Trumps

CHAPTER LXXXVI. — IN THE CITY.

It was a long journey. They stopped at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, and pushed on toward New York. While they were still upon the way Hope Wayne saw what she had been long expecting to see—and saw it without a solitary regret. Amy Waring was Amy Waring no longer; and Hope Wayne was the first who kissed Mrs. Lawrence Newt. Even Mrs. Simcoe looked benignantly upon the bride; and Aunt Martha wept over her as over her own child.

The very day of the wedding Abel Newt and his companion arrived at Jersey City. Leaving Kitty in a hotel, he crossed the river, and ascertained that the vessel on which he had taken two berths under a false name was full and ready, and would sail upon her day. He showed himself in Wall Street, carefully dressed, carefully sober—evidently mindful, people said, of his new position; and they thought his coming home showed that he was on good terms with his family, and that he was really resolved to behave himself.

For a day or two he appeared in the business streets and offices, and talked gravely of public measures. General Belch was confounded by the cool sobriety, and superiority, and ceremony of the Honorable Mr. Newt. When he made a joke, Abel laughed with such patronizing politeness that the General was frightened, and tried no more. When he treated Abel familiarly, and told him what a jolly lift his speech had given to their common cause—the Grant—the Honorable Mr. Newt replied, with a cold bow, that he was glad if he had done his duty and satisfied his constituents; bowing so coldly that the General was confounded. He spat into his fire, and said, “The Devil!”

When Abel had gone, General Belch was profoundly conscious that King Log was better than King Stork, and thought regretfully of the Honorable Watkins Bodley.

After a day or two the Honorable Mr. Newt went to his Uncle Lawrence’s office. Abel had not often been there. He had never felt himself to be very welcome there; and as he came into the inner room where Lawrence and Gabriel sat, they were quite as curious to know why he had come as he was to know what his reception would be. Abel bowed politely, and said he could not help congratulating his uncle upon the news he had heard, but would not conceal his surprise. What his surprise was he did not explain; but Lawrence very well knew. Abel had the good sense not to mention, the name of Hope Wayne, and not to dwell upon any subject that involved feeling. He said that he hoped by-gones would be by-gones; that he had been a wild boy, but that a career now opened upon him of which he hoped to prove worthy.

“There was a time, Uncle Lawrence,” he said, “when I despised your warning; now I thank you for it.”

Lawrence held out his hand to his nephew:

“Honesty is the best policy, at least, if nothing more,” he said, smiling. “You have a chance; I hope, with all my heart, you will use it well.”

There was little more to say, and of that little Gabriel said nothing. Abel spoke of public affairs; and after a short time he took leave.

“Can the leopard change his spots?” said Gabriel, looking at the senior partner.

“A bad man may become better,” was all the answer; and the two merchants were busy again.

Returning to Wall Street, the Honorable Abel Newt met Mr. President Van Boozenberg. They shook hands, and the old gentleman said, warmly,

“I see ye goin’ into your Uncle Lawrence’s a while ago, as I was comin’ along South Street. Mr. Abel, Sir, I congratilate ee, Sir. I’ve read your speech, and I sez to ma, sez I, I’d no idee of it; none at all. Ma, sez she, Law, pa! I allers knowed Mr. Abel Newt would turn up trumps. You allers did have the women, Mr. Newt; and so I told ma.”

“I am very glad, Sir, that I have at last done something to deserve your approbation. I trust I shall not forfeit it. I have led rather a gay life, and careless; and my poor father and I have met with misfortunes. But they open a man’s eyes, Sir; they are angels in disguise, as the poet says. I don’t doubt they have been good for me. At least I’m resolved now to be steady and industrious; and I certainly should be a great fool if I were not.”

“Sartin, Sir, with your chances and prospects, yes, and your talents, coz, I allers said to ma, sez I, he’s got talent if he hain’t nothin’ else. I suppose your Uncle Lawrence won’t be so shy of you now, hey? No, of course not. A man who has a smart nevy in Congress has a tap in a good barrel.”

And Mr. Van Boozenberg laughed loudly at his own humor.

“Why, yes. Sir. I think I may say that the pleasantest part of my new life—if you will allow me to use the expression—is my return to the friends best worth having. I think I have learned, Sir, that steady-going business, with no nonsense about it, is the permanent thing. It isn’t flopdoddle, Sir, but it’s solid food.”

