Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/72

64 fancied last night the dead beckoned to him.

She touched him again.

"It is a quiet morning yonder," she said, calmly.

"Yes, Lotty."

"God sent your dream. I hardly hoped, Jerome," her eyes filling with tears, "that we should keep Christmas together,—you, the baby, and I."

He smiled and pressed her hand, touched the little cheek, and then looked wistfully out again.

He held the baby God had given to comfort his old age proudly and tenderly; but his heart would turn to the other child's face that was watching for him yonder behind the dawn, and listen for the weak little voice which he knew on that Christmas morning was somewhere calling,—"Father! father!"

N a cold January night I returned home after a holiday visit to town. Snow was just beginning to fall, and a desolate sort of feeling came over me as the omnibus drove up to my residence. A bright, cheerful light shone out of the library-windows, and Ernestina, a maid who had lived with me half a score of years before her marriage, was at the gate to receive me.

"It is owing to her kind, capable hands that the house looks so comfortable," I said to myself, with a little sigh; "but what am I to do when, she returns to her own home?"

Then, with a true spinster selfishness, I wished her good husband and beautiful boy "better off" in Abraham's bosom, and wondered what could make women so foolish as to get married. The cause of all this discomfort was the consciousness of having a new serving-maid. My last experience in that necessary domestic article had not been an agreeable one. The woman, though not "as old as Sibyl," was

She was a dusky Melpomene, who openly insulted the furniture, assaulted violently the china, and waged universal war against all inanimate objects. Being a trifle deaf, she used this defect as an excuse for not hearing any request or command; when spoken to, she glared grimly, turned her back, and strode off with a tragic loup, reminding one of a Forest in petticoats. I never knew I was an amiable woman, until her advent into my peaceable establishment.

"Now I return to a new experience, may-be no better than the former," I thought.

Upon entering the house, I saw through the open kitchen-door—out of which streamed a savory smell of broiled chicken, buns, and tea—an encouraging picture for a housekeeper: there was a bright fire, and a tidy room, with a nice-looking colored girl who wore a headkerchief and a check apron over her chintz gown. She rose up from her seat, and gave me a slight curtsy, which civility I acknowledged half shyly, half coldly.

"This is Lucy," said Ernestina, "the new maid I have engaged for you, Ma'am." Then, addressing the girl, she added,—"Lucy, you may dish up supper now."

"I wonder how I shall like her," was my remark to Ernestina, as we went into the library. "Do you think she will bully me much?"

Ernestina laughed.

"No, indeed, Ma'am! She is gentle and civil. I think she will suit you. I have found her both capable and agreeable while we have been putting the house in order."

"Oh I can dispense with capability,