So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads
the way with the candle, and they come to that other
bedroom, where the elderly lady is seated by the bed,
and poor little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, is fast
asleep. There the father lifts the child up to
the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an
instant by the little warm face of poor unconscious
little Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, and gently draws
it to him,—a sight so touching to the chambermaids
who are peeping through the door, that one of them
calls out, “It’s a shame to part ’em!”
But this chambermaid was always, as Boots informs
me, a soft-hearted one. Not that there was any
harm in that girl. Far from it.
Finally, Boots says, that’s all about it.
Mr. Walmers drove away in the chaise, having hold
of Master Harry’s hand. The elderly lady
and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, that was never to
be (she married a Captain long afterwards, and died
in India), went off next day. In conclusion,
Boots put it to me whether I hold with him in two
opinions: firstly, that there are not many couples
on their way to be married who are half as innocent
of guile as those two children; secondly, that it would
be a jolly good thing for a great many couples on
their way to be married, if they could only be stopped
in time, and brought back separately.
THIRD BRANCH—THE BILL
I had been snowed up a whole week. The time
had hung so lightly on my hands, that I should have
been in great doubt of the fact but for a piece of
documentary evidence that lay upon my table.
The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous
day, and the document in question was my bill.
It testified emphatically to my having eaten and
drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among the sheltering
branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights.
I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours
to improve itself, finding that I required that additional
margin of time for the completion of my task.
I had ordered my Bill to be upon the table, and a
chaise to be at the door, “at eight o’clock
to-morrow evening.” It was eight o’clock
to-morrow evening when I buckled up my travelling writing-desk
in its leather case, paid my Bill, and got on my warm
coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now remained
for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles
which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the
farmhouse where I had first seen Angela. What
I had to do was to get across to Liverpool by the
shortest open road, there to meet my heavy baggage
and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I
had not an hour too much time to do it in.
Copyrights
The Holly-Tree from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
