chorus of laughter and merry shrieks followed,
there was such a dragging of little girls in white muslin by
little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and kissing, and
happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was immediately
relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their
friend the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most
transcendent.
But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and,
chasing Hope Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting
girls and boys, finally caught her and led her to the middle of
the room and dropped on one knee and kissed her hand under
the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds; and as Hope
Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the
room—bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer
—she saw that the elders were shouting with the children,
and that Lawrence Newt and his wife, and his niece Fanny,
and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were all clapping
their hands and laughing.
She laughed too, and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when
Ellen Bennet's oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly
reports, in which her name is coupled with that of her cousin
Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat down to the piano and
played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who handed out
Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed
around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her
papa's knee and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair,
laughed all the time, and wished that Christmas came every
day in the year, and that she might always see Mr. Arthur
Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.
When the dance was over and the panting children were
resting, Gabriel Newt, Lawrence's youngest boy, said to Arthur,
“Mr. Merlin, what game shall we play now? What game
do you like best?”
“The game of life, my boy,” replied Arthur.
[ILLUSTRATION]
Under The Misletoe.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 502. In-line Illustration. Image of a man with long hair and a long beard kneeling on one knee in front of a woman. He is holding one of her hands in his. They are surrounded by happy faces of children and adults.]
“Oh, pooh!” said Gabriel, doubtfully, with a vague feeling
that Mr. Merlin was quizzing him.
But the painter was in earnest; and if you are of his opinion,
patient and gentle reader, it is for you to say who, among
all the players we have been watching, held Trumps.
THE END.
