Lititz Record

              OUR HOLIDAY SUPPLEMENT.
„A M e r r y C h r i s t m a s and a H a p p y ISTew Y e a r — G o d B l e s s u s , e v e r y one. — T i n y T i m.
SINO OUT, WILD BELLS.
Bing out, wild bells, to the mid sky,
The flying clouds, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Bing out, wild bells, and let h im die.
Bing ont the old, ring in the new,
Bing, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Bing out the false, ring in the true.
Bing out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Bing out the feud of rich and poor,
Bing in redress to all mankind.
Bing out a slowly dying cause
And ancient forms of party strife,
Bing in the nobler modes of life
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Bing out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Bing out, ring out, my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Bing out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite ;
Bing in the lore of t r u t h and right,
Bing in the common love of good.
Bing out old shapes of foul disease,
Bing out the narrowing lust of gold;
Bing out the thousand wars of old,
Bing in the thousand years of peace.
Bing in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Bing out the darkness of the land,
Bing in the Christ that is to be.
TENNYSON.
AN MEASY CHRISTMAS.
BY FANNY FOSTER CLARK.
My name is Gerard Yan Boosen. I am tall,
slender, not ill-looking, decently educated, and
as yet out of jail; but in the eye of the law l am
a thief. I've not been arrested, tried and sen-tenced.
simply beoause the only person who can
prosecute me is— Well, never mind, I 'm com-ing
to that.
Christmas, a season of joy to all honest peo-ple,
has.been to me for years only the dreaded
anniversary that reminds me of a shameful and
long-concealed crime.
I came to New York at the age of twenty, and
was placed by Mr. Black, my guardian, in a
commercial house on a salary of eight hundred
dollars a year. Left without parents, and hav-ing
no relations who cared to claim me except
am old great-aunt, Mr. Black had kept me at an
inexpensive college (so called) in a rural place
to make ready for a profession. Suddenly he
seemed to change his mind about the profes-sional
career, and ordered me into business, al-though
there was still three thousand dollars of
my small patrimony in his hands. This amount
would be due, of course, on my majority early
in the next January.
I lived very modestly, but being a talkative
sort of boy, able to tell a story, and generally of
rather mannish pretensions, some older and
richer fellows quite took me up. They showed
me the city, and, what was more memorable,
took me to Long Branch, where, having bor-rowed
some money of Joe Cliff, one of our set,
I made up my mind to spend a whole week.
The temptation to this extravagance was a
bright, black-eyed, high-spirited girl of eight-een—
Bessie Clapp. I felt that Bessie was u p to
my standard, yet felt too that Bessie was lucky
in satisfying such a fastidious taste as mine.
Though marriage was something of a sacrifice
for a fellow, I meant in a year or so (having, of
c o u r s e , meanwhile put that small fortune-into
Wall street and realized , enormously) to take
Bessie for my wife. It was Sunday, I remem-ber,
and before breakfast. I was to leave the
next day, but there was the shady afternoon
before me, and the beach, and an umbrella, and
Bessie, too—all favorable to a formal declara-tion
of my love. As we walked the piazza I
said, "Take my arm." She blushed but
obeyed. She was a dear, f r a n k girl, was Bes-sie.
Then I said, with much emotion, though
in bad taste rhetorically, "Bessie, I think you're
just splendid,"
"Nonsense!" she answered, but clung to me
the closer. And then Bessie's mother called
her to breakfast, and I went to eat my eggs in
bachelor solitude in the big dining-rooin. The
meal was nearly over when, chancing to look
up, I saw, floating down the length of polished
floor, a vision. She (the visions of young men
are always "she") was dressed in pale helio-trope,
she had a mass of golden hair; she was
Hot very tall, but slender and stately. The head,
waiter, an ebony statue of dignity, forgot his
high position, and came down the room after
her with the alacrity of a menial. There was
an unused space at my table. Would h e pounce
upon. i t ? He did. He first seated a stout old
lady, with a flabby face, and very short of
breath, who had come ambling in alongside the
-vision, and then, opposite to me, there looked
up out of a pair of eyes, blue, like Alpine gen-tians—
there looked at me, I say, my fate.
"Mamma." she said to the stout old person,
"what shall'we order?"
Her voice was delicious, and by the time; she
had put the last lump of sugar in her coffee I
was madly in love.
