CHAPTER V.

NEW RELATIONS.

About six weeks after the close of Mabel's school we were one day startled with the intelligence that she was going to be married, and to Mr. Sherwood, too. He had become tired of the fashionable ladies of his acquaintance, and when he saw how pure and artless Mabel was, he immediately became interested in her; and at last, overcoming all feelings of pride, he had offered her his hand, and had been accepted.

At first we could hardly credit the story; but when Mrs. Hudson herself confirmed it we gave it up, and again I wondered if I should be invited. All the nicest and best chestnuts which I could find, to say nothing of the apples and butternuts, I carried to her, not without my reward either, for when invitations came to us I was included with the rest. Our family were the only invited guests, and I felt no fears this time of being hidden by the crowd.

Just before the ceremony commenced there was the sound of a heavy footstep upon the outer porch, a loud knock at the door, and then into the room came Mr. Gilbert! He seemed slightly agitated, but not one-half so much as Mrs. Hudson, who exclaimed, "William, my son, why are you here?"

"I came to witness my sister's bridal," was the answer; and turning toward the clergyman, he said, somewhat authoritatively, "Do not delay for me, sir. Go on."

There was a movement in the next room, and then the bridal party entered, both starting with surprise as they saw Mr. Gilbert. Very beautiful did Mabel look as she stood up to take upon herself the marriage vow, not a syllable of which did one of us hear. We were thinking of Mr. Gilbert, and the strange words, "my son" and "my sister."

When it was over, and Mabel was Mrs. Sherwood, Mr. Gilbert approached Mrs. Hudson, saying, "Come, mother, let me lead you to the bride."

With an impatient gesture she waved him off, and going alone to her daughter, threw her arms around her neck, sobbing convulsively. There was an awkward silence, and then Mr. Gilbert, thinking he was called upon for an explanation, arose, and addressing himself mostly to Mr.

Sherwood, said, "I suppose what has transpired here to-night seems rather strange, and will undoubtedly furnish the neighborhood with gossip for more than a week, but they are welcome to canvass, whatever I do. I can't help it if I was born with an unusual degree of pride, neither can I help feeling mortified, as I many times did, at my family, particularly after she," glancing at his mother, "married the man whose name she bears."

Here Mrs. Hudson lifted up her head, and coming to Mr. Gilbert's side, stood proudly erect, while he continued: "She would tell you he was a good man, but I hated him, and swore never to enter the house while he lived. I went away, took care of myself, grew rich, married into one of the first families in Hartford, and--and--"

Here he paused, and his mother, continuing the sentence, added, "and grew ashamed of your own mother, who many a time went without the comforts of life that you might be educated. You were always a proud, wayward boy, William, but never did I think you would do as you have done. You have treated me with utter neglect, never allowing your wife to see me, and when I once proposed visiting you in Hartford you asked your brother, now dead, to dissuade me from it, if possible, for you could not introduce me to your acquaintances as your mother. Never do you speak of me to your children, who, if they know they have a grandmother, little dream that she lives within a mile of their father's dwelling. One of them I have seen, and my heart yearned toward her as it did toward you when first I took you in my arms, my first-born baby; and yet, William, I thank Heaven there is in her sweet face no trace of her father's features. This may sound harsh, unmotherly, but greatly have I been sinned against, and now, just as a brighter day is dawning upon me, why have you come here? Say, William, why?"

By the time Mrs. Hudson had finished, nearly all in the room were weeping. Mr. Gilbert, however, seemed perfectly indifferent, and with the most provoking coolness replied, "I came to see my fair sister married--to congratulate her upon an alliance which will bring us upon a more equal footing."

"You greatly mistake me, sir," said Mr. Sherwood, turning haughtily toward Mr. Gilbert, at the same time drawing Mabel nearer to him; "you greatly mistake me, if, after what I have heard, you think I would wish for your acquaintance. If my wife, when poor and obscure, was not worthy of your attention, _you_ certainly are not now worthy of hers, and it is my request that our intercourse should end here."

Mr. Gilbert muttered something about "extenuating circumstances," and "the whole not being told," but no one paid him any attention; and at last, snatching up his hat, he precipitately left the house, I sending after him a hearty good riddance, and mentally hoping he would measure his length in the ditch which he must pass on his way across Hemlock Swamp.

The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood departed on their bridal tour, intending on their return to take their mother with them to the city.

Several times during their absence I saw Mr. Gilbert, either going to or returning from the "haunted house," and I readily guessed he was trying to talk his mother over, for nothing could be more mortifying than to be cut by the Sherwoods, who were among the first in Hartford.

Afterward, greatly to my satisfaction, I heard that though, motherlike, Mrs. Hudson had forgiven her son, Mr. Sherwood ever treated him with a cool haughtiness, which effectually kept him at a distance.

Once, indeed, at Mabel's earnest request, Mrs. Gilbert and Nellie were invited to visit her, and as the former was too feeble to accomplish the journey, Nellie went alone, staying a long time, and torturing her sister on her return with a glowing account of the elegantly-furnished house, of which Adaline had once hoped to be the proud mistress.

