Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale Part 47

"Charles," feebly whispered Mrs. Belmont.

"Yes, and Mrs. g.a.y.l.o.r.d, who ought also to be here," remarked the colonel, "for I have good news of her husband. He will be liberated and sent north in a very short time." How bright the sky can be after the clouds are driven out of it!

CHAPTER XLI.

"GOOD BYE."

Gentle reader, would you like to follow the friends whom you have met in this simple narrative still farther in the histories of their eventful lives? Has your acquaintance thus far been a pleasant one? This is not all. Every thoughtful mind will draw from the characters of history or romance such lessons of hope and faith as cheer the heart in sorrow or beneath the depressions of despondency something that will guide when the soul is perplexed or shrinking. Sad indeed would the writer of this story be, if in the delineations of the history of our little heroine no lonely wayfarer should be comforted, or no friendless waif taught to look up for the hand that safely leads. G.o.d is kind and watchful towards his children, a.s.suring them that they are "better than many sparrows,"

and therefore cannot fall to the ground without his notice; but is also just to punish and chasten those who oppose his little ones.

Have these truths been set impressively before you? If so we will raise the curtain yet a little higher and glance for one moment into the lives and homes of the few in whom you are interested, after the terrible war is over and peace again settles down like a holy benediction over our beautiful land.

Colonel Hamilton could not be spared from the important position he had occupied from the commencement of the struggle, and although his visits home were frequent, the elegant house on Broad street wore an air of desolation as the shadows of realities and uncertainties crept into it.

The reports of victories and defeats brought terror and dismay into every heart, for loved ones were in jeopardy and mourning was in the land.

One day there came a letter from the absent husband that thickened the veil of apprehension and spread a new gloom over the hearts of those who read it. "We must expect bad news my dear wife," it went on to say; "and although I would shield my cherished ones from war's disasters I cannot do it. Reports were brought in last night by our scouts that Rosedale was in ashes and your brother, in a desperate hand to hand encounter with some of the boys in blue, received a wound from which he died before reaching the hospital camp. I was hoping to be able to shield him, and for our mother's sake send him north. But now he is beyond our reach."

"My poor, poor brother!" cried Mrs. Hamilton, as the letter dropped from her hands. "I had placed so much hope on his coming! What can I tell Mother? She is so much better, and was asking only this morning when Charles would be here?"

"We cannot break the new sad news to her," replied the daughter; "let us wait for Father. Somehow he is able to do everything without difficulty."

Lillian smiled in spite of her tears. "Yes, darling, we will wait." But it could not be. The hungry heart of the mother was enduring the agony of famishing, and her cries for her only son were truly pitiful.

"Let the consequences be what they may I cannot longer endure her appeals; she must know the truth," she said to Lily one morning some weeks after. "Mother--Pearl cannot send him to you--how gladly he would do it if he could; but it is too late!"

"Too late?"

"Yes, Mother; the war you know. It has destroyed Rosedale, scattered the servants and--"

"Charles?"

"Charles has fallen into the ruin."

"Charles? Will he not come?"

"Never Mother; he is dead! And we are alone!"

"Dead! Dead! And he will not come! Gone! All, all gone!" and the white fingers linked themselves together, twisting and untwisting with a slow nervous motion as they lay upon her lap, while her large eyes never moved their gaze from the face before her.

"Dead! Dead!" she murmured.

"Pearl will be here by and by, and he will love you and be as true a son as my brother would have been. Let us wait and watch for him now."

"Dead! Dead! My boy--my Charles!" From this one subject nothing could divert her thoughts. The sad, mournful wail bubbled up from her stricken heart as naturally as her breath issued from her lungs, moaning and breathing; yet not a tear moistened the burning eyeb.a.l.l.s, until one morning while Vina was arranging her dress for the day and telling her how "de poor heart broke when little Shady went out and neber more come back," the unseen hand laid a finger upon the main-spring of human life and it stopped. Mrs. Belmont, the ambitious mistress of Rosedale was also dead! The flickering light of a once ma.s.sive brain was blown out; the prison door opened, and the pent-up soul was gone! Now indeed were the shadows deepened! The emblems of mourning were upon the door and reflected their sombre shade's over everything within.

Colonel Hamilton could not leave his regiment, as they were engaged in active duty; and so the daughter laid her away in Woodland cemetery under the cool shadows, as the setting sun was scattering its last rays upon the sparkling waters at the base of the hill. As the birds were chanting their good-night songs the solemn cortege turned away--back to life with all of its coming and stirring events, yet with heavy hearts.

"Yes, darling, we will leave Aunt Vina sole mistress of all and go to Kirkham for a few weeks at least," Mrs. Hamilton said a few mornings after, in answer to her daughter's plea.