Before long a man—an old man I considered
him (about forty, and getting bald)—came and
spoke to her. I knew the fellow by sight—one
Beynolds, a heavy importer, and very rich. I
was jealous, and left the table in disgust; but
slipping two dollars into the head waiter's
hand, I asked, quite casually:
"Who is t h e lady t h a t just came in ?"
"That, sah? Oh, that's Miss Darcy—Miss
Constance Darcy sKcHier ma. She come here
a'most ebery season—yeth, sah."
Constance Darcy! The name was chivalry.
Constance Darcy! I ran to look up some of
iny set of fellows on the chance that they might
fenow her.
"Joe," said I, finding Joe and Ted and Smith
and all t h e boyS together, "do you know Miss
Darcy?" .
"Miss Darcy? Constance Darcy?" was the
grand chorus. "Of course. Where is she?
Come along and be introduced."
We waited a good while on the piazza, but at
last somebody pronounced, "Miss Darcy—Mr.
Tan Boosen."
She smiled on me divinely, and Joe punched
me in the back and whispered, "Lucky dog!
I stood by for an hour, and then came my
chance; and I talked with her, actually talked
with heri 'When she rose to leave me, I cried
out in a pitiful way that I'm afraid was
boyish:
"Oh, don't go 1" , .,
"Never mind. Til see you again," she said.
"I'm to "be here several weeks. Are you?"
"Yes, oh yes," I answered, eagerly, and at
once borrowed more money from Joe, and en-gaged
my room for a fortnight.
I would sum up my experience during that
fortnight, in the one word, BlisB, with a very
large capital. There was Constance in morning
sunshine and muslin, Constance in afternoon
breezes and short coquettish costumes, Con-stance
in moonlight and queenly draperies,
Constance in air, earth and water. No, not in
jhe water, except metaphorically, for she didn't
like the: sea-bathing. It was Bessie who romped
in the breakers and blistered her nice nose.
Oh, speaking of Bessie, when we chanced to
meet, I treated her in a pleasant old-friend
fashion. She gave me some reproachful
glances, some scornful ones, and when she
went away I forgot t h e t r a in time, and was Bit-ting
on the beach with Constance, under her
rose-lined parasol.
Of course there were other men about Con-stance;
or, to be more correct, every man
was about her. She used to say, with a little
grimace:
"Oh, I know everybody, for I've been coming
tp Long Branch every year for ages and ages."
"If you've been here many years, you must
have come as a very small child," said I.
" 'A woman is just as old as she looks,' the
wise French, people have it," Constance an-
'Thenyou are about twenty-one?" I yen-tured,
interrogatively.
"Oh, you bad boy !" cried Constance, laugh-ing;
" I never allow anybody to put me at more
than twenty."
My hardest trial was to see my adored Con-stance
driving out with Beynolds, or some other
opulent rascal, in his own trap. To be sure, I
had sent to Joe for more money, and showered
her with rose-buds and bonbons, but for driv-ing
I had to use a team of hired horses.
Once I told her, with the most delicate cir-cumlocution,
that I was quite poor, but she
treated me with just the same confiding sweet-ness,
and immediately after accepted a basket
of flowers with the goodness and grace of an
angel.
At last, of course, there came an end to Joe's
money, and I had to go. But at parting Mrs.
Darcy said, "Come and see us in the city," and
Constance had given me a long, sorrowful,
tender look.
When, in a savage humor, I reached my
boarding-house, there was awaiting me a small
parcel and a letter. It was one of those absurd
letters I was quite used to receiving from my
great-aunt Annette Van Boosen, who lived down
on Long Island in an ancient tumble-down
homestead. As a boy, I had seen her, and re-membered
her as a hard-featured, snuffy, high-tempered
old woman, given to long yarns about
deceased Yan Boosens of remote periods, of
whom one J a n Yan Boosen was the chief orna-ment
and glory. From time to time Aunt An-nette
would send me musty papers, old Dutch
books, decaying scraps of lace, once an old
shoe, and other queer relics, all, as she declared,
of immense value, and to be kept until she
called for them. "I am afraid," she would
write, "of being robbed in this lonely place;
but some time I shall come up to the city and
arrange for the proper bestowal of these valu-ables."
This last letter ran :
" I send you six military buttons and a ring
for safe-keeping. See that they are locked
away in vaults at once. They are relics of J an
Yan Boosen. I shall come to the city soon and
see them properly put away."
