She spoke carelessly, and we took the incident as little to heart. Passing through the hall, awhile later, I espied my maid Ellen, who had lived with me for five years, whispering with a mulatto woman in a corner. They fell apart at seeing me, and Ellen followed me to the sitting-room.
“Rhoda was saying that the colored people think what happened last night was a warnin’,” she observed, with affected lightness. “They are awful superstitious, ma’am, ain’t they?”
“Very superstitious and very ignorant!” I returned, severely.
The trifling episode was gone, like a vapor passing from a mirror, before my brother Herbert appeared. He had arisen at daybreak, driven to Petersburg, and taken there the train to Richmond, arriving by nine o’clock.
At the same hour our father reached his office. I have heard the story of his walk down-town so minutely described that I can trace each step. It was more than a mile from his house to the office. There were no street-cars or omnibuses in the city, at that time. Sometimes he drove to his place of business; sometimes he rode on horseback. Generally, he chose to walk. He was a fine horseman and a fearless driver, from his youth up. At sixty-eight he carried himself as erect as at thirty, and made less of tramping miles in all weathers than men of half his age thought of pacing a dozen squares on a sunny day. As he had reminded his wife, in excusing his hurried breakfast, there were errands, many and important, to be looked after. He stopped at Pizzini’s, the noted confectioner of the town, to interview that dignitary in person, anent a cake of noble proportions and brave with ornate icing—Christmas fruit-cake—of Pizzini’s own composition, for which the order was given a week ago. To the man of sweets he said that nothing must hinder the delivery of the cake beyond that evening.
“We are planning a royal, old-fashioned family Christmas,” he subjoined, “and there must be no disappointments.”
The evergreens were ordered as stringently. Two cart-loads, as he had said, and two more Christmas-trees, in case one was not satisfactory. “There must be no disappointments.”
Not far from Pizzini’s he met Doctor Haxall, also “Christmasing.” The two silver-haired men shook hands, standing in the damp snow on the corner, and exchanged the compliments of the season.
“What has come to you?” queried the doctor, eying his friend curiously. “You are renewing your youth. You have the color, the step, and the eyes of a boy!”