“Tonguey,” thought old Jacob Van Boozenberg, “but vastly improved. Has come to terms with Uncle Lawrence. Sensible fellow!”

“I think he takes it,” said Abel to himself, with the feeling of an angler, as he watched the other.

Just before they parted Abel took out his pocket-book and told Mr. Van Boozenberg that he should like to negotiate a little piece of paper which was not altogether worthless, he believed.

Smiling as he spoke, he handed a note for twenty-five thousand dollars, with his uncle’s indorsement, to the President. The old gentleman looked at it carefully, smiled knowingly, “Yes, yes, I see. Sly dog, that Uncle Lawrence. I allers sez so. This ere’s for the public service, I suppose, eh! Mr. Newt?” and the President chuckled over his confirmed conviction that Lawrence Newt was “jes’ like other folks.”

He asked Abel to walk with him to the bank. They chatted as they passed along, nodded to those they knew, while some bowed politely to the young member whom they saw in such good company.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Zephyr Wetherley as he skimmed up Wall Street from the bank, where he had been getting dividends, “I didn’t think to see the day when Abel Newt would be a solid, sensible man.”

And Mr. Wetherley wondered, in a sighing way, what was the secret of Abel’s success.

The honorable member came out of the bank with the money in his pocket. When the clock struck three he had the amount of all the notes in the form of several bills of foreign exchange.

He went hastily to the river side and crossed to Jersey City.

“They have sent to say that the ship sails at nine in the morning, and that we must be on board early,” said Kitty Dunham, as he entered the room.

“I am all ready,” he replied, in a clear, cold, alert voice. “Now sit down.”

His tone was not to be resisted. The woman seated herself quietly and waited.

“My affectionate Uncle Lawrence has given me a large sum of money, and recommends travelling for my health. The money is in bills on London and Paris. To-morrow morning we sail. We post to London—get the money; same day to Paris—get the money; straight on to Marseilles, and sail for Sicily. There we can take breath.”

He spoke rapidly, but calmly. She heard and understood every word.

“I wish we could sail to-night,” she said.

“Plenty of time—plenty of time,” answered Abel. “And why be so anxious for so long a journey?”

“It seems long to you, too?”

“Why, yes; it will be long. Yes, I am going on a long journey.”

He smiled with the hard black eyes a hard black smile. Kitty did not smile; but she took his hand gently.

Abel shook his head, mockingly.

“My dear Mrs. Delilah Jones, you overcome me with your sentimentality. I don’t believe in love. That’s what I believe in,” said he, as he opened his pocket-book and showed her the bills.

The woman looked at them unmoved.

“Those are the delicate little keys of the Future,” chuckled Abel, as he gloated over the paper.

The woman raised her eyes and looked into his. They were busy with the bills. Then with the same low tone, as if the wind were wailing, she asked,

“Abel, tell me, before we go upon this long journey, don’t you love me in the least?”

Her voice sank into an almost inaudible whisper.

Abel turned and looked at her, gayly.

“Love you? Why, woman, what is love? No, I don’t love you. I don’t love any body. But that’s no matter; you shall go with me as if I did. You know, as well as I do, that I can’t whine and sing silly. I’ll be your friend, and you’ll be mine, and this shall be the friend of both,” said he, as he raised the bills in his hands.

She sat beside him silent, and her eyes were hot and dry, not wet with tears. There was a look of woe in her face so touching and appealing that, when Abel happened to see it, he said, involuntarily,

“Come, come, don’t be silly.”

The evening came, and the Honorable Mr. Newt rose and walked about the room.

“How slowly the time passes!” he said, pettishly. “I can’t stand it.”

It was nine o’clock. Suddenly he sprang up from beside Kitty Dunham, who was silently working.

“No,” said he, “I really can not stand it. I’ll run over to town, and be back by midnight. I do want to see the old place once more before that long journey,” he added, with emphasis, as he put on his coat and hat. He ran from the room, and was just going out of the house when he heard a muffled voice calling to him from up stairs.

“Why, Kitty, what is it?” he asked, as he stopped.

There was no answer. Alarmed for a moment, he leaped up the stairs. She stood waiting for him at the door of the room.

“Well!” exclaimed he, hastily.

“You forgot to kiss me, Abel,” she said.

He took her by the shoulders, and looked at her before him. In her eyes there were pity, and gentleness, and love.

“Fool!” he said, half-pleased, half-vexed—kissed her, and rushed out into the street.

