Halbert the third looked down and blushed, and then laughed outright.
“He only said we should be glad when the new year comes, because we have plenty of fun,” interposed Mary Melville, her wild cousin’s constant defender and apologist.
“Quite right, my boy,” said the elder Halbert, laying his hand kindly on the boy’s head, “the coming of plenty of fun is a very good and proper thing to be glad for; but sit you down now, and let us hear what little Christian has to say.” And Halbert sat down at his uncle’s feet to listen.
“Well now, Christian, what should we be glad for? Is it because there is plenty of fun, as Halbert says?”
“No, papa,” said the little, grave girl, seriously, shaking her head solemnly, “no, it is not that. I think it’s because we have another to be good and do right in. Isn’t that it, Aunt Christian?”
And the little girl looked over to her aunt inquiringly, to see if her childish conclusion was a correct one.
“Just so, my dear,” was Aunt Christian’s answer, as Halbert patted the child’s soft cheek, and then permitted her to make her way over to her accustomed seat.
The children were gathered now about their parents’ knees, and even wild Halbert Hamilton was silent and attentive. “Yes, children,” said the kind father and uncle, as he looked round upon them, “yes, children, there is a better reason for being glad than even having plenty of fun. There is a new year to be good in, as little Christian says, a new year to live and learn in. It is true that, perhaps, you may not see its end; but, nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new year with many opportunities, both of doing and receiving good, and therefore we should be glad, and we should ask God to make us His faithful servants, loving Him and keeping His commandments all through this year, and if God does that you may be sure this will be a very happy new year to us all. Well, Halbert,” he continued, turning to his son, who was back again by Aunt Christian’s side, “has little Christian satisfied you?”
Halbert’s face and conscience were both quite cleared; it was right to be glad on a new year’s day, and he got a promise that that night he should hear some of the many things which had happened on former new years’ days, and had made that day a special anniversary in the family; and besides, the relation of these things was to be committed to Aunt Christian, therefore Halbert was quite satisfied. And then the seniors closed round the fireside, and all the children—with the exception of Halbert Melville and Mary Hamilton, the eldest of the two families, who hang by Aunt Christian still—sought more active amusement in the farther corners of the room, and recollections of those bygone years became the long lingered on subject with Halbert, Charles, Christian, and the two Marys; and they looked back with half-wondering gaze upon the past, as men look through the wondrous glass of science on the clear outline of some far distant shore, of which the human dwellers, the fears and hopes, the loves and sorrows, which people the farther sides of the blue slopes that yet linger in their view, have all faded from their retiring vision.
But then comes a distant shout from the lobby into which some of the children have strayed in their play, of “Uncle James! Uncle James!” and here he is. Older, of course, yet looking much as he looked in the old times; though we must whisper that the bridegroom whom we saw some fourteen or fifteen years ago at the commencement of this story, has now, at its conclusion, become a portly gentleman; in good sooth, most unsentimentally stout, and with a look of comfort and competence about him, which speaks in tones most audibly, of worldly success and prosperity. A good man, too, and a pleasant, he is, with the milk of human kindness abounding in his heart; as such Mr. James Melville is universally considered and honoured, though with scarcely so large a heart as his brother the minister, nor so well mated. It is true, Mrs. James, since she found out who her friend of ten years ago was; and Mary’s reasons for rejecting what seemed so good a match, and the failure, the utter failure of her party on that new year’s night in consequence; has grown wonderfully careful, and begins to discover that there are pleasanter things in life, than the collecting together a dozen or two of people to be entertained or wearied according to their respective inclinations, and her fireside has grown a much more cheerful one always, though for a few nights in the year less brilliant than heretofore; and her husband’s quotations of “Christian” have grown less disagreeable to her ears, though still she sometimes resents the superiority which everybody accords to her. James is always welcomed in his brother Halbert’s house, and never more warmly than on New Year’s night; for Elizabeth does not accompany him on these annual occasions; and even that loving circle feel relieved by her absence at such a time, for the conversation generally runs upon certain remembrances which she would not like to hear; and which none of them would like to mention in her presence. So James sits down and joins them for awhile in their recalling of the past; and little Halbert Melville gazes at his father in open-mouthed astonishment, as he hears him speak of being the cause of unhappiness and sorrow to Aunt Christian and Aunt Mary, and to Uncles James and Robert, and his grave old grandfather who died two years ago. His father—and Halbert would have defied anybody but that father’s self. Yes! even Aunt Christian, if she had said such words as these—his father cause unhappiness and sorrow to anybody!—his father, whom old Ailie, still a hale and vigorous old woman, and chief of Christian’s household, and prima donna in Mary Melville’s nursery, had told him was always as kind and good to everybody all through his life as he was now! Halbert could not believe it possible. And little Mary Hamilton’s eyes waxed larger and larger, in amazement, as Aunt Christian spoke of her mother—her mother whom she had never seen without a smile on her face, being at that infinitely remote period before any of them were born, most unhappy herself; yes, very unhappy! Mary would have denied it aloud, but that she had too much faith in Aunt Christian’s infallibility, to doubt for an instant even her word. This night was a night of wonders to these two listening children.