I threw the buttons in a drawer, and thrust
the clumsy old silver ring, set with what seemed
a small diamond, into my pocket, to rattle
about with my keys and penknife, and said to
myself, "Bah ! the old woman is crazy."
The rooms on F i f th avenue occupied by Mrs.
Darcy and her daughter were spacious and lux-urious,
and the parlor was besieged every even-ing
by adorers and admirers. Of course I was
ft the very forefront of the forlorn-hope.
Sometimes I was allowed to drop in out of call-ing
hours, and by an especial grace to sit on
thé same sofa with Constance while she lazily
embroidered, and the mother came in and out
of the room. It was on such a happy occasion,
one day in late December, when I spoke of an
exquisite bracelet that Constance wore.
" I t was a Christmas gift last year," she said,
handing it to me to examine.
"Fromyour mother?" I asked.
"Oh, no ! From Mr. Smith."
Smith was one of our set of fellows.
"Why," I stammered, "I didn't know you
cared for Smith."
"Care for Smith ! Why should I ? Mr. Smith
sent me a present at Christmas, t h a t ' s 411. So
good of him ! Do you see the beautiful silver
casket on t h e table ? Mr. White sent me that."
"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Darcy, coming in at
the moment, "all mv daughter's friends are so
kind to her at Christmas ! Mr. Herrman sent
her a great pile of gloves in such a pretty box,
and Mr. Frost a necklace, and Mr. Carter a
dressing-ease; and there were a dozen fans, of
course, and jewel-boxes and satchels and vases,
and a perfect shower of fruit and flowers.
Then the butterfly ! Constance, did you never
show Mr. Yan Boosen the jeweled butterfly
f r om Mi'. Beynolds ? It was very elegant, Mr.
Yan Boosen, very elegant—diamonds and
rubies."
By this time Mrs. Darcy was puffing out of
the room again.
I had been feeling uneasy, for Beynolds was
at the house a great deal, and I fancied he
treated Mrs. Darcy with a resigned patience,'as
if he intended to get used to her. He was old,
to be sure—forty seemed to me well on toward
the grave—and he was plain, and he was bald,
i n fact, I had grown morbidly jealous and anx-ious.
Love had mastered discretion, and I felt
I must speak; so, with all my worshiping soul
in my eyes, I began, passionately: "Dear Miss
Darcy—darling Constance !"
"Oh, hush !" said she, laying her finger on
her lip. "Mamma's coming." Then she gave
me such a shy, sweet glance, as if she under-stood
everything, and the mamma came, for
good this time, and sat down with her knitting.
The chance had disappeared for that day, and
I rose to go. Constance took one step into the
hall with me, familiarly yet discreetly. I felt
so warmly toward her, and so happy—I was so
young, and I had been so sleepless thinking of
her, that I was near to crying like a woman.
There were tears in my eyes when I pressed her
hand. Mrs. Darcy was close by, yet I starved
for still more assurance of favor; BO I said:
"You don't admire bald heads, do you?"
Constance laughed. "Why, what an absurd
idea ! I hate bald heads."
That was all. I was content. A last look
from those gentian blue eyes, one more hand
pressure, and I went home happy.
Two days before Christmas (fatal Christmas !)
I went into Tiffany's to buy a suitable present
for Constance. At school and at college in
country places I had known nothing of the pe-culiar
customs that obtain in some circles of
fashionable society, but I was learning them
willingly and unquestioningly, and I felt the
most expensive article I could find would be
only a proper offering. Of course if such gifts
did not represent the very highest propriety
and delicacy, my Constance wouldn't receive
them.
A dapper gentlemanly clerk came forward.
" I want a present, a rich and handsome pres-ent,
for a lady," I said.
''Yes, sir. A fan, sir?"
"No, not a f a n . " I remembered Mrs. Darcy
had said "a dozen fans."
"A toilet case, a satchel, an ivory comb, glove
box, napkin ring ?"
"No; something better."
"Pardon; is it for a young lady?"
I felt my ears tingle, but answered, boldly,
"Yes, for a young lady."
" I would recommend, say, a brooch."
"Let me see some brooches."
"With jewels or plain, sir?"
"Jewels, of course."
"Here's a neat thing," said the clerk, "in
sapphires."
I t was a small pin, but the sapphires were the
color of her eyes, and she might forgive the
meanness of the present for t h e richness of my
affection. "How i»uch ?" I asked.
"That, sir, is three fifty."
