“You must dismiss hope to-night, then,”
she said, her face still averted.
He was silent and she slowly turned toward him.
He had sunk into a chair and buried his face in his
hands, the picture of dejected defeat.
There was a sudden flash of mirth through tear-gemmed
eyes, a glance at the clock, then noiseless steps,
and she was on her knees beside him, her arm about
his neck, her blushing face near his wondering eyes
as she breathed:
“Happy Christmas, Hedley! How do you like
your first gift; and what room is there now for hope?”
It was the day before Thanksgiving. The brief
cloudy November afternoon was fast merging into early
twilight. The trees, now gaunt and bare, creaked
and groaned in the passing gale, clashing their icy
branches together with sounds sadly unlike the slumberous
rustle of their foliage in June. And that same
foliage was now flying before the wind, swept hither
and thither, like exiles driven by disaster from the
moorings of home, at times finding a brief abiding-place,
and then carried forward to parts unknown by circumstances
beyond control. The street leading into the village
was almost deserted; and the few who came and went
hastened on with fluttering garments, head bent down,
and a shivering sense of discomfort. The fields
were bare and brown; and the landscape on the uplands
rising in the distance would have been utterly sombre
had not green fields of grain, like childlike faith
in wintry age, relieved the gloomy outlook and prophesied
of the sunshine and golden harvest of a new year and
life.
But bleak November found no admittance in Mrs. Alford’s
cosey parlor. Though, as usual, it was kept as
the room for state occasions, it was not a stately
room. It was furnished with elegance and good
taste; but what was better, the genial home atmosphere
from the rest of the house had invaded it, and one
did not feel, on entering it from the free-and-easy
sitting-room, as if passing from a sunny climate to
the icebergs of the Pole. Therefore I am sure
my reader will follow me gladly out of the biting,
boisterous wind into the homelike apartment, and as
we stand in fancy before the glowing grate, we will
make the acquaintance of the May-day creature who
is its sole occupant.
Elsie Alford, just turning seventeen, appeared younger
than her years warranted. Some girls carry the
child far into their teens, and Head the mirthful
innocence of infancy with the richer, fuller life
of budding womanhood. This was true of Elsie.
Hers was not the forced exotic bloom of fashionable
life; but rather one of the native blossoms of her
New England home, having all the delicacy and at the
same time hardiness of the windflower. She was
also as shy and easily agitated, and yet, like the
flower she resembled, well rooted among the rocks
of principle and truth. She was the youngest
