She had one of those faces which you sometimes pa.s.s in the street and remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market--a very beautiful face when she looked up earnestly--a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, and she wore it in one heavy braid over her forehead. Her eyes were so gentle and saucy by turns that I could never tell whether they were gray or hazel; but her smile was frank, her laugh musical, and her whole presence so purely womanly, that one could not but be better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless.
She had a wild little will of her own--none the worse for that, however.
She could put her foot down--and a sweet little foot it was!--a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot--high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot!--But I daren"t trust myself further.
Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled quietly.
"How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I disturb him?"--and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if a tiny song would awaken him?"
So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, commencing with--
"Touch us gently, Father Time!
As we glide adown the stream."
She sang them bewitchingly. The music must have stolen into Mortimer"s dream, for he slept a quieter sleep than before. Miss Daisy did not like that, and pouted quite prettily, and shook her finger at him.
"O, how tiresome you are!" she said. Then she sewed for ten minutes quite steadily.
"I guess I"ll arrange your books, Rip Van Winkle! and when you wake up, a half century hence, you won"t know them, they"ll be in such good order!"
And facetious Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, and listened to her.
Her fingers grew very busy with Mortimer"s books. Having dusted them carefully, she commenced to place them in an old black-walnut book-case, which must have had an antique look fifty years ago. And Daisy went on laughing and talking to herself in a most comical manner.
"Here, Mr. Theocritus!" she cried, taking up that venerable poet, and placing him upside down, "I"ll just set you on your head for absorbing all that stupid boy"s attention one live-long evening, when I wanted to chat with him."
An author is supposed to know everything about his characters; but I cannot tell why Daisy placed Mortimer"s poet in such an uncomfortable position, unless she thought that the blood might run into the head of Mr.
Theocritus, and cause him to be taken off with a brain fever!
"And you, Mr. Byron," Daisy continued, "you"re a very wicked young fellow!
and I won"t let you sit next to Mrs. Hemans!" so she placed Plutarch between them. "But you and Sh.e.l.ly," Daisy said, resting her hand on Keats, "you are different sort of persons; you are too earnest and beautiful to be impure; and you shall sit side by side between L. E. L. and our own Alice Cary. And Chatterton! poor boy Chatterton! I"ll place you in that shadowy corner of the book-case, where the sunshine never comes!"
So Daisy made merry or sad, as the case might be, over her lover"s few volumes; and when she had arranged them to suit her capricious self, she kissed her hand to Tom Hood, and locked them all--poets, romancers, and historians--in the black, sombre old book-case.
Our friend Daisy was in one of those playful, half-childish moods, which came upon her not unfrequently.
Now she looked around the room for some other piece of useful mischief to do. She would turn over Mortimer"s papers. Ah, what made her blush and laugh so prettily then? It was only a sheet of note-paper, on which Mortimer, in a dreamy moment, had written her name innumerable times--for know, good world, that true love takes the silliest ways to express itself.
Now she was curious.
She stood thoughtfully, with a small morocco case in her hand. The reader has seen it once in Flint"s office. An undefined feeling stole over her; and it was some time before she thought of opening the case. She did so, however, and took from it a pearl necklace of rare design and workmanship.
The necklace was in three parts, linked together by exquisitely carved clasps, from the largest of which hung a
[Ill.u.s.tration: Cross]
composed of smaller and more costly pearls.
"How beautiful!" and she grew more thoughtful. Something within her recognized the jewels. It was not her sight, it was not her touch, but an intuitive something which is finer and subtler than either.
"I have seen this somewhere--somewhere," she said; "but where?"
And she closed her eyes, as if the sunlight blinded some timid memory that was stealing through her brain. Her fancy painted pictures of strange places and things. Now she saw a country-house, among cool, quiet trees; then a man dying--some one she loved--but who? Now she was in a large city, and heard the rumbling of wheels and confused voices. Now the snow was coming down, flake after flake, and everything was white; then it was night--dark, stormy, and dreadful--and she was cold, bitter cold! Some one had left her in the white, clinging snow, and she was freezing!
Daisy opened her eyes. The snow and wind were gone, and April"s sunny breath blew shadows through the open window. The house, the death, the storm--how were they connected with the string of pearls? And Daisy held the necklace on her finger-tips and wondered.
"Somewhere, somewhere--but where?"
Daisy could not tell where.
"I may have seen one like it," Daisy thought. "Perhaps this was Bell"s, and these stones may have rested many a time on her little neck. I wish I had known Bell!"
With this she placed the necklace in the case again, and tears gathered in her eyes, she knew not why.
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."
She laid the box in the place where she had found it, and thought she would not speak to Mortimer of the necklace; he might be displeased to have her touch it.
Her gaiety had given place to sadness, and when she knelt by Mortimer"s chair she could not help sobbing. Mortimer awoke and bent over her.
"What, weeping, Daisy?"
X.
_Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die: You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year you must not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move: He will not see the dawn of day, He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true love, And the new year will take "em away.
Old year, you must not go: So long as you have been with us, Such joy as you have seen with us, Old year, you shall not go.
He frothed his b.u.mpers to the brim: A jollier year we shall not see; But though his eyes are waxing dim, And though his foes speak ill of him, He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die: We did so laugh and cry with you, I"ve half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die._
ALFRED TENNYSON.
X.
ST. AGNES" EVE.
_The Old Year--St. Agnes--Keats" Poem--The Circlet of Pearls--A Cloud--The Promise--Mrs. Snarle continues her Knitting._
The Old Year had just gone by--the dear, sad Old Year! He died in the bl.u.s.tering wind, out in the cold! He lay down in the shadows, moaned, and died! Something has gone with thee, Old Year, which will never come again: kind words, sweet smiles, warm lips--ah, no, they will never come again!
Hold them near your heart for love of us, Old Year! They came with you, they went with you! _Kyrie eleyson!_
"I wish you could tarry with us," said Mortimer. "You were kind to us, merry and sad with us." And he repeated the lines,
"Old year, you shall not die: We did so laugh and cry with you, I"ve half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die."
"To-night, Daisy, will be St. Agnes" Eve, and if I sell my prose sketch to Filberty"s Magazine, I"ll be in a good humor to read you Keats" poem."