CHAPTER LXXXVII. — A LONG JOURNEY.

Abel Newt ran to the ferry and crossed. Then he gained Broadway, and sauntered into one of the hells in Park Row. It was bright and full, and he saw many an old friend. They nodded to him, and said, “Ah! back again!” and he smiled, and said a man must not be too virtuous all at once.

So he ventured a little, and won; ventured a little more, and lost. Ventured a little more, and won again; and lost again.

Then came supper, and wine flowed freely. Old friends must pledge in bumpers.

To work again, and the bells striking midnight. Win, lose; lose, win; win, win, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.

Abel Newt smiled: his face was red, his eyes glaring.

“I’ve played enough,” he said; “the luck’s against me!”

He passed his hands rapidly through his hair.

“Cash I can not pay,” he said; “but here is my I O U, and a check of my Uncle Lawrence’s in the morning; for I have no account, you know.”

His voice was rough. It was two o’clock in the morning; and the lonely woman he had left sat waiting and wondering: stealing to the front door and straining her eyes into the night: stealing softly back again to press her forehead against the window: and the quiet hopelessness of her face began to be pricked with terror.

“Good-night, gentlemen,” said Abel, huskily and savagely.

There was a laugh around the table at which he had been playing.

“Takes it hardly, now that he’s got money,” said one of his old cronies. “He’s made up with Uncle Lawrence, I hear. Hope he’ll come often, hey?” he said to the bank.

The bank smiled vaguely, but did not reply.

It was after two, and Abel burst into the street. He had been drinking brandy, and the fires were lighted within him. Pulling his hat heavily upon his head, he moved unsteadily along the street toward the ferry. The night was starry and still. There were few passers in the street; and no light but that which shone at some of the corners,-the bad, red eye that lures to death. The night air struck cool upon his face and into his lungs. His head was light.—He reeled.

“Mus ha’ some drink,” he said, thickly.

He stumbled, and staggered into the nearest shop. There was a counter, with large yellow barrels behind it; and a high blind, behind which two or three rough-looking men were drinking. In the window there was a sign, “Liquors, pure as imported.”

The place was dingy and cold. The floor was sanded. The two or three guests were huddled about a stove—one asleep upon a bench, the others smoking short pipes; and their hard, cadaverous faces and sullen eyes turned no welcome upon Abel when he entered, but they looked at him quickly, as if they suspected him to be a policeman or magistrate, and as if they had reason not to wish to see either. But in a moment they saw it was not a sober man, whoever he was. Abel tried to stand erect, to look dignified, to smooth himself into apparent sobriety. He vaguely hoped to give the impression that he was a gentleman belated upon his way home, and taking a simple glass for comfort.

“Why, Dick, don’t yer know him?” said one, in a low voice, to his neighbor.

“No, d—— him! and don’t want to.”

“I do, though,” replied the first man, still watching the new-comer curiously.

“Why, Jim, who in h—— is it?” asked Dick.

“That air man’s our representative. That ain’t nobody else but Abel Newt.”

“Well,” muttered Jim, sullenly, as he surveyed the general appearance of Abel while he stood drinking a glass of brandy—“pure as imported”—at the counter—“well, we’ve done lots for him: what’s he going to do for us? We’ve put that man up tremendious high; d’ye think he’s going to kick away the ladder?”

He half grumbled to himself, half asked his neighbor Dick. They were both a little drunk, and very surly.

“I dunno. But he’s vastly high and mighty—that I know; and, by ——, I’ll tell him so!” said Dick, energetically clasping his hands, bringing one of them down upon the bench on which he sat, and clenching every word with an oath.

“Hallo, Jim! let’s make him give us somethin’ to drink!”

The two constituents approached the representative whose election they had so ardently supported.

“Well, Newt, how air ye?”

Abel Newt was confounded at being accosted in such a place at such an hour. He raised his heavy eyes as he leaned unsteadily against the counter, and saw two beetle-browed, square-faced, disagreeable-looking men looking at him with half-drunken, sullen insolence.

“Hallo, Newt! how air ye?” repeated Jim, as he confronted the representative.

Abel looked at him with shaking head, indignant and scornful.

“Who the devil are you?” he asked, at length, blurring the words as he spoke, and endeavoring to express supreme contempt.

“We’re the men that made yer!” retorted Dick, in a shrill, tipsy voice.

