CHAPTER XVIII.
NEW YEAR'S EVE.
call it extremely selfish of you and John to have had this secret all this time, and never to have told us,"said Hugh, on the morning before New Year's Day, as they all sat at breakfast.
Agnes looked up over the "cosy," a surprised hurt look overshadowing the brightness of her face.
"You do not really think it unkind, Hugh?" she asked; "you are only trying to tease me."
"I'm not joking at all," answered Hugh, dropping his eyes so as not to meet her beseeching ones. "For you and John to have kept this to yourself all this time is exceedingly selfish."
"Why, I didn't know," said Minnie.
"Nor I," said Alice.
"That's different!" exclaimed Hugh hastily; "you're girls; but I'm only two years younger than John, and I don't see any reason why you should not have told me."
"There was no reason," said Agnes gently, "except just this: Mother thought that it would be a little pleasure for New Year's Eve, and a secret that is told to everyone is no secret."
"But I might have been told; I should not have let it out like a girl."
"I dare say," said Alice, her eyes sparkling with displeasure; "and so because we are girls we are not to be trusted with anything, while because you are boys—for no other reason—you——"
She paused, Agnes's face stopped her, and then her eyes turned to John's, and she noticed that his were fixed earnestly on the text, which was just touched by the morning sunshine, as it crept silently along the wall—
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
"Oh, John," she said softly; "I quite forgot."
And then they all noticed that John had not forgotten.
At Hugh's first angry word, just as he was turning to answer, the light on the text caught his attention, and his promise to Agnes flashed across him; his promise that while their parents were away he would try with might and main to refrain from quarrelling with his brother.
There was a few moments' silence, while each of the five assembled there had time to remember their resolves, and to ask for strength to keep them.
At last Alice spoke. "Do you mind telling us. Agnes, what you are going to do then?"
"Well, you know my morning Sunday-school class that I have given up to another teacher while mother is away?"
Alice nodded.
"Mother thought it would be nice if we asked them to tea to-day, and hoped it would keep them together better; and then John and I have been devising how we could please them."
"Did you think of a Christmas-tree?" asked Hugh eagerly.
Agnes shook her head. "It was of no use thinking of it; we hadn't money enough. No, we thought of games; only the boys are apt to get rough, and without mother and father it seemed a great undertaking."
"So it is," said Alice; "for don't you remember what a dreadful noise they made one year when we had them?"
"Yes," answered John; "so, as I was passing along the Strand the day after father went to America, I noticed 'magic-lanterns for school treats,' posted up very large in a window, and it gave me the idea of using mine for our little treat, and hiring a few more slides to make it last longer."
"Yes, we haven't so very many slides," said Minnie, considering.
"Pretty well," answered John; "but at anyrate two dozen more will be an advantage."
"And after the magic-lantern is over?" asked Alice.
"Agnes is going to talk to them, or tell them a story, and after that they'll have an orange."
"Oh!" said Minnie, "I shall like that."
"Which," asked Hugh, "the 'talk,' or the 'story,' or the 'orange'?"
Minnie blushed, but after the late little breeze determined not to be vexed, and answered, "You know perfectly well what I meant, Hugh; so it's no good trying to make out anything else."
"Do you want me to do anything to-day. Agnes?" asked Alice.
"Of course I do," exclaimed Agnes; "I have a perfect list of things to be done. Cakes to be made by Alice; room to be got ready by Hugh; chairs brought from everywhere, seats devised, flowers arranged—there, I can't tell you all till we are in it."
"And is there anything for me to do?" asked Minnie, getting up and coming round to lean against her sister's shoulder.
"Yes, I want you to be willing to run messages all day long, and never to mind how often Alice sends you upstairs, or Hugh sends you downstairs, but to have feet of love for to-day."
"All right," said Minnie.
"And then for pleasant things, between whiles, you shall go to buy the oranges, and some buns, and some gingerbread nuts, and so on, and we'll have I hope as happy a day as any since they went away."
As Agnes turned at the door to give a parting direction, Hugh put his arm round her and said humbly:
"I'm awfully sorry I was so stupid, Agnes—so wrong—but I'm for ever forgetting."
And Agnes said, "I'm sorry too, Hugh, that we made a secret of it, for I see now it would have been nicer for you to have known; but I didn't mean to be unkind."
After that they worked on happily together all the morning, though Hugh felt a twinge whenever any one remarked, as Minnie and Alice were apt to do all day, "How funny it seems not to have known."