"Three fifty," I repeated, deciding on it at
once—"three dollars and fifty—"
The gentlemanly clerk saved me from the
blunder. "Three hundred and fifty dollars,
sir."
"Oh," said I, with a sickly smile, " I thought
so." But I hadn't thought so. The cost of the
trifle was a great deal more than I had
dreamed. There was just twenty dollars in my
pocket, and to have that I bore my tailor's in-solence
and my landlady's duns. Then I owed
Joe the money for the Long Branch visit, and
more borrowed since. Besides, I was at an age
when it seems so degrading to be poor—an age
when one likes to say. "Keep the change."
I remarked, critically, to the clerk: "Humph!
on the whole, I don't fancy sapphires. Show
me pearls."
"Certainly. Here's a pretty thing; only two
hundred."
After going through the whole stock of
pearls, I asked for bracelets.
"Five hundred, eight, one thousand," said
the man, looking impatient, as other customers
were waiting.
"Could you show me rings?" I asked. 1
thought of rings because, being small objects,
it seemed likely they might come within my
small means.
"Diamond?" inquired the clerk.
"Diamond, of course."
He took out a case of rings, and r a n over the
prices—"Two hundred, one seventy-five, four
hundred, one hundred," and so on. Lost in
troubled thought, I stood rattling the keys in
my pocket in an under-bred fashion I had, and
doing so, felt my great-aunt's silver ring, which
I drew f o r th with a happy thought.
" I wa,nt," said I, "to keep the silver setting;
reset the stone, and tell me at what price you
can furnish me its exact counterpart, say two
weeks f r om now."
"Yes, sir;" and off he went to some upper re-gion.
In a little while, coming down and giv-ing
me the bare circlet from which the stone
had been taken, he said: "I can't tell you
at the moment for how much we can mate the
diamond; but our expert has weighed and ex-amined
it. and we wfll write to you."
"Very well." .
"Address, please ?"
I gave my number.'
"And address for the new ring ?"
' 'Miss Constance Darcy, F i f th avenue. With-out
fail, to-morrow."
I drew a l6ng sigh as I stepped into the
street. The gift seemed so insignificant for
my beautiful Constance. As to t h e diamond,
why, in two weeks I would be twenty-one, and
have the three thousand dollars f r om my guard-ian.
Before quadrupling that sum in Wall
street, I would take out enough to pay Joe, and,
above all things, I ' d put a stone in J a n Yan
Boosen's ring as good or better than the old
one.
The next evening, Christmas-eve, I was made
happy. Constance wrote to me:
" I have received your magnificent present.
How good you are ! I shall wear the r i ng al-ways.
Look in to-morrow about three. I've a
particular reason for wishing to see you."
Oh, what was the "particular reason" for
wishing to see me ? I believed I could guess.
Of course, sharp on the hour, I was with
Constance.
"Oh!" she exclaimed: "Merry Christmas!
The ring is lovely;" and she showed it on her
finger, sparkling wonderfully.
Mrs. Darcy came puffing up like a respectable
locomotive, and ejaculated: "Oh, the ring is
superb!"
"Now," said Constance, "come and have
luncheon quite en familie," and she drew me
into the dining-room. "There's nobody here
but Mr. Beynolds."
There was old Beynolds, sure enough, at the
head of the table, smiling and beaming. But
Constance gave me comfort by talking all
lunch-time about my present. And, in fact, I
was astonished at the size and brilliancy of the
diamond, and almost feared that Tiffany "had
delivered the wrong one.
When we had pushed back from the table,
Constance began, brightly: "I sent for you,
dear Mr. Yan Boosen, because you're such a
good friend." I felt my heart standing still, as
before a coming calamity, yet never guessed
what that calamity might be. "I sent for yott,"
she went on, "because from the first we have
all liked you so much, and this beautiful ring
shows how sincere is your regard for"—she
hesitated, then made the pronoun "us." "So
I 'm going to tell you a secret." She glanced
at Beynolds inquiringly. He nodded. "A
great secret," she repeated. I felt as if I were
turning to stone. Then she said, deliberately:
" I 'm engaged to Mr. Beynolds." I had turned
to stone I couldn't move, couldn't think. I
hoped I was dying. But Mrs. Darcy quickly
poured out some wine, and I lifted it to my
hps. Then I saw Constance standing up be-hind
Beynolds's chair. I thought she looked a
little scared, for I could feel my face was white
as marble; but in her own graceful, cordial way
she said: "Yes, my dear Gerard—for we shall
call you Gerard, you're so very young—we are
to be married at once. You see, I 'm thirty
years old, and I can be"—she laughed pleas-antly
at the notion—"quite a mother to you.
