"And he knows. 'I have written Mr. Palmer,' he says, 'and am informed that there will be no difficulty in the operation, but it will require considerable practice on your part to be able to walk firmly as he does.' I know that he has two cork feet or legs, as one day while behind him on Chestnut street a friend pointed him out with the expression, 'who would imagine that his walkers were artificial?' But those poor little feet! O Willie, there is no joy without its gloomy side!"
But Willie did walk; never without his cane, but his creeping days came to an end, and a thankful heart blessed God for its unexpected bliss. Social life now has no horrors for his sensitive nature, and he mingled freely with the refined and intelligent who frequented the parlors of the honored colonel and his lovely family.
Reader, are you curious to see him? If so look for him in one of the largest clothing stores in the city of Philadelphia. Not as clerk or seamster as in former days, but as half owner and proprietor. Be good, pure and noble if you would succeed in reaching the eminence ambition points out to you. "Carve out your niche and place yourself in it," was the advice of a true philosopher to his son, and will answer for the young of all ages. Look up, and if too weak to climb, the hand above you will lend its willing aid.
The war came to a close at last, and Mr. St. Clair with his wife and daughter returned to their southern home. Mrs. Mason received them joyfully, but declared that she could "never, never forgive George for his silly freak of connecting himself with such plebeianism! My daughter's governess! He may better remain where such follies are tolerated!" But the parents only laughed, and the sister remained silent.
Rosedale would be rebuilt, not in as magnificent style as before, for its owner's long stay in the north had taught him many lessons.
"It may be I shall not care to occupy it," the son had remarked at the parting; "but my sweet sister will make a noble mistress for it."
And so it proved. George St. Clair became a northern man in deed as well as in feelings. He proved a successful tradesman and government officer in New York city in company with Elmore Pierson, who had been spared to his mother.
A happy family gathered in the home circle, blessed with fresh young blossoms of human life who were to adorn the world and bring comfort into the declining years of those whose feet were going downward. It is but a short journey between the two great rival cities, and the friends bound together by so many vicissitudes kept up a pleasant intimacy, often reviving past memories by tales of pleasant scenes or strange coincidences that would otherwise fade from sight in the moving panorama of human existence.
"We will have that Christmas dinner we were to have had three years ago," exclaimed Colonel Hamilton a week before the world-famed day. "A regular house warming! Let me see! Can we not get Willie's sister here with her family, and not let the dear boy know anything about it until then? Gaylord and his wife have gone back to their home, and I suppose he would not come with any amount of coaxing! He has grown so sour and ugly during the last six years that I pity that feeble little wife of his! O my letter! I have not even told you what has set me in such a commotion! Just like one of my freaks of forgetfulness!"
"I was wondering," laughed Mrs. Hamilton, for he was skipping around the room with the joyousness of a little boy, while searching in his pockets for the letter that was to make the revelations.