LITMIR.BIZ

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was tastefully decorated with flowers, which grew about the house in lavish profusion. In warm climates nature adorns herself with true feminine vanity.

      “What a beautiful table!” exclaimed Tom, before they were seated.

      “The decorations are mine,” said Clara proudly. “I cut the flowers and arranged them all myself.”

      “Which accounts for the admirable effect,” rejoined Tom with a bow, before Ellis, to whom the same thought had occurred, was able to express himself. He had always counted himself the least envious of men, but for this occasion he coveted Tom Delamere’s readiness.

      “The beauty of the flowers,” observed old Mr. Delamere, with sententious gallantry, “is reflected upon all around them. It is a handsome company.”

      Mrs. Ochiltree beamed upon the table with a dry smile.

      “I don’t perceive any effect that it has upon you or me,” she said; “And as for the young people, ‘Handsome is as handsome does.’ If Tom here, for instance, were as good as he looks”—

      “You flatter me, Aunt Polly,” Tom broke in hastily, anticipating the crack of the whip; he was familiar with his aunt’s conversational idiosyncrasies.

      “If you are as good as you look,” continued the old lady, with a cunning but indulgent smile, “someone has been slandering you.”

      “Thanks, Aunt Polly! Now you don’t flatter me.”

      “There is Mr. Ellis,” Mrs. Ochiltree went on, “who is not half so good-looking, but is steady as a clock, I dare say.”

      “Now, Aunt Polly,” interposed Mrs. Carteret, “let the gentlemen alone.”

      “She doesn’t mean half what she says,” continued Mrs. Carteret apologetically, “and only talks that way to people whom she likes.”

      Tom threw Mrs. Carteret a grateful glance. He had been apprehensive, with the sensitiveness of youth, lest his old great-aunt should make a fool of him before Clara’s family. Nor had he relished the comparison with Ellis, who was out of place, anyway, in this family party. He had never liked the fellow, who was too much of a plodder and a prig to make a suitable associate for a whole-souled, generous-hearted young gentleman. He tolerated him as a visitor at Carteret’s and as a member of the Clarendon Club, but that was all.

      “Mrs. Ochiltree has a characteristic way of disguising her feelings,” observed old Mr. Delamere, with a touch of sarcasm.

      Ellis had merely flushed and felt uncomfortable at the reference to himself. The compliment to his character hardly offset the reflection upon his looks. He knew he was not exactly handsome, but it was not pleasant to have the fact emphasized in the presence of the girl he loved; he would like at least fair play, and judgment upon the subject left to the young lady.

      Mrs. Ochiltree was quietly enjoying herself. In early life she had been accustomed to impale fools on epigrams, like flies on pins, to see them wriggle. But with advancing years she had lost in some measure the faculty of nice discrimination,—it was pleasant to see her victims squirm, whether they were fools or friends. Even one’s friends, she argued, were not always wise, and were sometimes the better for being told the truth. At her niece’s table she felt at liberty to speak her mind, which she invariably did, with a frankness that sometimes bordered on brutality. She had long ago outgrown the period where ambition or passion, or its partners, envy and hatred, were springs of action in her life, and simply retained a mild enjoyment in the exercise of an old habit, with no active malice whatever. The ruling passion merely grew stronger as the restraining faculties decreased in vigor.

      A diversion was created at this point by the appearance of old Mammy Jane, dressed in a calico frock, with clean white neckerchief and apron, carrying the wonderful baby in honor of whose naming this feast had been given. Though only six weeks old, the little Theodore had grown rapidly, and Mammy Jane declared was already quite large for his age, and displayed signs of an unusually precocious intelligence. He was passed around the table and duly admired. Clara thought his hair was fine. Ellis inquired about his teeth. Tom put his finger in the baby’s fist to test his grip. Old Mr. Delamere was unable to decide as yet whether he favored most his father or his mother. The object of these attentions endured them patiently for several minutes, and then protested with a vocal vigor which led to his being taken promptly back upstairs. Whatever fate might be in store for him, he manifested no sign of weak lungs.

      “Sandy,” said Mrs. Carteret when the baby had retired, “pass that tray standing upon the side table, so that we may all see the presents.”

      Mr. Delamere had brought a silver spoon, and Tom a napkin ring. Ellis had sent a silver watch; it was a little premature, he admitted, but the boy would grow to it, and could use it to play with in the mean time. It had a glass back, so that he might see the wheels go round. Mrs. Ochiltree’s present was an old and yellow ivory rattle, with a handle which the child could bite while teething, and a knob screwed on at the end to prevent the handle from slipping through the baby’s hand.

      “I saw that in your cedar chest, Aunt Polly,” said Clara, “when I was a little girl, and you used to pull the chest out from under your bed to get me a dime.”

      “You kept the rattle in the right-hand corner of the chest,” said Tom, “in the box with the red silk purse, from which you took the gold piece you gave me every Christmas.”

      A smile shone on Mrs. Ochiltree’s severe features at this appreciation, like a ray of sunlight on a snowbank.

      “Aunt Polly’s chest is like the widow’s cruse,” said Mrs. Carteret, “which was never empty.”

      “Or Fortunatus’s purse, which was always full,” added old Mr. Delamere, who read the Latin poets, and whose allusions were apt to be classical rather than scriptural.

      “It will last me while I live,” said Mrs. Ochiltree, adding cautiously, “but there’ll not be a great deal left. It won’t take much to support an old woman for twenty years.”

      Mr. Delamere’s man Sandy had been waiting upon the table with the decorum of a trained butler, and a gravity all his own. He had changed his suit of plain gray for a long blue coat with brass buttons, which dated back to the fashion of a former generation, with which he wore a pair of plaid trousers of strikingly modern cut and pattern. With his whiskers, his spectacles, and his solemn air of responsibility, he would have presented, to one unfamiliar with the negro type, an amusingly impressive appearance. But there was nothing incongruous about Sandy to this company, except perhaps to Tom Delamere, who possessed a keen eye for contrasts and always regarded Sandy, in that particular rig, as a very comical darkey.

      “Is it quite prudent, Mrs. Ochiltree,” suggested the major at a moment when Sandy, having set down the tray, had left the room for a little while, “to mention, in the presence of the servants, that you keep money in the house?”

      “I beg your pardon, major,” observed old Mr. Delamere, with a touch of stiffness. “The only servant in hearing of the conversation has been my own; and Sandy is as honest as any man in Wellington.”

      “You mean, sir,” replied Carteret, with a smile, “as honest as any negro in Wellington.”

      “I make no exceptions, major,” returned the old gentleman, with emphasis. “I would trust Sandy with my life,—he saved it once at the risk of his own.”

      “No doubt,” mused the major, “the negro is capable of a certain doglike fidelity,—I make the comparison in a kindly sense,—a certain personal devotion which is admirable in itself, and fits him eminently for a servile career. I should imagine, however, that one could more safely trust his life with a negro than his portable property.”

      “Very clever, major! I read your paper, and know that your feeling is hostile toward the negro, but”—

      The major made a gesture of dissent, but remained courteously silent until Mr. Delamere had finished.

      “For my part,” the old gentleman went on, “I think they have done

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