And Mr. Beynolds can be your father. How
nice !" She clapped her hands playfully. "So
you must come and see us often. Do, now,
like a good boy."
"Come and see u s , " Beynolds added grimly.
I rose, and stammered out some words; I
don't know what they were.
Then Constance affectionately l>ut her hand
on Beynolds's shoulder, and exclaimed, with a
pretty pout: "Yes, I am going to marry this
baldhead. And I hate baldness. Nevermind,
dear; you must get some horrid stuff that '11
make the hair grow." Beynolds clasped the
hand on his shoulder, and laughing, kissed it.
I said something more, without any idea
what I was talking about, smiled, bowed, and
got out of the house a« a man wounded to
death may drag himself out of a battle.
I was staggering in the street, when some-body
slapped me on the shoulder, and bawled:
"Hello! old fel. Too much Christmas, eh ?"
I t was Smith.
"Oh, no," I replied, with a ghastly lightness.
" I 'm only dizzy—subject to such attacks."
"Too bad," said Smith. "Hold on to me.
So. Feel better now? You've been to the
Darcys; saw you coming out. What a stunning
ring you sent Constance !'
"You sent her a nice present last year," I
rattled out of a dry throat.
"Oh, yes; so I did this year. They're not
well off, but they keep up appearances, the
Darcys do, and they take full advantage of a
very bad and indelicate fashion in accepting
expensive presents. Bless you, Constance is a
charming woman, and not of my family (thank
Heaven !), and I don't begrudge the presents.
If she can afford to take 'em, why, I can afford
to give 'em."
"How old is Miss Darcy?" I asked.
"She's—let's sse—about thirty-three. But
she's a beauty, and understands toilette.
There's so much in toilette. By-the-way, Bey-noldB
is going to marry her. Imagine a man
marrying Constance Darcy!"
"Why not?" I stammered.
"Mercenary," answered Smith, shortly—
"mercenary and heartless."
"Oh, indeed !" said I, in such an unnatural
tone t h a t Smith exclaimed: "I say, you're feel-ing
ill again;" and he kindly took me home.
A few days later, while I was trying in vain
to conquer an unreasoning love that wouldn't
be subdued even by some ugly facts, a shock
that I received helped to cure me. This moral
counter-irritant was in the shape of a note
f r om Tiffany's:
"DEAB Snt:—We find it impossible to pro-cure
a diamond as fine as the one we reset, but
we can furnish a stone nearly as good for about
five thousand dollars. Yours was of extraor-dinary
brilliancy, large (though the old setting
nearly covered it), white, and without flaw."
Five thousand dollars ! Why, the utmost I
expected from my guardian was only three
thousand. I thought the stone was a trifle
that I could borrow, so to speak, and easily re-place;
but, good heavens! I was a thief ! My
first impulse was to confess to Aunt Annette;
then, I argued, why give the poor old woman
needless pain ? In two weeks I can put money
into stocks, and soon have the finest diamond
in America.
I tried, by sifting my feelings and motives,
to ease the pangs of conscience, yet the bald
facts were unpleasant. After having been told
distinctly, and in writing, that the stone was of
great value, I had nefariously disposed of it.
The legal points were plain.
Well, two weeks passed, and instead of the
three thousand dollars f r om my guardian, there
came a lawyer's letter with the information that
Mr. Black was completely ruined, and the trust
money had gone past hope in the general
wreck. This second shock completely stunned
me. I was penniless, and in debt to Joe for
five hundred dollars. Constance had cost me
that, beside the family diamond and untold
heart-ache. Perhaps it was well I was so over-come
and helpless, or when the boarding-house
servant-girl eame with another piece of fearful
news, I might have done some desperate deed.
"Sor," said Biddy, "there's an auld wo-man
below, and it's your aunt she says she is."
While I greeted Aunt Annetie my knees
smote together, yet I managed to jerk out re-marks
about Long Island crops, until she
stopped me by saying, tartly:
"Bring me at once all the Yan Boosen relics,
particulark the buttons and the ring."
"Well, auntie," said I, trying to be light and
airy, "and what are you going to do with those
precious antiquities?"
"Going to lock 'em up at my house," she an-swered.
"I've bought a safe at last."
