"Nonsense!" said Lottie; "with auntie in the hall? If you think
Mr. Hemstead is brave enough for that, you greatly misjudge him."
But De Forrest was wofully suspicious, and had many uneasy thoughts about the "jest" which Lottie must be carrying out; for surely it could not be possible that she was becoming in earnest.
Hemstead and Lottie made wretched work in guessing the word required of them from the nature of the game; for Mr. Dimmerly's prolonged chuckling laugh, which could be heard from the parlor, did not tend to allay their confusion.
When Mrs. Marchmont entered that apartment she found her brother apparently in a convulsion; but he was only vainly endeavoring to prevent his merriment from developing into an outrageous chuckle, for he too had seen Lottie under the mistletoe.
"This thing must be stopped," said Mrs. Marchmont, most emphatically; at which her brother chuckled louder than ever, and said, "Stopped, indeed! As if it could be, or ever had been 'stopped,' since Adam and Eve first cast sheep's eyes at each other in the Garden of Eden."
His sister left the room with a gesture of annoyance.
Suddenly the little man's queer, cackling laugh ceased, and his wrinkled face grew sad and thoughtful as he sighed: "I'm the only Dimmerly who was ever 'stopped,'—fool that I was. His mother, sister Celia, would marry a poor man; and her life, in spite of all her toil and privation, has been happier than mine"; and he shook his head pathetically over "what might have been."
The marble clock on the mantel chimed out the hour of twelve, and the young people came flocking in from the dining-room, their noisy mirth hushed as they remembered that the sacred hours of the Christmas Sabbath had begun.
"I have induced Miss Martell to give us a Christmas hymn before parting," said Harcourt; and he led Alice to the piano, as if there had been some preconcerted arrangement.
Lottie went to her uncle's side, and took his arm in a sort of wheedling, affectionate way. She was beginning instinctively to recognize that she had an ally and sympathizer in him. As he looked down upon her fair face in its dewy freshness and bloom, he vowed that, as far as it was in his power, she should have her own way. Time and the inevitable ills of our lot might dim that face, but it should not become withered by a lifetime of vain regret.