"Willie is so anxious to tell me something and ask me about it. It has been a whole year since my visit, and two since our separation, he writes. I am so glad you have consented."

Few preparations were needed, and in a week Willie and "Phebe" were once more sitting together in the little parlor, where as a diminutive waif she had entered more than twelve years before, alone and unattended.

What power of prescience could have pictured the changes? What vicissitudes and pleasures; what a mixing up of joys and sorrows, of snarls and hair-breadth escapes there had been crowded into the rolling years.

"I guess I may better read the letter, for I can never tell you what is in it," said Willie, taking the well-worn missive from his pocket. "No, you may have that pleasure, while I will watch your face, reading as well as you."

"How you puzzle me, Willie. I have a good mind to run away alone to read it; you have made me nervous!"

"Not a step shall you go." But her quick eyes were following the page down at a rapid rate, and did not listen.

"O Willie!" she exclaimed as she turned the paper and went on. "Do you believe it? Can it be true?"

"He says so!"

"And he knows. 'I have written Mr. Palmer,' he says, 'and am informed that there will be no difficulty in the operation, but it will require considerable practice on your part to be able to walk firmly as he does.' I know that he has two cork feet or legs, as one day while behind him on Chestnut street a friend pointed him out with the expression, 'who would imagine that his walkers were artificial?' But those poor little feet! O Willie, there is no joy without its gloomy side!"

But Willie did walk; never without his cane, but his creeping days came to an end, and a thankful heart blessed G.o.d for its unexpected bliss.

Social life now has no horrors for his sensitive nature, and he mingled freely with the refined and intelligent who frequented the parlors of the honored colonel and his lovely family.

Reader, are you curious to see him? If so look for him in one of the largest clothing stores in the city of Philadelphia. Not as clerk or seamster as in former days, but as half owner and proprietor. Be good, pure and n.o.ble if you would succeed in reaching the eminence ambition points out to you. "Carve out your niche and place yourself in it," was the advice of a true philosopher to his son, and will answer for the young of all ages. Look up, and if too weak to climb, the hand above you will lend its willing aid.

The war came to a close at last, and Mr. St. Clair with his wife and daughter returned to their southern home. Mrs. Mason received them joyfully, but declared that she could "never, _never_ forgive George for his silly freak of connecting himself with such plebeianism! My daughter's governess! He may better remain where such follies are tolerated!" But the parents only laughed, and the sister remained silent.

Rosedale would be rebuilt, not in as magnificent style as before, for its owner's long stay in the north had taught him many lessons.

"It may be I shall not care to occupy it," the son had remarked at the parting; "but my sweet sister will make a n.o.ble mistress for it."

And so it proved. George St. Clair became a northern man in deed as well as in feelings. He proved a successful tradesman and government officer in New York city in company with Elmore Pierson, who had been spared to his mother.

A happy family gathered in the home circle, blessed with fresh young blossoms of human life who were to adorn the world and bring comfort into the declining years of those whose feet were going downward. It is but a short journey between the two great rival cities, and the friends bound together by so many vicissitudes kept up a pleasant intimacy, often reviving past memories by tales of pleasant scenes or strange coincidences that would otherwise fade from sight in the moving panorama of human existence.

"We will have that Christmas dinner we were to have had three years ago," exclaimed Colonel Hamilton a week before the world-famed day. "A regular house warming! Let me see! Can we not get Willie's sister here with her family, and not let the dear boy know anything about it until then? g.a.y.l.o.r.d and his wife have gone back to their home, and I suppose he would not come with any amount of coaxing! He has grown so sour and ugly during the last six years that I pity that feeble little wife of his! O my letter! I have not even told you what has set me in such a commotion! Just like one of my freaks of forgetfulness!"

"I was wondering," laughed Mrs. Hamilton, for he was skipping around the room with the joyousness of a little boy, while searching in his pockets for the letter that was to make the revelations.

"Where is the thing? Well I declare, if it is not down to the office on the desk, as true as the world! If Willie gets hold of it! But no matter."

"Do, tell me, Pearl! I am glad you have doffed your regimentals. How you would look in a Colonel's uniform at this moment!"

"Honor and glory must pa.s.s away, but the St. Clair's will not pa.s.s away; they are coming and may be here to-day, Mrs. Mason and all!"

"And remain till after the holidays?"

"Longer, my dear! Christmas dinner, however, is the main subject under consideration. Let me see; Vina is getting pretty old for such an occasion, and if she will keep little Charlie safe in the nursery, it is about all we ought to ask of her. Lizzie is good in her place, and little Bobby is a treasure; but we must have another cook. What makes you look so solemn, my dear wife?"