Mrs. James Melville’s party is sadly shorn of its lustre this year, when we compare it with its last predecessor, only a short twelvemonth since; and already, in spite of all the attractions of gossip, music, and flirtation, her guests are beginning to yawn and look weary. Mrs. James was never so annoyed in her life, all seems this night to have gone wrong. Her very husband had deserted her—she had seen him fly down stairs three steps at a time, and skim away through the cold street towards his father’s house. Mrs. James was enraged to be left alone at such a time for any Halbert of them all.
“A nice fuss was made about him, as much nonsense when he went away as if there wasn’t another in the whole country, and now when he thought fit and had come home——”
Mrs. James could not finish the sentence, for spite and vexation overmastered her. Forsyth was not there, her chief attraction; Mary was not there, and even Christian’s absence, little as she liked her, was another source of annoyance; and this flying off of James was the finishing stroke. We hardly think, however, that even Mrs. James would not have melted had she seen her husband in the middle of yon cheerful group, with his beaming joyous face, shaking Halbert’s hands over and over again, to the imminent danger of bone and joint. We really think she could not but have helped him.
There was a voice of thanksgiving in Mr. Melville’s house that night, of thanksgiving which told in its earnest acknowledgment of many mercies; thanksgiving whose voice was broken by the sobbings of one and accompanied by the happy tears of all, for Halbert led their devotions, and when his earnest tones rose up among them there was not a dry cheek in the kneeling family, not James, though it might be thought his heart was alienated from the overflowing affection of home, by the remembrance of his own; not Charles Hamilton, permitted, nay requested, to stay, for who so well as Halbert could give thanks for that double deliverance.
There are dreams to-night hovering with drowsy wing about the dwelling, dreams which alight on Charles Hamilton’s young head as he hastens home, his heart full of the last scene of the evening, and his voice repeating—
“In dwellings of the righteous
Is heard the melody
Of joy and health: the Lord’s right hand
Doth ever valiantly;”—
dreams which enter Halbert Melville’s long shut chamber, welcoming its old dreamer back again—dreams which float about Christian’s resting-place—above the fair head laid on Christian’s shoulder, calm as in the happy days of childhood; sweet, hopeful, cheering dreams, that open up long vistas of indistinct and dazzling brightness, all the brighter for their glad uncertainty before their eyes, and fill the hearts which tremble in their joy with a sweet assurance that calms their fears into peace. Even Ailie dreamed, and her visions were of a gay complexion, fitting the nature of her doings through this eventful day, and had various anticipations of bridal finery floating through them. Nay, the very wind which whistled past Mr. Melville’s roof-tree had a language of its own, and admirable gleesome chuckle, which said plain as words could speak that happy as this night had been beneath it, there would be merrier, happier doings here next new year’s day.