For several years after Mabel's departure from Rice Corner nothing especial occurred in the Gilbert family, except the marriage of Adaline with a rich bachelor, who must have been many years older than her father, for he colored his whiskers, wore false teeth and a wig, besides having, as Nellie declared, a wooden leg! For the truth of this last I will not vouch, as Nellie's assertion was only founded upon the fact of her having once looked through the keyhole of his door, and espied standing by his bed something which looked like a cork leg, but which might have been a boot! What Adaline saw in him to like I could never guess. I suppose, however, that she only looked at his rich gilding, which covered a multitude of defects.

Immediately after the wedding the happy pair started for a two-years'

tour in Europe, where the youthful bride so enraged her bald-headed lord by flirting with a mustached Frenchman that in a fit of anger the old man picked up his goods, chattels, and wife, and returned to New York within three months of his leaving it!

CHAPTER VI.

POOR, POOR NELLIE.

And now, in the closing chapter of this brief sketch of the Gilberts, I come to the saddest part--the fate of poor Nellie, the dearest playmate my childhood ever knew, she whom the lapse of years ripened into a graceful, beautiful girl, loved by everybody, even by Tom Jenkins, whose boyish affection had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength.

And now Nellie was the affianced bride of William Raymond, who had replaced the little cornelian with the engagement ring. At last the rumor reached Tom Jenkins, awaking him from the sweetest dream he had ever known. He could not ask Nellie if it were true, so he came to me; and when I saw how he grew pale and trembled, I felt that Nellie was not altogether blameless. But he breathed no word of censure against her; and when, a year or two afterward, I saw her given to William Raymond, I knew that the love of two hearts was hers; the one to cherish and watch over her, the other to love and worship, silently, secretly, as a miser worships his hidden treasure.

The bridal was over. The farewells were over, and Nellie had gone--gone from the home whose sunlight she had made, and which she had left forever. Sadly the pale, sick mother wept, and mourned her absence, listening in vain for the light footfall and soft, ringing voice she would never hear again.

Three weeks had passed away, and then, far and near the papers teemed with accounts of the horrible Norwalk catastrophe, which desolated many a home, and wrung from many a heart its choicest treasure. Side by side they found them--Nellie and her husband--the light of her brown eyes quenched forever, and the pulses of his heart still in death!

I was present when they told the poor invalid of her loss, and even now I seem to hear the bitter, wailing cry which broke from her white lips, as she begged them to unsay what they had said, and tell her Nellie was not dead--that she would come back again.

It could not be. Nellie would never return; and in six weeks' time the broken-hearted mother was at rest with her child.

THE THANKSGIVING PARTY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

CHAPTER I.

NIGHT BEFORE THANKSGIVING.

"Oh, I do hope it will be pleasant to-morrow," said Lizzie Dayton, as on the night before Thanksgiving she stood at the parlor window, watching a dense mass of clouds, behind which the sun had lately gone to his nightly rest.

"I hope so, too," said Lucy, coming forward and joining her sister; "but then it isn't likely it will be. There has been a big circle around the moon these three nights, and besides that, I never knew it fail to storm when I was particularly anxious that it should be pleasant;" and the indignant beauty pouted very becomingly at the insult so frequently offered by that most capricious of all things, the weather.

"Thee shouldn't talk so, Lucy," said Grandma Dayton, who was of Quaker descent, at the same time holding up between herself and the window the long stocking which she was knitting. "Doesn't thee know that when thee is finding fault with the weather thee finds fault with Him who made the weather?"

"I do wish, grandma," answered Lucy, "that I could ever say anything which did not furnish you with a text from which to preach me a sermon."

Grandma did not reply directly to this rather uncivil speech, but, she continued: "I don't see how the weather will hurt thee, if it's the party thee is thinking of, for Mr. Graham's is only ten rods or so from here.

"I'm not afraid I can't go," answered Lucy; "but you know as well as I that if the wind blows enough to put out a candle, father is so old-maidish as to think Lizzie and I must wear thick stockings and dresses, and I shouldn't wonder if he insisted on flannel wrappers!"

"Well," answered grandma, "I think myself it will be very imprudent for Lizzie, in her present state of health, to expose her neck and arms. Thy poor marm died with consumption when she wasn't much older than thee is. Let me see--she was twenty-three the day she died, and thee was twenty-two in Sep--"

"For heaven's sake, grandmother," interrupted Lucy, "don't continually remind me of my age, and tell me how much younger mother was when she was married. I can't help it if I'm twenty-two, and not married or engaged either. But I will be both before I am a year older."

So saying, she quitted the apartment, and repaired to her own room.

Ere we follow her thither we will introduce both her and her sister to our readers. Lucy and Lizzie were the only children of Mr. Dayton, a wealthy, intelligent, and naturally social man, the early death of whose idolized, beautiful wife had thrown a deep gloom over his spirits, which time could never entirely dispel. It was now seventeen years since, a lonely, desolate widower, at the dusky twilight hour he had drawn closely to his bosom his motherless children, and thought that but for them he would gladly have lain down by her whose home was now in heaven. His acquaintances spoke lightly of his grief, saying he would soon get over it and marry again. They were mistaken, for he remained single, his widowed mother supplying to his daughters the place of their lost parent.