And me and Joe watched you in your little crimson dress, as one watches some bright-plumed bird, hopping from twig to twig."
"How I wish I could remember that day, grandma."
"You were too young; not more than two years old. But oh! you should have seen the surprise and delight of Tabby and Libby, when, after they had made the beds up stairs, they came down to help me to get breakfast.
They were as silly over you as ever you saw children over a new pet kitten. I thought you would have been pulled to pieces between them, which was another sign that they ought to have been married twenty years before."
"Oh, mother!" began Miss Tabby.
"Well, there! I won"t say anything more about that. But the way they talked to you, Gem!"
""What"s your name, little one?" they asked.
""Gem," you answered.
""Who"s your mother, baby?"
""Gamma," you replied. You had only them two words, my darling--"Gem"
and "Gamma.""
"Did you ever afterwards find out who I was, grandma?" inquired the girl.
"Maybe I did, and maybe I didn"t, Gem. Anyway there was no clue to your history there in that basket, Gem. There was heaps of baby clothes, nicely got up and marked "In-gem-is-ca," and there was a small bag of gold coins, amounting to just one hundred dollars. That was all. And now, didn"t you give me your word never to ask me any questions about yourself?"
"I know I did, grandma, and I will keep my word; but oh, grandma, I can"t help thinking about it and suspecting who I am."
"Hush! hush, Gem! Put away such troublesome thoughts. I had rather see a little natural silliness than so much gravity in one so young as you are. Be a girl while girlhood lasts. The season is short enough. This is Hallow Eve. When I was young, it used to be a gay festival, and not the funeral feast my mournful daughters would make it. When I was young, the lads and la.s.ses, on a Hallow Eve night, used to try spells to find out their sweethearts and lovers. And if ghosts walked then, they were merry sprites who only came to tell the youths and maidens whom they were to love and marry. Come, now, I"ll teach you a sure spell. Here are some chestnuts," she said, rising and taking a little basket from the chimney shelf, and emptying it into Gem"s lap.
"What am I to do with these, grandma?" smiled the girl.
"You are to take half a dozen large ones, scratch on each the first letter in the name of some young man you know. Then on another, "Str."
for stranger; on another "Wid." for widower; on the last one, a cross for old maidenhood."
Smilingly Gem complied with the directions, and marked the chestnuts, while the old lady, with spectacles on nose, watched her carefully.
When they were all ready, Gem looked up, saying:
"Well, they are marked! Nine of them altogether."
"Now lay them in a row on the hot hearth, close to the coals, to roast."
"It is done," said Gem, after she had arranged them according to rule.
"Now, then, my dear, you must sit and watch them in perfect silence, until they are roasted, when they will begin to pop; and the first one that pops will be your fate, whether it be one of the young men, or the widower, or the stranger, or whether it be the cross that stands for old maidenhood."
Smilingly Gem folded her hands, and composed herself to perfect silence and stillness.
While she watched her roasting chestnuts, the old lady watched her.
Each of these women, the ancient dame and the youthful maiden, was making herself silly to please the other. Mrs. Winterose, wishing to divert Gem from her troublesome thoughts, and Gem willing to gratify her "grandma."
But the law of silence was not laid upon any one else but the trier of the spell. And Miss Tabby and Miss Libby chattered together like a pair of sister magpies for some minutes, when suddenly Miss Tabby exclaimed:
"Look out, Gem! Your chestnuts are beginning to crack; they will shoot you presently, if you don"t mind."
The warning came too late. A blazing chestnut was suddenly shot from the hearth like a small bombsh.e.l.l, and struck Gem upon the right hand, inflicting a slight burn.
With a faint cry she sprang up and shook it off; and she sat down startled and trembling, for she was very delicate and very sensitive to pain.
"Never mind, never mind a little smarting! When I was young I would have been willing to have been scorched worse than that, to have had such a powerful sign that some one loved me so fiercely as all that! Goodness!
how he loves you, to be sure! and how quickly he is coming to see you!
Come, pick up your chestnut, child, and see what mark it bears. Come, now! Is it Cromartie?" inquired the old lady with an arch smile.
But the girl made no reply. She had picked up and blown out the blazing emblem that she had playfully made a messenger of fate, and she was gazing upon it. She remained pale and mute.
"Come, come; did you name it for that auburn-haired youth?" persisted the old lady.
"I named it for--_the exile_--the lady who was borne from the flooded prison that stormy night; I named it for--_my mother_," answered the maiden in a low tone.
Silence like a panic fell upon the little party.
Mrs. Winterose was the first to break it.
"Gem! how dare you do such dreadful things?" she demanded, speaking more harshly than she had ever before spoken to her spoiled child.
"It"s enough to break anybody"s heart to hear her say that," whimpered Miss Tabby, wiping her eyes.
"And, oh! what a sign and an omen! If there"s any truth in the spell, her mother--if so be _she_ is her mother and is a living--her mother loves her better than any one in the world, and is a hurrying to see her now! For I never knew that to fail," said Miss Libby, clasping her hands and rolling up her eyes.
Gem turned and gazed at the last speaker, while a superst.i.tious faith in the omen crept into her heart.
"There is nothing at all in it! I was only trying to amuse the poor child by the old love spell. I had no thought it would turn out this way," said Mrs. Winterose, glancing uneasily at Gem.
But Miss Tabby sighed, and Miss Libby shook her head, and Gem continued to look very grave.
"Well, I declare! I am out of all patience with Joe!" exclaimed the old lady, by way of changing the whole conversation. "It has been full forty minutes or more since I sent him after them cones! And now I am going to call him."
And so saying she went and opened the back door.
But she had no sooner done so, than she started with a cry of horror and fled back into the room.
And well she might!
Behind her came three men, bearing in their arms the mutilated and bleeding body of a third man!
Following them limped lame-legged Joe.
The affrighted women shrank back to the chimney corner, where they clung together in that dumb terror which is the deeper for its very silence.
"Now don"t you be scared, ladies," said Joe, soothingly. "n.o.body an"t a going to do you no harm. It is only some man as has been murdered out there."