The liquor-seller, who was leaning upon his counter, was instantly alarmed. He knew the signs of impending danger. He hurried round, and said,

“Come, come; I’m going to shut up! Time to go home; time to go home!”

The three men at the counter did not move. As they stood facing each other the brute fury kindled more and more fiercely in each one of them.

“We’re Jim and Dick, and Ned’s asleep yonder on the bench; and we’re come to drink a glass with yer, Honorable Abel Newt!” said Dick, in a sneering tone. “It’s we what did your business for ye. What yer going to do for us?”

There was a menacing air in his eye as he glanced at Abel, who felt himself quiver with impotent, blind rage.

“I dun—dun—no ye!” he said, with maudlin dignity.

The men pressed nearer.

“Time to go home! Time to go home!” quavered the liquor-seller; and Ned opened his eyes, and slowly raised his huge frame from the bench.

“What’s the row?” asked he of his comrades.

“The Honorable Abel Newt’s the row,” said Jim, pointing at him.

There was something peculiarly irritating to Abel in the pointing finger. Holding by the counter, he raised his hand and struck at it.

Ned rolled his body off the bench in a moment.

“For God’s sake!” gasped the little liquor-seller.

Jim and Dick stood hesitatingly, glaring at Abel. Jim struck his teeth together. Ned joined them, and they surrounded Abel.

“What in —— do you mean by striking me, you drunken pig?” growled Jim, but not yet striking. Conscious of his strength, he had the instinctive forbearance of superiority, but it was fast mastered by the maddening liquor.

“Time to go home! Time to go home!” cried the thin piping voice of the liquor-seller.

“What the —— do you mean by insulting my friend?” half hiccuped Dick, shaking his head threateningly, and stiffening his arm and fist at his side as he edged toward Abel.

The hard black eyes of Abel Newt shot sullen fire; His rage half sobered him. He threw his head with the old defiant air, tossing the hair back. The old beauty flashed for an instant through the ruin that had been wrought in his face, and, kindling into a wild, glittering look of wrath, his eye swept them all as he struck heavily forward.

“Time to go home! Time to go home!” came the cry again, unheeded, unheard.

There was a sudden, fierce, brutal struggle. The men’s faces were human no longer, but livid with bestial passion. The liquor-seller rushed into the street, and shouted aloud for help. The cry rang along the dark, still houses, and startled the drowsy, reluctant watchmen on their rounds. They sprang their rattles.

“Murder! murder!” was the cry, which did not disturb the neighbors, who were heavy sleepers, and accustomed to noise and fighting.

“Murder! murder!” It rang nearer and nearer as the watchmen hastened toward the corner. They found the little man standing at his door, bareheaded, and shouting,

“My God! my God! they’ve killed a man—they’ve killed a man!”

“Stop your noise, and let us in. What is it?”

The little man pointed back into his dim shop. The watchmen saw only the great yellow round tanks of the liquor pure as imported, and pushed in behind the blind. There was no one there; a bench was overturned, and there were glasses upon the counter. No one there? One of the watchmen struck something with his foot, and, stooping, touched a human body. He started up.

“There’s a man here.”

He did not say dead, or drunk; but his tone said every thing.

One of them ran to the next doctor, and returned with him after a little while. Meanwhile the others had raised the body. It was yet warm. They laid it upon the bench.

“Warm still. Stunned, I reckon. I see no blood, except about the face. Well dressed. What’s he doing here?” The doctor said so as he felt the pulse. He carefully turned the body over, examined it every where, looked earnestly at the face, around which the matted hair clustered heavily:

“He has gone upon his long journey!” said the young doctor, in a low, solemn tone, still looking at the face with an emotion of sad sympathy, for it was a face that had been very handsome; and it was a young man, like himself. The city bells clanged three.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Nobody knew.

“Look at his handkerchief.”

They found it, and handed it to the young doctor. He unrolled it, holding it smooth in his hands; suddenly his face turned pale; the tears burst into his eyes. A curious throng of recollections and emotions overpowered him. His heart ached as he leaned over the body; and laying the matted hair away, he looked long and earnestly into the face. In that dim moment in the liquor-shop, by that bruised body, how much he saw! A play-ground loud with boys—wide-branching elms—a country church—a placid pond. He heard voices, and summer hymns, and evening echoes; and all the images and sounds were soft, and pensive, and remote.

The doctor’s name was Greenidge—James Greenidge, and he had known Abel Newt at school.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII. — WAITING.

