Abel Newt was buried from his father’s house. There were not many gathered at the service in the small, plain rooms. Fanny Dinks was there, sobered and saddened—the friend now of Hope Wayne, and of Amy, her Uncle Lawrence’s wife. Alfred was there, solemnized and frightened. The office of Lawrence Newt & Co. was closed, and the partners and the clerks all stood together around the coffin. Abel’s mother, shrouded in black, sat in a dim corner of the room, nervously sobbing. Abel’s father, sitting in his chair, his white hair hanging upon his shoulders, looked curiously at all the people, while his bony fingers played upon his knees, and he said nothing.
During all the solemn course of the service, from the gracious words, “I am the resurrection and the life,” to the final Amen which was breathed out of the depth of many a soul there, the old man’s eyes did not turn from the clergyman. But when, after a few moments of perfect silence, two or three men entered quietly and rapidly, and, lifting the coffin, began to bear it softly out of the room, he looked troubled and surprised, and glanced vaguely and inquiringly from one person to another, until, as it was passing out of the door, his face was covered with a piteous look of appeal: he half-rose from his chair, and reached out toward the door, with the long white fingers clutching in the air; but Hope Wayne took the wasted hands in hers, placed her arm behind him gently, and tenderly pressed him back into the chair. The old man raised his eyes to her as she stood by him, and holding one of her hands in one of his, the spectral calmness returned into his face; while, beating his thin knee with the other hand, he said, in the old way, as the body of his son was borne out of his house, “Riches have wings! Riches have wings!” But still he held Hope Wayne’s hand, and from time to time raised his eyes to her face.
CHAPTER XC.
UNDER THE MISLETOE.
The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never placed in that of any, younger man, except for a moment; but the heart that warmed the hand henceforward held all the world.
We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader, and the girl we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking in the garden of Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and we shall close the book, and still she will be Hope Wayne.
How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler but tell his story as it is? It is not at his will that heroes marry, and heroines are given in marriage. He merely watches events and records results; but the inevitable laws of human life are hidden in God’s grace beyond his knowledge.
There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and every year with greater beauty and wider recognition. He wears the same velvet coat of many buttons—or its successor in the third or fourth remove—and still he whistles and sings at his work, still draws back from the easel and turns his head on one side to look at his picture, and cons it carefully through the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and, lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging one leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his foot, at something which does not seem to be in the room. Cheerful and gay, he has always a word of welcome for the loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the painters; even if the loiterer find him with the foot idly swinging and the cigar musingly smoking itself away.