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INSTEAD of applause, there was the truer and
more appropriate tribute of silence when Hemstead
finished the mosaic of a story which, by the
various narratives, had been developed so differently
and yet characteristically. The eyes of more
than one were moist, and Lottie hastily left the
room.

Mr. Dimmerly was the first to recover himself,
and, after blowing his nose most vociferously, managed
to say:

“Well, Nephew, it was hardly the thing to get
a sermon off on us before Sunday, but, since it was
rather well done, I don't think we will complain.
I now suggest that you young people have some
games that will set your blood in motion. The
last hours of Christmas eve should ever be the merriest.
I will send Lottie back—the tender-hearted
little minx, who must take everything in earnest.”

His advice was followed, and Lottie soon returned,
becoming, as usual, the life of the company.
A breezy sound of voices and many a ringing laugh
took the place of the former hush, as games and
jests followed in quick succession.

Harcourt was good-naturedly on the alert to

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serve Hemstead, and, in a game that required the
absence of two of the company from the room a
few moments, suggested the names of the Student
and Lottie Marsden. They, nothing loth, went
out together into the empty hall.

“Do you know,” said Hemstead, “I think it a
little strange I have not had a chance to speak to
you alone, since we were at the fallen tree in the
clump of hemlocks.”

“I did not know,” said Lottie, laughing and
blushing, “that the `fallen tree' was a trysting
place.”

“Well,” said he, eagerly, “I met a young lady
there once, whom I would gladly meet there or
anywhere else again.”

“To see whether she had taken your advice?”

“That depends. I doubt whether she can `make
a man' of a certain individual, and I fear she will
not take the other alternative.”

“She will probably do as Ninon did—follow her
heart.”

“If one could only know whither your heart
would lead you!” he said, blushing deeply, and looking
at her so wistfully that she, seeing through his
thin disguise, had it on her tongue to tell him. But,
instead, she took a few dancing steps away, and,
with no such intention whatever, stood just under
the mistletoe as she laughingly said:

“That reminds me of what father often says:
How nice it would be to speculate, if one only
knew every time how it would turn out.”

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“Miss Marsden!” he exclaimed, hurriedly, “you
are right under the mistletoe.”

She tried to spring away, but he snatched her
hand and detained her, while he stood hesitatingly
at her side, looking at her lips as if they were the
gates of Paradise.

“Well,” said she, laughing and blushing, “I
have nothing to do in the matter.”

“But I dare not take it unless you give it.”

“And I dare not give it unless you take it.”

If Hemstead did not emulate Mr. Dimmerly's
“explosion,” the ancient rite was nevertheless honored
in a way that Lottie would not soon forget.
Never did a kiss mean more, express more, or impart
more, upon any occasion that the ceremony
had been solemnized by her ancestors, back to the
times of the Druids.

But this moment of bliss was of short duration,
for Mrs. Marchment unexpectedly entered the hall,
and threw them both into disastrous confusion by
exclaiming, in unfeigned astonishment:

“Well, well! what does this mean?”

Of course, Lottie was the first to recover herself,
and managed to falter:

“You see, Auntie, by some accident—I assure
you it was an accident; I didn't mean to do it at
all—I got under that pesky mistletoe of uncle's,
and Mr. Hemstead, it would seem, had taken to
heart uncle's homily on the duty of keeping up
old customs. Mr. Hemstead, you know, is so conscientious,
and I suppose he felt that he must, poor
man: and so—and thus—”

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At this moment Harcourt's expedients of delay
failed, and they were loudly summoned back to the
dining-room.

“I hope there will be no more such nonsense,”
said Mrs. Marchment, severely.

“Oh, no, indeed, Auntie; it will never happen
again. Only the strongest sense of duty could
have impelled Mr. Hemstead to do such a thing;”
and they escaped to the dining-room only to be subjected
to a fire from another quarter. Their color
was so high, and they had such an air of general
confusion, that Harcourt cried, laughingly:

“I more than half believe that you have been
under the mistletoe.”

