V

The Colonel greeted the Christmas festoons of holly in the library with a stare of astonished approval. A question had risen to his lips, but the warning look in Uncle Noah's eyes as they rested on Mrs. Fairfax had checked it. These two had had many financial and domestic secrets from the dear lady, and the Colonel promptly decided that Uncle Noah had sold some forgotten relic and had once more made use of his highly developed faculty for expanding a small sum to incredible elasticity, and he praised the result accordingly. Mrs. Fairfax, too, brightened wonderfully, yielding to the Christmas spirit with which the old darky had contrived to fill the house.

Uncle Noah felt a glow of delight at their outspoken appreciation, and, bowing elaborately, he ushered his master and mistress in to breakfast.

Here again, as he seated himself, the Colonel was conscious of an agreeable flood of astonishment. There was quite an air about this Christmas breakfast. Fixing his keen eyes on the tablecloth and napkins, he stealthily fingered them with a searching look at the waiting negro. Fortunately his interest was speedily diverted. He caught sight of the orchids and the tear-stained face of his wife bending over them. With a wrench of his chair he arose.

"Patricia!" he said stormily, "did I not say that nothing of his--did I not--" he paused and gulped. "Uncle Noah," he added unsteadily, "that turkey of yours is gobbling like a fiend under the window; you--he--"

The Colonel stopped abruptly, reddened as his eyes fell upon the negro (Uncle Noah had wisely turned away), and sternly reseated himself, somewhat confused by his thoughtless reference to the late lamented Job,

Uncle Noah hobbled from the room, his brown face working convulsively.

In the kitchen he shook with silent laughter, doubling over breathlessly and clasping his hands over his stomach in aching distress.

"And what, Uncle Noah," asked the Colonel kindly as the old negro presently re-entered the dining-room, "have we for our Christmas breakfast?"

"Well, sah," Uncle Noah began fluently, "we has grapefruit, cereal wif cream, quail on toast, fried oysters--er--oatmeal, hot m.u.f.fins, fried chicken, co'nbread an' coffee!"

The Colonel, appearing to be thoughtfully considering his choice, replied as usual: "It all sounds delicious, Uncle Noah, but I have a touch of my old enemy dyspepsia to-day. I think I shall have some cornbread and coffee, and so will Mrs. Fairfax."

"I doan think you quite understand me, sah," averred Uncle Noah, "an'

sah, I 'spects yoh dyspepsia ain't so bad dis mornin'. We has foh breakfast, sah, grapefruit, cereal wif cream, quail on toast, fried oysters--er--_oatmeal, fried chicken, hot m.u.f.fins, co'nbread an'

coffee_!"

There was no mistaking the emphasis this time. Colonel Fairfax darted a lightning glance at the negro and amended his selection with a question in his voice. "Well, now I come to think of it, Uncle Noah,"

he said, "my dyspepsia isn't nearly so bad. I'll have, let me see, oatmeal--that was in the list, I believe--er--fried chicken--am I right?--m.u.f.fins, cornbread and coffee."

There was a conviction in the Colonel's deep voice that something extraordinary was afoot, and Uncle Noah, flurried by its ominous ring, hurried from the room. Dimly he had pictured his master's gracious astonishment and pleasure. Any queries relative to the financial source of the Christmas delicacies, however, had been lost entirely in the darky's jubilant excitement. Now he groaned in dismay.

"Yoh is in a mess for sure, Uncle Noah," he apostrophized himself.

"Whut'll yoh do when it come time foh dinnah? Yere yoh has a Christmas dinnah fit foh a King, an' de Colonel he know right well dat we has only a little 1ef from de money whut we done get when we sold de silver teapot."

It was Christmas, however, and Uncle Noah felt convinced that the Providence that had watched so well over his Christmas Eve would order a special dispensation for his new dilemma. While awaiting its manifestation he would studiously avoid the Colonel, and would slip across to Fernlands, once the pseudo Job was safe in the oven, and beg the gray-eyed lady to accept a dollar a week of the grocer's money in his inspired scheme of self-redemption.

With this in mind Uncle Noah served the breakfast, hurried his preparations for the midday feast, and at five minutes of eleven, the turkey safely roasting, set out across the fields for Major Verney's.

At Fernlands the eleven strokes of the grandfather's clock in the great hall found the gray-eyed lady in the arms of a young fellow who had but that instant bounded lightly up the walk from the sleigh Major Verney had dispatched to Cotesville to meet the Northern Express. The Major, smilingly awaiting his opportunity to greet the newcomer, ran his eye approvingly over the lines of the well-knit figure and handsome face of the young man.

"Well, d.i.c.k," said the Major, advancing with outstretched hand as the girl flushed prettily and smoothed back the dark mist of hair from her forehead, "how are you, my boy? Busy, of course. We read fine things of you in the papers at times." Then, as the young man took off his overcoat, "What, sir," the Major inquired, "do you mean by falling in love with my only niece? Here my brother writes me that his daughter is engaged to a man who knows me, and will I pack off a carload of testimonials by special messenger indorsing the little rascal who used to steal my apples. What, sir, do you mean?"