The woman Abel had left sat quivering and appalled. Every sound started her; every moment she heard him coming. Rocking to and fro in the lonely room, she dropped into sudden sleep—saw him—started up—cried, “How could you stay so?” then sat broad awake, and knew that she had dozed but for a moment, and that she was alone.

“Abel, Abel!” she moaned, in yearning agony. “But he kissed me before he went,” she thought, wildly—“he kissed me—he kissed me!”

Lulled for a moment by the remembrance, she sank into another brief nap—saw him as she had seen him in his gallant days, and heard him say, I love you. “How could you stay so?” she cried, dreaming—started—sprang up erect, with her head turned in intense listening. There was a sound this time; yes, across the river she heard the solemn city bells strike three.

Wearily pacing the room—stealthily, that she might make no noise—walking the hours away, the lonely woman waited for her lover. The winter, wind rose and wailed about the windows and moaned in the chimney, and in long, shrieking sobs died away.

“Abel! Abel!” she whispered, and started at the strangeness of her voice. She opened the window softly and looked out. The night was cold and, calm again, and the keen stars twinkled. She saw nothing—she heard no sound.

She closed it again, and paced the room. There were no tears in her eyes; but they were wide open, startled, despairing. For the first time in her terrible life she had loved.

“But he kissed me before he went,” she said, pleadingly, to herself; “he kissed me—he kissed me!”

She said it when the solemn city bells struck three. She said it when the first dim light of dawn stole into the chamber. And when the full day broke, and she heard the earliest footfalls in the street, her heart clung to it as the only memory left to her of all her life:

“He kissed me! he kissed me!”

CHAPTER LXXXIX. — DUST TO DUST.

Scarcely had Abel left the bank, after obtaining the money, than Gabriel came in, and, upon seeing the notes which Mr. Van Boozenberg had shown him, in order to make every thing sure in so large a transaction, announced that they were forged. The President was quite beside himself, and sat down in his room, wringing his hands and crying; while the messenger ran for a carriage, into which Gabriel stepped with Mr. Van Boozenberg, and drove as rapidly as possible to the office of the Chief of Police, who promised to set his men to work at once; but the search was suddenly terminated by the bills found upon the body of Abel Newt.

The papers were full of the dreadful news. They said they were deeply shocked to announce that a disgrace had befallen the whole city in the crime which had mysteriously deprived his constituency and his country of the services of the young, talented, promising representative, whose opening career had seemed to be in every way so auspicious. By what foul play he had been made way with was a matter for the strictest legal investigation, and the honor of the country demanded that the perpetrators of such an atrocious tragedy should be brought to condign punishment.

The morning papers followed next day with fuller details of the awful event. Some of the more enterprising had diagrams of the shop, the blind, the large yellow barrels that held the liquor pure as imported, the bench, the counter, and the spot (marked O) where the officer had found the body. In parlors, in banks, in groceries and liquor-shops, in lawyers’ rooms and insurance offices, the murder was the chief topic of conversation for a day. Then came the report of the inquest.

There was no clew to the murderers. The eager, thirsty-eyed crowd of men, and women, and children, crushing and hanging about the shop, gradually loosened their gaze. The jury returned that the deceased Abel Newt came to his death by the hands of some person or persons unknown. The shop was closed, officers were left in charge, and the body was borne away.

General Belch was in his office reading the morning paper when Mr. William Condor entered. They shook hands. Upon the General’s fat face there was an expression of horror and perplexity, but Mr. Condor was perfectly calm.

“What an awful thing!” said Belch, as the other sat down before the fire.

“Frightful,” said Mr. Condor, placidly, as he lighted a cigar, “but not surprising.”

“Who do you suppose did it?” asked the General.

“Impossible to tell. A drunken brawl, with its natural consequences; that’s all.”

“Yes, I know; but it’s awful.”

“Providential.”

“What do you mean?”

“Abel Newt would have made mince-meat of you and me and the rest of us if he had lived. That’s what I mean,” replied Mr. Condor, unruffled, and lightly whiffing the smoke. “But it’s necessary to draw some resolutions to offer in the committee, and I’ve brought them with me. You know there’s a special meeting called to take notice of this deplorable event, and you must present them. Shall I read them?”

