LITMIR.BIZ

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      Anna and myself had been home but three weeks – three dreary years of weeks, Anna said – when we received a letter containing the joyful intelligence that Edgar Elliott, his aristocratic sister Jane, his unaristocratic sister little Fanny, and Herbert Allen – a young lieutenant, by the way, and, by the way, the red-hot flame of my harem-scarem sister – would all four honor Dough-nut Hall, the name we had playfully given our old homestead, with a speedy and long visit.

      Joy and hope danced in our hearts when, clear and sunny, the promised day at length had come, the snow five and a half feet deep – the greatest depth of snow within the memory of the "oldest inhabitant" – the mercury full ten degrees below zero. I had just changed my dress for the fifth time, and sister Anna was offering me this consolation, "I must say, Clara, that that is the most unbecoming dress you have, you look like a perfect scare-crow," when the sound of sleigh-bells coming up the avenue, sent my heart up in my throat, and myself quicker than lightning down to the "hall-door," there to welcome – not my darling Edgar and his proud, beautiful sister, and Anna's Adonis lieutenant, and Brother Dick's pretty little Fanny – no, none of these, oh, no! who but my long-visaged, good-for-nothing cousin Jehoiakim Johnson.

      "Fiddle-de-dee!" exclaimed a voice at my elbow; and my disappointed sister skipped, with chattering teeth, back into the house.

      The stage drove off, after depositing cousin Jehoiakim and a Noah's-ark of a trunk.

      "Wall, Cousin Clarry!" exclaimed he, springing toward me with one of his own peculiar bear-like bounds. "How du you du? I guess you didn't expect me this time, no how."

      "I can't say that I did," said I; "but do come in, this air is enough to freeze one."

      "Wall, here I am again," said he, rubbing his great hands together before the blazing hickory. "But if that wasn't a tarnel cold drive; and if this isn't a nation good fire, then I don't know. But how are uncle and aunt, and Cousin Anna, and Dick, and little Harry?"

      "All quite well. Where have you been since you left here, cousin?"

      "Why I went right to Cousin Hezekiah's; but I did not stay there quite two months, because little Prudence caught the brain fever, and I was obliged to keep so still that it was very unpleasant. I went from there to Cousin Ebenezer's. Wall, I stayed to Cousin Eb's four months or so; then I went to stay a couple of months with Cousin Pildash and Axy, (Achsa.) So this morning I came from Uncle Abimelech's. I only stayed there a few weeks, because – But, Cousin Clarry, du look! if there isn't a sleigh-load of folks coming."

      I did look, and saw coming through the great open gate, and up the avenue, a sleigh, all covered with gold and brown, glittering in the sun's setting rays. I saw the long, white manes of the ponies, and the heavy plumes of my beautiful friend, Jane, streaming far in the wind; and then I saw little Fanny's bright, happy face, and the fierce moustache of Anna's lieutenant; and then I saw a pair of dark, earnest eyes, full of devotion, gazing into mine as though at the shrine of their soul's ideal. Never shall I forget the look they wore, so inexpressibly full of affection was it.

      What a pity stars should set. What a pity that eyes, once overflowing with the light of wildest, truest love, should grow cold and dim. A pity, too, that love cannot always be love – that it should find its grave so often in hate, or indifference, or in sober friendship. Still that it does not always, let us bless Love, and think that the fault lies in us, and not in Love, that we are grown so like the clay of which our bodies are made, that Love, the spirit, cannot find an abiding-place within us; and, as years come over us, we are content more and more to harden our hearts, and bask, like butterflies, in the external sunshine of this beautiful world, until the world within – the world of thought and feeling – is a weary one, gladdened only with a few flowers of transcendent sweetness and brightness – rewards of merit from this work-day, lesson-learning earth.

