“Why, what a grateful little imp you are, to be sure! It is worth while trying to please you; one succeeds so well and one’s efforts are appreciated and thanked,” said the young man, raising the child in his arms and kissing her, and then darting a half-merry, half-reproachful glance at his cousin Anna.
“If you meant that for me, Mr. Alick, I don’t see the point of it. You never do anything to please me, unless it still better pleases yourself. You are one of the sort of folk who would carelessly fling a dollar to a strange beggar, but would not lose an hour’s rest by the bedside of a sick friend,” said plain-spoken Anna.
“Well, there’s somebody that will do both,” said Mr. Alexander, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Dick. “He sat up with old Jerry Brown, who had the smallpox. I wonder if you would have liked him so well, Anna, if he had taken it; as he might have done; and lost his hair and eyebrows and been otherwise badly marked?”
“Yes I would, Alick! But, thank goodness, Dick, darling, you didn’t get it, and you are not marked; but just as good-looking as ever,” said Anna, defiantly.
“Come, come, this is pretty quarrelling among cousins on Christmas morning, too! Put a stop to it,” said Mrs. Lyon.
The young people laughed and obeyed. They were only “sparring.” And they all sat down to the breakfast table in high, good humor.
And little Drusilla went back to her mother, as happy as it was possible for a child to be. And her happiness was all associated with the idea of Mr. Alexander, that splendid being who had been the central object of all her wonder, curiosity and admiration, long before she had set eyes on him. She had never dreamed of such bliss as she now enjoyed, and all through him!
Up to this time her little life had been dreary enough, more dreary than even she knew since she had known nothing better with which to compare it. Her very earliest recollections were of her father’s sick room, and his long and painful illness; and then came his death, and her mother’s sorrow and their poverty; and finally, this situation in the family of the Chief Justice, where the child had been led to believe that her presence could be only tolerated for the sake of her mother’s valuable services, and upon condition of herself being kept out of the sight and hearing of the family.
All these were very miserable and gloomy antecedents; but now they had passed away like the shadows of the night; for now came this bright, young Mr. Alexander, to bring daylight and sunshine into her infant life.
His kindness to the pale orphan did not cease with Christmas Day. So long as the Christmas and New-Year’s holidays lasted, Mr. Alick insisted on little Drusilla sharing all the young people’s amusements; because, in point of fact, it greatly enhanced his enjoyment to have her with them.