"Now," and I facetiously tickled her undei
her massive chin—"now what would you do if
anything had been stolen?"
"Stolen !" Cried my aunt, starting up and
glaring at me (she had a violent and vindictive
temper)—"stolen! Why, I'd prosecute the
thief to the utmost extent of the law; Td im-prison
him, blast his name, torture him if I
could! I'd be a very wolf on his track as long
as I lived?"
' 'Come, now"—and I was most horribly spark-ling
and jaunty—"come, now, not if the thief
was a Yan Boosen, not if he were in the direct
line f r om Jan—eh ?"
"Yes," the old vixen answered, glaring at me
and clinching her mittened fists—"yes, even
if he was my own flesh and blood—even if he
was you—I'd pursue him to the death ! The
Van Boosen relics! Great goodness ! why—"
"Don't excite yourself, auntie dear," I broke
in; " I was merely jesting. The things are
here, all except the ring, and I'll get that in a
few minutes."
" I s it locked up in safety-vaults r she asked.
I made a gesture to avoid answering, and
rushed out of the house with the ring in my
pocket. •
One hesitates to write down facts that are ab-solutely
blasting to his own character, but I
was in a dreadful complication. The ring
would probably one day be mine, and— Well,
I brought it back to Aunt Annetie set with a
false gem—a piece of white glass.
The next time I heard f r om my dragon of a
relative she wrote f r om the rickety homestead:
" I keep the family treasures in a safe in my
bedroom. I don't promise to leave them to
you, although you represent the straight line of
descent, beeause I don't think you appreciate
the character and virtues of the great J a n ."
This, considering my only hope of settling
matters with my conscience, was very far
f r om cheering.
I found t h a t a broken heart can be healed
more easily t h a n a guilty mind can be set at
rest. In less t h a n a year I had ceased to care
for Constance. I used the sternest economies,
earned a better salary, and was paying Joe by
small installments, and still there was the aw-ful
secret of the ring. Of course a confession
would bring me into the public courts. Some-times
I felt impelled to make it, sometimes to
wait until, in the course of events, I would be
found out by my great-aunt's heirs, or worse,
by herself. There were plenty of witnesses
against me at Tiffany's and the gentlemanly
clerk could give excellent testimony.
One day I met Bessie Clapp in the street. It
would be effrontery to speak to her, I thought,
but it would be a great comfort, and speak I
did. * ,
She seemed very lovely, girlish, and frank,
though she did say, sarcastically: "So Miss
Darcv is married?"
"Of course," was my careless reply. "You
know Beynolds was devoted to her at Long
Branch.
"So were other people," said Bessie.
" I understand you," I answered, meekly;
"but that affair was only the glamour of a mo-ment."
We soon fell into our old ways, and her father
coming to the rescue pecuniarily, we were mar-ried.
Though Bessie's disposition was fond, it was
also jealous. I was an approved moral coward,
and feared to open u p that Darcy episode. Of
course the groveling meanness of my nature is
plain by this time.
Yesterday it was Christmas .again—the second
since our wedding. Bessie came running to ma
with a letter and a great box in her hands.
"Oh, Gerard," she cried, "see what your
great-aunt has sent me for a present—a lot of
books and papers and lace and old buttons ! She
writes : 'The Van Boosen relics are not for your
husband, who has, I suspect, no proper respect
for his ancestors. They are for his child. The
ring 18 of great value. I give it to you to hand
to posterity.' See, Gerard, what a great silver
ring ! Why, what makes yott look so strange?"
"Bessie," I answered, taking advantage of a
moment's strength and heroism, " I have a con-fession
to make."
I t took half an hour to rehearse the whole
matter minutely—my blind lore, my crime, and
sufferings, without extenuation or reserve.
"Can you forgive me, Bessie ?" I said, a t last.
She moved away from me, and answering,
"Let me go and think," left the room.
As I waited there with my head sunk in my
hands, I groaned : "Perhaps she despises me;
perhaps she will never love me again. This is
retribution."
But presently Bessie came back, oarrying oui
plump little crowing baby boy.
"Can you forgive. me for stealing your dia<-
mond?" I ask, humbly.
"Oh," answers my wife, "you don't suppose
I went away to think about the miserable dia-mond?
You were young and rash. You meant
to make it all right. That's nothing. I was
trying to forgive you for loving that Constance
Darcy."
What strange creatures women are 1 ."Well,"
I asked, anxiously.
