“Here’s a letter for you from father,” he said, as he tossed it over to Leon.
Leon caught it eagerly, tore it open and ran his eye over the contents. Then he threw it down on the table.
“Good for daddy!” he exclaimed. “Here, Hal, you can read it; I’m going to find Alex.” And he went hurrying away.
Harry picked up the letter and read the few lines it contained; then his face grew as bright as Leon’s had done, and he rushed off after his brother. The note was evidently in reply to one written by Leon, asking permission to bring Alex home for the holidays; and it brought back a most cordial invitation from both Mr. and Mrs. Arnold. But little urging was needed to make Alex consent to so delightful a plan, and, two or three days later, the Arnolds carried him home to Boston in triumph.
Three jolly stage loads left Hilton that morning, to board the train at the station eight miles down the valley. Gathered at one end of the car, the cadets formed a noisy, gay group, now chattering and laughing until the rest of the passengers smiled in sympathy; now rushing to the door at a station, to give three ringing cheers for the schoolmate who was leaving them; now quiet for a moment while some member of the party pulled the ever-present banjo from its green bag, and played a few strains of a rollicking college air. It is remarkable the effect a party of schoolboys going home for the holidays, can have on a carful of people. Gradually the men leave their politics, the women their novels, and even the fretful baby, who has been wailing for the past fifty miles, stops its tired sobbing, while they all gaze with growing interest on the happy group who are by no means impressed by them in return. They catch at the names, listen eagerly for the jokes which they repeat to each other in undertones, and quietly compare notes on their preferences. On this particular day, opinions were divided, for the older men declared themselves in favor of roguish Max, the mothers beamed on steady Alex, the young girls pronounced Louis “so elegant,” while Leon scarcely relished the verdict of one country dame who remarked to her daughter, with the full power of her lungs,—
“For my part, I prefer the little lame one, he is so peart.”
Mr. Arnold met the boys at the station, and they drove directly to the house, to be welcomed there by Mrs. Arnold and Dorothy, her pretty daughter of eighteen. The next ten days were given up to holiday merry-making, and the four young people were continually together. Dorothy, who was enjoying her first winter of social life, would gladly have drawn Alex into her gay circle, for she was by no means unconscious of the advantage of introducing a handsome, well-bred escort; but here Alex stood firm. Nothing would tempt him to forget that Leon was his host, and to leave him alone, for the sake of pleasures in which he could have no share. So the days passed in drives and a little sight-seeing for the sake of Alex, who had never before visited the city, and the evenings were given up to games and impromptu theatricals with the young people who dropped in, nearly every night. It was a pleasant home party, for while Mrs. Arnold petted and coddled Leon as only a mother can do, and Mr. Arnold and his older son had the long, quiet talks which so plainly showed the close intimacy between father and child; in the meantime, Alex and Dorothy had established a frank, cordial friendship, and indulged in a mild flirtation varied, now and then, by a merry war of words.
On the last evening of the vacation and as the final frolic of the holidays, the Arnolds and Alex went to the theatre together. The people around them smiled sympathetically at their bright faces, as Dorothy came in, followed by the three cadets, all in full uniform, and the tall young cadet turned from the daintily-dressed girl, to help the short, slight lad at his other side.
“I say, Dorry,” remarked Leon, bending across in front of Alex, to speak to his sister; “I hope you aren’t easily puffed up. ’Tisn’t every girl here that has a new frock and three elegant young men to take care of her, and one of them a crippled veteran of the last campaign, at that.”
Dorothy gave him a look of amused scorn.