"Well, Major," d.i.c.k answered as he was ushered into the big living-room, his laughing eyes alight with happiness, "she had the Verney eyes, and you remember I always liked them." He sank into a chair by Ruth with a smiling glance at the Major. "It is unusually cold for down here. There's a real bracing Northern sting in the air.

And what a snow! It's packed down so that the runners fairly flew.

Major, do sit down!"

The Major was still bustling about, urging Ruth into another chair by the fire that he himself might sit by d.i.c.k, poking energetically at the blazing logs, and firing a volley of directions at black Sam.

"There!" he exclaimed, finally seating himself. "Now, sir, relative to this infatuated young person on my left, who has condescended to visit her uncle for the first time since she arrived on the planet. I met her last night according to telegraphed instructions, and she kept me waiting--let me see--"

"Uncle!" protested Ruth, "you've added fifteen minutes to that wait every time you've mentioned it."

"My dear child, politeness alone has kept me from naming the full extent of my wait. If you please, sir," he turned to d.i.c.k, "she was in the clutches of a beggar who obtained twenty-five dollars by a most extraordinary yarn."

"Twenty-five dollars!" d.i.c.k whistled, smiling at the flush that crept up to the gray eyes. "Was it an aged father this time or a hungry brood of motherless waifs, Ruthie?"

"d.i.c.k, listen!" cried the girl. "Uncle misjudges him. It was a dear old colored man and he told me the strangest story."

"You don't often find a grateful beggar who sends you violets in the morning purchased with some of your own shekels," said the Major, pinching the flushed cheek. "Tell him, Ruthie; it was odd, and I believe I'd have done the same thing myself."

The girl flashed a grateful look at him and then told the story of her purchase of the night before so eloquently that the Major and d.i.c.k heard her through with sober faces, secretly touched by its pathos.

"And he must have recognized Uncle," she ended, "for the violets came this morning with the quaintest card."

For an instant she dreamily scanned the fire, seeing in its glowing embers the brown wrinkled negro face with its honest eyes, peering at her over his spectacles in troubled apprehension; then she sprang to her feet.

"Uncle Edward," she cried, "did you tell Uncle Neb to wait with the sleight? Those sleigh-bells are beginning to sound hysterical."

"Merciful goodness!" cried the Major; "I certainly did. I had the strictest commands to drive in to church for Mother Verney at eleven o'clock. Hi, Sam, you black rascal, tell Uncle Neb I'll be right out."

"I'll tell him, Uncle," called Ruth, flying swiftly up the long hall to the library window.

But no clear call went ringing over the snow to Uncle Neb; instead, there was silence, broken at length by a voice that called softly in great excitement, "d.i.c.k! Uncle Edward! do come here. Look!" she cried as they quickly joined her. "You see, Uncle, he didn't forget!"

Smiling, the two men looked from the window. An old negro m.u.f.fled in a threadbare overcoat was plodding up the walk, his eyes scanning the house with evident curiosity.

The Major uttered a quick exclamation and the girl wheeled about.

"Don't you see?" she cried. "He's come to-day, honest old fellow that he is! See, d.i.c.k--"

She stopped abruptly, looking from one to the other. There was something in the two stern faces staring beyond her at the bent negro that struck a chill to her heart. d.i.c.k's face had gone white, and the Majors hand had stolen to the younger man's shoulder as if to steady him.

There was a startled incredulity in the Major's face as he said: "Brace up, old man! You didn't know, neither did I."

"Ruth," d.i.c.k asked unsteadily, "is that the old colored man whose--whose master--"

"Yes!" cried the girl, the sharp pain of premonition in her voice.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, who is he?"

d.i.c.k's miserable eyes sought hers as he answered, "It's--it's Dad's Uncle Noah. Ruth, I--" He turned and sought the hall.

Ruth's face flamed at his words. Uncle Noah's pathetic story came crowding over her again in the light of d.i.c.k's revelation. His father and mother! The stern old Colonel, of whom d.i.c.k always spoke with such respectful loyalty in spite of their quarrel, and the dear mother, whose tender eyes gazing from the old-fashioned daguerreotype d.i.c.k always carried had made her choke with sudden tears--these two were Uncle Noah's beloved "ol' Ma.s.sa an' ol' Mis'"!

She turned; the Major had followed d.i.c.k to the hallway. A shuffling step sounded on the porch outside, and the girl hurried toward the door, a sudden light of daring in her eyes. Impulse had always ruled the Verneys, and Ruth was a Verney from the crown of her dark head to the tips of her small feet. Catching up Grandmother Verney's long cloak hanging over a chair, she softly left the house.

d.i.c.k, struggling into his overcoat, turned at the Major's touch on his arm.

"Just a minute, d.i.c.k." Major Verney's genial voice was sympathetic as a woman's. "Remember that what the Colonel refused in prosperity he's not likely to take in adversity. Sit down here by the fire until we talk it over."

"But, Major"--there was a note of anguish in the boy's voice--"I must go to him. Think of Uncle Noah selling himself to help them, and I--"