      Meantime were those warm eyes looking love upon me; and meantime, from out a world of buffalo-robes and furs, were our merry friends emerging; and then a fervent pressure of a soft, warm hand sent the bright blood burning to my very temples. Then came numerous other shakes of the hand, and question sounded upon question, and laugh pealed upon laugh; a gayer, merrier, madder party never met together. Sister Anna, and Brother Dick's little love of a Fanny, were a host of mirth in themselves. The accession of so many merry faces seemed to act on the uncouth spirits of my Cousin Jehoiakim like so much exhilarating gas; for scarcely were we housed, when he suddenly caught me up in his windmill arms, and twirling me around as though I had been a feather, exclaimed, "Bless us! Cousin Clarry, I have scarcely had a chance to say how du you du, and to tell you how glad I am to be here once more. Arn't you tickled to death to see me?"

      Indignant and breathless, I sprang from him, saying, "Really, Cousin Jehoiakim, I should be much more delighted to see you if you would be kind enough to manifest a less rude way of expressing your joy."

      "Oh! beg pardon, Cousin Clarry. I forgot you had grown up into a young woman; another word for touch-me-not – ha! ha! ha! I guess you are all dressed up, tu; you look like a daisy, anyhow."

      With that he threw himself back in a perfect roar of ha! ha's! and he! he's! My eyes glanced around to see the effect produced on my friends by my gauche cousin. The great blue eyes of the aristocratic Jane opened themselves wider and more wide, while the merry black ones of little Fanny seemed to enjoy the sport. The lieutenant's moustache curled itself a little more decidedly, as he surveyed Jehoiakim Johnson; looking upon him, probably, as on some savage monster. I thought I perceived a darker shade in Edgar's eyes. It soon passed over, and we all became quiet and chatty. The twilight deepened around us, meantime, and the shadows formed by the blazing hearth grew more and more opaque, and more and more fitful, lengthening themselves over carpet, chairs, and sofas, to the very farthest corner of the room, darting all manner of fantastic forms upon Sister Anna and her handsome lieutenant, as they sat over by the window, in earnest conversation. Yes, Sister Anna, for once wert thou earnest. Upon our group on the sofa, before the hearth, fell also those strange fire-light shadows. Sweet little Fanny! how like a little fairy didst thou look in that flickering fire-light; thy graceful form, half reclining, thrown carelessly on the sofa; thy long, curling hair flowing in dark clouds over thy snow-white dress, and nearly hiding thy happy, child-like face, and bright eyes, that glanced out on Brother Dick, who, entranced, was devoutly bending over thee, gazing on thy sunny face – what he could see of it. Sweet little Fanny! And thy proud, beautiful sister, Jane – sitting beside me, and near thee; well did that gleaming light reveal her noble outline of face and form contrasting so finely with thine. Nor did those wayward shadows spare our dear mother, but daguerreotyped all manner of merry-andrews on her sober satin dress, as she sat over on a lounge, quietly talking with my dear, sweet Edgar, who employed his leisure moments in throwing sundry loving glances over at me. Nor did these weird shadows spare our Cousin Jehoiakim Johnson in the great old-fashioned arm-chair, where he had flung himself, seemingly wrapped in meditation most profound. They frolicked over his broad, square shoulders like the Liliputs upon Gulliver, dancing all sorts of fantastic dances, pulling at his ears, and tweaking his substantial nose, when a snore of most immense magnitude broke on our quiet ears. Then another and another, each louder than the last. Ah! Cousin Jehoiakim, most profound was thy meditation.

      Now I am not going to weary your patience by telling you how just then our "help" entered, one bearing a tray-full of tall sperm candles, another an immense waiter, crowned with the thick-gilt, untarnished china, that had been handed down in our family by four successive generations – we had begged our dear mother to let the tea, the tea only, be handed around as it was done in Boston; she in an evil hour consenting. Nor how Cousin Jehoiakim, aroused from his meditation by the glare of light, starting up, cast his eyes upon Mercy, the stout serving maiden, and bearer of that same precious porcelain – for which my dear mother's reverence was as great, every whit, as that of Charles Lamb's for old China; and how the next moment the waiter was in the hands of my six feet seven and a-half cousin, with "Du let me help you, young woman!" and how the next instant the six feet seven and a-half formed a horizontal line with the floor, instead of a perpendicular one; and how the glittering fragments of gold and white glistened from under every chair, and from the hearth, and out from among the ashes, like unto so many evil eyes glaring upon him for his stupidity and carelessness; and how little Fanny unwound from one foot of the prostrate six

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