“Nonsense,” said Lottie; “with auntie in the
hall? If you think Mr. Hemstead is brave enough
for that, you greatly misjudge him.”

But De Forrest was wofully suspicious, and
had many uneasy thoughts about the “jest”
which Lottie must be carrying out; for surely it
could not be possible that she was becoming in
earnest.

Hemstead and Lottie made wretched work in
guessing the word required of them from the
nature of the game; for Mr. Dimmerly's prolonged,
chuckling laugh, which could be heard from the
parlor, did not tend to allay their confusion.

When Mrs. Marchment entered that apartment
she found her brother apparently in a convulsion,
but he was only vainly endeavoring to prevent his
merriment from developing into an outrageous

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chuckle, for he too had seen Lottie under the mistletoe.

“This thing must be stopped,” said Mrs. Marchment,
most emphatically; at which her brother
chuckled louder than ever, and said:

“Stopped, indeed! As if it could be, or ever
had been `stopped,' since Adam and Eve first
cast sheep's eyes at each other in the Garden of
Eden.”

His sister left the room with a gesture of annoyance.

Suddenly the little man's queer, cackling laugh
ceased, and his wrinkled face grew sad and thoughtful
as he sighed:

“I'm the only Dimmerly who was ever
`stopped'—fool that I was. His mother, sister
Celia, would marry a poor man, and her life, in
spite of all her toil and privation, has been happier
than mine,” and he shook his head pathetically
over “what might have been.”

The marble clock on the mantel chimed out the
hour of twelve, and the young people came flocking
in from the dining-room, their noisy mirth hushed
as they remembered that the sacred hours of the
Christmas Sabbath had commenced.

“I have induced Miss Martell to give us a
Christmas hymn before parting,” said Harcourt; and
he led Alice to the piano, as if there had been some
preconcerted arrangement.

Lottie went to her uncle's side, and took his
arm in a sort of wheedling, affectionate way. She

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was beginning to instinctively recognize that she
had an ally and sympathizer in him. As he looked
down upon her fair face in its dewy freshness
and bloom, he vowed that, as far as it was in his
power, she should have her own way. Time and
the inevitable ills of our lot might dim that face,
but it should not become withered by a life-time
of vain regret.

“What were you laughing at so, uncle?” she
whispered.

“At my nephew's painful conscientiousness and
stern performance of duty. What a martyr he made
of himself, to be sure!”

“Now, uncle, I half believe you think I stepped
under your old mistletoe on purpose. It's no such
thing.”

“Oh, no, my dear. The mistletoe is haunted,
and has been for a thousand years or more, and
viewless elves draw under it those who are to receive
kisses—prophetic of many others from the
same lips.”

But here he found Lottie's hand upon his lips,
for a second, and then she stood at Miss Martell's
side, who was now playing a prelude. In some
surprise, Lottie noticed that, instead of there being
a printed sheet upon the piano-rack, both the words
and music were written by hand. As Miss Martell
sang, in a sweet but unfamiliar air, the following
words, her surprise and interest deepened:

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Lottie's eyes were suffused with tears when the
simple hymn was finished, but they did not prevent
her from following Miss Martell's finger as she
turned to the title-page and pointed to the inscription:

Her first response was an impulsive kiss to

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Alice. But when she looked around to thank
Hemstead, he had gone.

A little later, as he came stamping up the piazza
out of the snow, after assisting Harcourt and Miss
Martell away, the hall-door opened, and some one
darted out, and took his hand in a quick, thrilling
pressure. A voice that had grown as dear as familiar
said:

“Before we parted to-night I wanted to tell you
that I think Lottie Marsden, like Ninon, has become
more than a woman—a Christian.”

And she vanished, but left the night so luminous
about him that he could not, for a long time, enter
the house.

He felt, like the shepherds who kept watch centuries
ago, that an angel had brought him “tidings
of great joy.”

p668-462

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