Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/210

202 picture, and let in upon it a sudden light. The ten intervening years vanished like a dream, and that long-forgotten garden scene started up, vivid as in the hour when it actually passed before my eyes. The clue to that mystery which had so spellbound my childish fancy was at length found. I sat for a time in silence, lost in a delicious, confused reverie.

"The Button-Rose was a gift from him, then?" were my first words.

"What, Kate?" said Aunt Linny, now opening her large blue eyes with a strange look.

"Did you give away the flower-pot too? That was so pretty! Whom did you give it to?"

"Incredible!" she exclaimed, coloring, and with the strongest expression of surprise. "Truly, little pitchers have not been slandered!"

"But the wonderful humming-bird, Aunty! What had that to do with it?"

"Kate," said my aunt, "you talk like one in sleep. Wake up, and let me know what all this means."

"I see it all now!" I rattled on, more to myself than her. "First young love,—parting gift,—Cousin Harry proves fickle,—Aunt Linny banishes the Button-Rose from her window,—takes to books, and educating naughty nieces, and doing good to everybody,—'bearing to live,' as more heroic than 'daring to die,'—in ten years gets so that she can speak of it with composure, as a lesson to romantic girls. So?"

"Even so, Katy!" she replied, quietly; "and to that early disappointment I owe more than to anything that ever befell me."

She said this with a smile; but her voice trembled a little, and I perceived that a soft dew had gathered over her eyes. By an irresistible impulse I rose, and stealing softly behind her, clasped my arms round her neck, and kissing her forehead whispered, "Forgive me, sweet Aunty!"

"Not a bit of harm, Katy," she replied, drawing me down for a warm kiss. "But what a gypsy you must be," she added, in her usually lively tone, "to have trudged along so many years with this precious little bundle, and said never a word to anybody!"

"I've not thought of it myself, these ever so many years," said I, "and it seems like witchwork that it should all have come to me at this moment."

I then related to her my childish reminiscences and speculations, which amused her not a little. Her hearty, mirthful zest showed that the theme was not a disquieting one. I now begged her to proceed with her story.

"But stay a moment," said I; "let me fetch our garden bonnets, that we may enjoy it in the very scene of the romance."

"Ah, Kate, you are bent on making a heroine of me!" was the reply, as she took her seat in the grape arbor; "but there are really no materials. I shall finish in fifteen minutes by my watch, and you'll drop me as an Ophelia, I venture to say. Cousin Harry had left us, as I told you, to visit his brother. For some months his letters were very frequent, and as the time approached for his return they grew increasingly cheerful, and—Katy, I cannot but excuse myself in part, when I recall the magic charm of those letters. But no matter; all of a sudden they ceased, and for several weeks not a word was heard from him by his own family. At length, when my anxiety had become wellnigh intolerable, there came a brief letter to his father, announcing his marriage with the sister of his brother's wife, and his decision to enter into business with his brother."

"Did you know anything of the young lady?"

"He had once or twice mentioned her in his letters as a beautiful, amiable creature, whose education had been shamefully neglected. Her kindness to him in his illness and loneliness, added to her natural charms, won his heart, no doubt many a wise man has been caught in that snare."