Mr. Condor drew a piece of paper from his pocket, and, holding his cigar in one hand and whiffing at intervals, read:

“Whereas our late associate and friend, Abel Newt, has been suddenly removed from this world, in the prime of his life and the height of his usefulness, by the hand of an inscrutable but all-wise Providence, to whose behests we desire always to bow in humble resignation; and

“Whereas, it is eminently proper that those to whom great public trusts have been confided by their fellow-citizens should not pass away without some signal expression of the profound sense of bereavement which those fellow-citizens entertain; and

“Whereas we represent that portion of the community with whom the lamented deceased peculiarly sympathized; therefore be it resolved by the General Committee,

“First, That this melancholy event impressively teaches the solemn truth that in the midst of life we are in death;

“Second That in the brilliant talents, the rare accomplishments, the deep sagacity, the unswerving allegiance to principle which characterized our dear departed brother and associate, we recognize the qualities which would have rendered the progress of his career as triumphant as its opening was auspicious;

“Third, That while we humble ourselves before the mysterious will of Heaven, which works not as man works, we tender our most respectful and profound sympathy to the afflicted relatives and friends of the deceased, to whom we fervently pray that his memory may be as a lamp to the feet;

“Fourth, That we will attend his funeral in a body; that we will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days; and that a copy of these resolutions, signed by the officers of the Committee, shall be presented to his family.”

“I think that’ll do,” said Mr. Condor, resuming his cigar, and laying the paper upon the table.

“Just the thing,” said General Belch. “Just the thing. You know the Grant has passed and been approved?”

“Yes, so Ele wrote me,” returned Mr. Condor.

“Condor,” continued the General, “I’ve had enough of it. I’m going to back out. I’d rather sweep the streets.”

General Belch spoke emphatically, and his friend turned toward him with a pleasant smile.

“Can you make so much in any other way?”

“Perhaps not. But I’d rather make less, and more comfortably.”

“I find it perfectly comfortable,” replied William Condor. “You take it too hard. You ought to manage it with less friction. The point is, to avoid friction. If you undertake to deal with men, you ought to understand just what they are.”

Mr. Condor smoked serenely, and General Belch looked at his slim, clean figure, and his calm face, with curious admiration.

“By-the-by,” said Condor, “when you introduce the resolutions, I shall second them with a few remarks.”

And he did so. At the meeting of the Committee he rose and enforced them with a few impressive and pertinent words.

“Gratitude,” he said, “is instinctive in the human breast. When a man does well, or promises well, it is natural to regard him with interest and affection. The fidelity of our departed brother is worthy of our most affectionate admiration and imitation. If you ask me whether he had faults, I answer that he was a man. Who so is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

On the same day the Honorable B. Jawley Ele rose in his place in Congress to announce the calamity in which the whole country shared, and to move an adjournment in respect for the memory of his late colleague—“a man endeared to us all by the urbanity of his deportment and his social graces; but to me especially, by the kindness of his heart and the readiness of his sympathy.”

Abel Newt was buried from his father’s house. There were not many gathered at the service in the small, plain rooms. Fanny Dinks was there, sobered and saddened—the friend now of Hope Wayne, and of Amy, her Uncle Lawrence’s wife. Alfred was there, solemnized and frightened. The office of Lawrence Newt & Co. was closed, and the partners and the clerks all stood together around the coffin. Abel’s mother, shrouded in black, sat in a dim corner of the room, nervously sobbing. Abel’s father, sitting in his chair, his white hair hanging upon his shoulders, looked curiously at all the people, while his bony fingers played upon his knees, and he said nothing.

During all the solemn course of the service, from the gracious words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” to the final Amen which was breathed out of the depth of many a soul there, the old man’s eyes did not turn from the clergyman. But when, after a few moments of perfect silence, two or three men entered quietly and rapidly, and, lifting the coffin, began to bear it softly out of the room, he looked troubled and surprised, and glanced vaguely and inquiringly from one person to another, until, as it was passing out of the door, his face was covered with a piteous look of appeal: he half-rose from his chair, and reached out toward the door, with the long white fingers clutching in the air; but Hope Wayne took the wasted hands in hers, placed her arm behind him gently, and tenderly pressed him back into the chair. The old man raised his eyes to her as she stood by him, and holding one of her hands in one of his, the spectral calmness returned into his face; while, beating his thin knee with the other hand, he said, in the old way, as the body of his son was borne out of his house, “Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” But still he held Hope Wayne’s hand, and from time to time raised his eyes to her face.

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 swinging 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.

“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.