AUNT KITTY'S GREETING.
Nearly a year has passed, my dear young friends, since first Aunt Kitty met you with a "Merry Christmas or Happy New-Year." The snow, which then spread a veil over all things, has long since melted away. The spring flowers which succeeded it have withered. The summer and autumn fruits have been gathered. Again winter has stripped even the leaves from the trees, and we awake each morning expecting to find that again he has clothed them in robes of spotless white. And now that the season for holidays and merriment has returned,—now that your friends greet you not only with smiling faces and pleasant words, but with presents, as marks of their affection and approbation, Aunt Kitty, too, comes with her token of remembrance.
Before she presents it, will you permit her to ask how you have received those which she has already sent you. Have you learned from "Blind Alice" and her young friend Harriet, that to do right is the only way to be happy, and from "Jessie Graham," that it is true wisdom to speak the simple truth always, and from "Florence Arnott," that selfishness is a great evil, and will, if you indulge it, bring great sufferings on yourselves and others? If you have learned these lessons and practise them, then am I sure that your Christmas will be merry and your New-Year happy,—that the good-humored tones and ringing laughter of your young companions will never be changed into wrangling and fretful cries, or the smiles of your older friends into grave and disapproving looks. That I think of you, this little book will prove, and though I may not see you, I shall probably hear of your improvement and enjoyment, and my holidays will be the pleasanter for them.
These holidays I shall pass in the country at the house of my friend Mrs. Wilmot, to whom I have already made a very long visit. There are residing here six young girls, the eldest little over twelve, and the youngest under ten years of age. Already they have learned to regard a walk with Aunt Kitty, as a reward for a well-recited lesson, and to cluster around her by the evening fire, with wishful eyes and earnest voices asking for one story more. At any hint of my going home, their remonstrances and entreaties are so vehement, that, I think, when it becomes absolutely necessary to leave them, I shall have to steal away.
I am about to introduce these little girls to you by name, to tell you how their time is generally employed, how their holidays are passed, and thus to make you quite well acquainted with them.
CHAPTER II.
HAZEL GROVE.
Mrs. Wilmot was left a widow when her two daughters, Grace and Lucy, were very young—so young that Lucy, who is now ten years old, does not remember her father at all, and Grace, who is twelve, has only a very faint recollection of a gentleman, who, when he was lying on a couch in the parlor, used to have her brought to him, and kiss her, and give her some of the candies which he always seemed to have near him. Mrs. Wilmot found herself not very rich on the death of her husband, and as she was a very highly educated and accomplished woman, she was advised to keep a school for young ladies. She did not remove into a city to do this, for her own pleasant house is near enough to a large town to admit of her having day scholars from it; and she took no boarders, but four girls, the children of friends who had known her long, and who were glad to have their daughters under her care, on any terms. These four girls are about the age of her own children, and have been educated with them as sisters. Indeed, as they call her "Mamma Wilmot," but for their being so much of the same age, a stranger might suppose them all her own children. Their names are Clara Devaux, Martha Williams, and Kate and Emma Ormesby. These two last-named girls are twin sisters, and so much alike that it was formerly frequent sport with them to perplex their young companions by answering to each other's names. This they can no longer do, as Kate has grown tall and thin, while Emma is still a fat, chubby little girl. Mrs. Wilmot, about two years ago, had some property left her, which would have supported herself and her daughters very comfortably without the profits of her school, but she had become so much interested in her young boarders, that she was not willing to part with them. She gave up, however, all her day scholars, and then wrote to me requesting that I would visit her, as she would now, she said, have only her six little girls to teach, and would therefore have leisure enough to admit of her enjoying a friend's society. As soon as possible after I received this letter, I went to Hazel Grove, the name of Mrs. Wilmot's place, taking Harriet with me.
We arrived at noon of a bright day in October. We had already begun to enjoy the glow of a fire in the chill mornings and evenings, but, at that hour, the sun was so warm that it might almost have cheated us, as well as the little birds and insects, into believing that summer was not quite gone.