"Baby forgives you," said Bessie, putting the
youngster in my arms with the lovely pride oi
motherhood, and becoming herself curiously
entangled in the embrace. Then, as I clasped
my sweet, true-hearted, guileless wife, she whis-pered
:
"Are you happy now, dear? Is it "Merry
Christmas,' with no more wretched fears oi
fânciBs '
"Yes, my love," I answer, "Merry Christmas'
at last."
We hear to-day the news of poor old Aunt
Annette's death. She was eternally writing,
and after she sent off the box to Bessie she
jotted on a scrap of paper, " I feel very near
dteath, but I have placed the relics i n thé direct
line of descent."
Bessie declares baby shall be taught to respect
the euphonious name of® J a n Van Boosen.
The Merry Christmas Day.
Christmas irradiates home with t h e holy lighl
of Heaven. It is t h e good angel of the year,
I t comes near the closing of his life to give tha
venerable man one farewell glimpse of. joys ha
has tasted, and to light his path to eternity. It
is a sacred day to all mankind. The citizen
loves it as he pictures the bountiful feast pre-pared
by willing bands; the happiness thai
beams upon the faces of his children; the
gathering together beneath his roof of ,all that
are near and dear to him—the mother whose
failing footsteps totter like the fading year upon
the threshold of eternity; the dear old > mother
whose Christmases long ago were the j o y s of
boys now old and grizzled; the father who leans
now upon his arm; the sisters, the brothers, the
friends of auld lang syne. The sailor loves it
as he puts the last reef in his topsail and set-tles
down to a glorious feast of pea soup, salt
junk and plum-duff, with a tear perhaps in his
honest eye to the dear loved ones at home. The
soldier loves it as he warms his hands by the
bivouac fire, and scents the odor of a savory
feast of unusual grandeur. Our brave boys fax
away in other lands love it because it brings
them back to home and mother. The children
love it—bless them. It is to them a long looked
for dream of joy; and now it is at hand. Years
and years hence, when the merciless hand of
time and care shall have wrinkled these cheeks
and thinned the hair upon these sunny temples,
shall old men and women look back to the
Christmas of 1883 with a long drawn, weary
sigh, and mentally exclaim: "Ah, that was
happiness !" We all love it. The most worth-less
and abandoned wretch that slinks upon the
shady side of our streets experiences a certain
warmth of feeling when he sees the lights, the *
evergreens, the goodly cheer, the crowds, the
happy faces, the jingling toys, and listens to
the music of the bells that ring out to t h e sky,
telling to t h e heavens and the earth and all ani-mate
and inanimate things, that "Onto us a
child is born; unto us a son is given."
Christmas on the Plantation.
Blow pleasant were those Christmas times on
the plantation! writes a Southern lady. When
I close my eyes t h e sights and sounds of those
dear dead days come back like ghosts that will
not be laid. Long before day we were awakened
by singing under the windows :
" I t ' s Christmiss Day, it's Christmiss Day, it's
Christmiss in de mornin',
And you and me we'll tuk a round afore da
early dawnin'.
De dawnin', de dawnin',
De star shine in de mornin',
My Christ was horned, and dat you knows, dis
blessed Christmiss mornin'."
There were many other verses, but I remem-ber
them imperfectly. They used to get the
"Apostles" and "Wise Men of the East" terribly
mixed up in those Christmas chants. Peter,
James and John were brought to the manger.
"And dar dey sees de blessed babe a-sleepin' in
de manger,
My Christ wot corned to sabe de world and
snatch your soul f r om danger."
Then when the master came to the door he
was hoisted in triumph on the shoulders of the
men, and marched around until he was very
tired of his perch. Present-making was next
in order, and no one was neglected. . However
sad the memories of slave times must be to the
freedman, I think Christmas Day must always
stand out in bright relief f r om t h e surrounding
darkness.
CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.—Children of the pres-ent
generation are not aware, probably, how
much better they fare at Christmas and on
their birthdays than tbeir fathers did. And it
is a conclusive proof of the growth of our pea-pie
on the sentimental side of their natures,
that it is so. Forty years ago, in this country,
it is not likely that one boy out of a score ex-pected
to receive even one present at Christ-mag,
The practice has grown almost universal
within the last generation, and the prayer of
all is that the custom will not die out.
A BOY'S LETTEE.—"Dear UNDA-^-We are to
have a Christinas tree and supper. Tour pres-ents
is requested."