On this particular day,—this Thanksgiving Day of which we are speaking,—Miss Hetty had completed her culinary preparations; that is, she had stuffed her turkey and put it in the oven, and kneaded her pudding; for, though she knew that but one would be present at the dinner, her conscience would scarcely have acquitted her if she had not made all the preparations to which she had been accustomed on such occasions.
This done, she sat down to her knitting; casting a glance every now and then at the oven, to make sure that all was going on well. It was a quiet morning; and Miss Hetty’s thoughts kept time to the clicking of her knitting-needles.
“After all,” thought she, “it’s rather solitary taking dinner alone, and that on Thanksgiving Day. I remember, a long time ago, when my father and my brothers and sisters were living, what a merry time we used to have round the table. But they are all dead; and I—I alone—am left.”
Miss Hetty sighed; but, after a while, the recollections of those old times returned. She tried to shake them off; but they had a fascination about them, after all, and would not go at her bidding.
“There used to be another there,” thought she,—“Nick Anderson. He too, I fear, is dead.”
Hetty heaved a thoughtful sigh, and a faint color came into her cheeks. She had reason. This Nicholas Anderson had been a medical student, apprenticed to her father; or rather placed with him, to be prepared for his profession. He was perhaps a year older than Hetty, and had regarded her with more than ordinary warmth of affection. He had, in fact, proposed to her, and had been conditionally accepted on a year’s probation. The trouble was, he was a little disposed to be wild, and, being naturally of a lively and careless temperament, did not exercise sufficient discrimination in the choice of his associates. Hetty had loved him as warmly as one of her nature could love. She was not one who would be drawn away beyond the dictates of reason and judgment by the force of affection. Still, it was not without a feeling of deep sorrow,—deeper than her calm manner led him to suspect,—that, at the end of the year’s probation, she informed Anderson that the result of his trial was not favorable to his suit, and that henceforth he must give up all thoughts of her.
To his vehement asseverations, promises, and protestations, she returned the same steady and inflexible answer; and, at the close of the interview, he left her, quite as full of indignation against her as of grief for his rejection.
That night, his clothing was packed up, and lowered from the window; and, when the next morning dawned, it was found that he had left the house, never, as was intimated in a slight note pencilled and left on the table in his room, to return again.