"It's the last secret I'll have, John, that I can help," said Agnes to him when they were left alone for a few minutes, and were busy pinning up the sheet.
"Yes," answered John, reaching down from the top of the steps, where he was astride, and taking the corner from her outstretched arm, "Yes, Agnes. I don't believe in secrets."
"Nor I," answered Agnes, "I have seen it before, and it will this time be a lesson to me."
"But we didn't quarrel over it, exactly."
"Oh, no; but we might have if you had not remembered in time. I do not mean that I defend Hugh for being so cross over it, but I see once more that nobody likes to have things kept and then given all of a heap."
"You are very lucid."
"Well," she answered, laughing and blushing. "I remember on my seventeenth birthday you all thought it would be nice to give me my presents at tea, and so they were kept all day, and it was a wretched birthday."
John was descending the ladder. "I never knew that," he said.
"Oh, it is not worth remembering," said Agnes; "I only thought of it as an illustration. It was not that I cared so much about the presents, you know, John, it was because everything seemed incomplete. After all I had a much better present than I ever dreamed of, for father gave me my dear little watch."
"I see what you mean," said John. "Now, Agnes, for the other end; that hangs very straight, doesn't it?"
"Nicely. This long curtain-pole is a fine idea for magic-lantern exhibitions."
"Yes, I am glad you thought of it. Agnes, how do you like being left to ourselves?"
"Not at all," answered Agnes decidedly.
"Are we better or worse than you expected?"
"I am worse—you are better," she answered, laughing a little; but it was as near a sob as a laugh.
"Well, I mean that in one way, and not in another. I think I expected we should all be more perfect than we are."
"You did not expect me to break my promise, for instance?" asked John gravely.
"I hardly think you did. Oh no, John, you have been better in every way than I could have hoped, and I have been worse!"
"I don't see it," he answered fondly.
"But I do; I trusted in myself too much."
"We all do. Agnes, I'm inclined to think this being left to ourselves will turn out for our good."
"I am sure I hope so."
"Don't be desponding. Look at Hugh! Who ever heard him acknowledge himself in the wrong before? and yet just now, you know what he said to you? He would not have done that a month ago."
Agnes looked up. "Do you think so?" she said. "Oh, John, what a comforter you are."
"Then cheer up. Are you not doing what He would have you to do?"
"I try to."
"Then thank Him," said her brother cheerfully, "and take courage."
All was in readiness by the hour fixed for the arrival of their little guests, and very punctually to it, in fact a quarter of an hour before five o'clock. Minnie, who was always the one to watch at the window, announced that two of them were loitering about outside.
"How cold they'll be," she said pitifully.
"Not they," said Hugh.
"I should be," answered Minnie.
"Oh, you! but these poor little mites are used to be in the streets all day."
"So they are. But I wonder if Agnes will let me bring them in?"
"Not yet," answered John, who came in at that moment, "wait till it strikes five; as Hugh says, they are used to it."
Before the hand was on the hour, twelve or fourteen children crowded up the steps, and one of them, the boldest of the party, ventured to give a single 'dab' at the door, which brought Hugh to open it; and then began the disrobing, which orderly John had promised to superintend.
They were ushered into the dining-room, where tea was laid all ready, and it did not take them long to sit down and begin.
After all were satisfied, the table was pushed back into a corner, and in a few moments John and Hugh packed the children round the room so that all could see well, Minnie squeezing herself into a little corner by the sheet, where she would not have at all a good view, remarking, "Of course it does not matter a bit about me."
John smiled, but did not see where he could put her better, and, after all, was it not her little offering of love to her Master?
When it was all over, and the views had been seen, and the story told, and the oranges eaten, and the happy children gone, Hugh said:
"I have enjoyed it."
"So did everyone, I think," remarked Alice.
"In spite of its having been a secret," he went on, smiling; "but another time (though I oughtn't to have been cross over it), if you want to give a fellow pleasure, don't surprise him."
"We will not," said Agnes, glad to see the twinkle in Hugh's eye.
And then tired-out they hastily ate some supper and hurried off to bed, too fatigued to fulfil their intention of sitting up to see the year out.
"I'll set the alarum and wake you all," said John.
So the alarum was set, and they went to bed in peaceful anticipations of waking just in time.
By-and-by it went off with a peal which always startled him in spite of his determination, and out John sprang and struck a match.
"Hugh, get up," he called, "it is ten minutes to—why it is ten minutes past twelve, and no good at all!"
