"My last day here!" said Mortimer gaily to himself. "Weary, tiresome old books! my soul has grown sick over you for the last time."
He brushed the dust from off the dull-looking ledger, and went to work.
"Won"t I astonish him?" he thought, looking up; and he laughed so pleasantly that Tim, who was sweeping the rubbish into a dust-pan, suspended operations, and expressed his surprise in a somewhat dubious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n:
"I vum!"
When Mr. Flint came in, he saw the same tall form bending over the accustomed desk that had met his eyes every morning for the last ten years; but he did not see the heart that was leaping with new life. And when, in his usual snarly way, he gave Mortimer orders to make up certain invoices, which would have employed the clerk till midnight, he opened a brief conversation which ended in his utter amazement.
"You will render Bowen & Cleet their account current, and make up the pork sale; it has been standing open long enough. And," added Mr. Flint, "fill up bills of lading for the D. D. coffee."
"I don"t think I will," was the quiet reply.
Mr. Flint did not believe his ears.
"Mr. Walters!"
"Mr. Flint."
"You will fill up those bills of lading immediately."
"I won"t!" plumply.
This caused Mr. Flint to sink in a chair with astonishment; and Mortimer went on writing.
"Did you say that you wouldn"t?" asked Mr. Flint, looking at him.
"Yes, sir."
"You did!"
"My year," said Mortimer, leisurely, "expires to-day, and with it, I am happy to state, my connection with Flint & Snarle."
Mr. Flint hunted twenty seconds for his lost voice.
"You insolent----"
"Sir!" cried Mortimer, turning to him abruptly, "until now I have borne your tyranny with meekness. We are no longer employer and clerk. We are man and man, with the advantage on my side. If you apply an insulting epithet to me, I shall pull your ears!"
O Tim, how you rubbed your hands, you little villain! How your limbs seemed to be receiving a series of galvanic shocks from an invisible battery! How your eyes sparkled, and your proclivity for fight got uppermost, till you cried out, "Pitch into him, old boy!"
"Go!" hissed Flint, through his closed teeth; "go!" that was all the word he could master.
Mortimer pa.s.sed out of the office.
The genial sunshine slid from the house-tops, and fell under his feet; a thousand airy forms walked with him, and he felt their presence, though he could not see them.
He wandered through the Park. April had breathed on the cold ground, and the green gra.s.s was springing up to welcome her. The leaves were unfolding themselves, and the air was full of spring. The fountain had thrown off its icy manacles, and leaped up with a sense of freedom.
His dreamy eyes saw it all. The black shadows had fallen from him; he had left them with Flint; and a bright day had dawned within him and without him. Everything was tinged with iridescent light, for he looked at the world, as it were, through dew-drops. Happy morning--happy life! when one can put aside the trailing vines of painful memory, and let the warm sunshine of Heaven find its way into the heart.
In this sunny mood he turned his way homeward. He pa.s.sed Mrs. Snarle on the stairs with a smile; he heard Daisy singing in the sitting-room; and he sat himself down in the yellow light which streamed through the window of his bedroom, making a hundred golden fancies on the worn carpet:
"The shadows of the coming flowers!
The phantoms of forget-me-nots, And roses red and sweet!"
His eyes made pictures; his fancy inverted the hour-gla.s.s of his life, and the old sands ran back! He floated down the stream of time, instead of onward.
The sunshine grew deeper and broader, and filled the little room. Then it became condensed and brighter. Gradually it moulded itself into form, and little Bell, in her golden ringlets, stood at the side of Mortimer. Her white hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up--not in surprise, but with tenderness--with the air of a man who can gaze with unclouded eyes into the spiritual world and lose himself.
"I knew you were near," he said, dreamily. "I thought you would come. You have something to tell me. What is it, my little Bell? Thus you stood at my side, thus you looked into my eyes, the day on which I told Daisy that I loved her. Thus you come to me whenever the current of my life changes, to love and advise me. What is it, Bell--dainty little Bell?"
A sunny lip rested on his for a moment.
"Be strong!" said little Bell.
A cloud of sunlight floated around Mortimer, slipped down at his feet, and lost itself in the orange stream which flooded the window.
"He is dreaming of Bell," said Daisy, as she bent over him--"dreaming of lost Bell!"
And she closed the door after her softly.
Then Mortimer"s vision of sister Bell was a dream? Perhaps it was not.
Perhaps this real world is linked more closely to the invisible sphere than in our guesses. It may be an angel"s hand which touches our cheek, when we think that it is only the breeze. _Quien sabe?_ Who can say that in sleep we do not touch hands with the spirits of another world--the angels of hereafter? And what may death be but an intellectual dream!--Who knows?
n.o.body knows. "But," suggests the gentle reader, "suppose you dispense with your Hamlet-like philosophy, and go on with your story, like the pleasant author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep, as you have your hero."
Reader, the hint was merited.
IX.
"_My eyes make pictures when they are shut._"
COLERIDGE.
IX.
DAISY AND THE NECKLACE.
_Our pet.i.te Heroine--How she talked to the Poets--The Morocco Case--Daisy"s Eyes make Pictures--Tears, idle Tears!_
Mortimer was still sleeping an "azure-lidded sleep," as Keats has it, when Daisy again came softly to the door.
A pretty little woman was Daisy Snarle.