“Are you sure of that?” said the child, earnestly. “People often hide their kindest thoughts—and perhaps she hides hers from you; you must look for them, as I look for violets, in their thick leaves. Oh, I was so unhappy once!” she continued, tears starting into her eyes at the remembrance: “I quarrelled with my brother, and we did not speak all day—both were so proud: but do you know” (and the sweet little face sparkled) “that when I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, and said, ‘Good night, Harry!’ he kissed me, and cried too; and said how unhappy he had been all the time. I had thought he would never, never love me again! Oh! if my brother had died, as baby did, before we kissed each other that night!”
Poor little Mary paused, her heart quite full at the bare idea of such a thing; but she turned again, with admiring eyes, to the miniature. “She looks very kind and good, and so beautiful! Did you speak gently, and ask her to love you again: or were you proud?”
The child did not notice the agitation of her companion, and little did she imagine that, long after her head lay softly on her happy pillow, the simple eloquence of those Magic Words was working powerfully in his heart!
CHAPTER II.
Over many a mile of hard, frosty road, by snow-clad fields and hills and woods, by many an ice-bound stream, must we lead the imagination of our reader on the evening of the same Christmas Day, and peep into another home, far from that we have just quitted.
Undrawing the warm crimson curtains of a charming little room—half drawing-room, half library—the light of a lamp falls brightly on the figure of a lady reading to her husband. It is manuscript, and he puts the pages by for her as she goes on.
She often pauses, to look up with a delighted smile at his praises, and he thinks that she never looked so beautiful before! She is very like Correggio’s Magdalen, and has the same lovely countenance and waving hair.
Presently she came to the last page, and the praise was repeated.
“I had no idea I could translate so well,” said she, “and am glad you like it, for that will give me spirits to go on: I may, in time, become quite useful to you.”
“When are you not everything to me?” was the reply. “But, Marion, you must not work so hard; I cannot afford to see you look one bit less bright. Besides, it is a kind of reproach to me your working so much; indeed you must not!”