Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/308

300 "Why, I could not find any one at home on Fourth Street, so I took the last ferry-boat and came over, on a venture, to try the Kentucky hospitality, of which we New-Yorkers hear so much; and my stumbling walk through the mud made me so unpresentable, that I found the way round the house to Aunt Molly's premises, and left the tracks of my muddy boots all over her white kitchen, till she, in despair, provided me with a pair of your moccasins, and, shod in these shoes of silence, I came quietly in upon you. I do hope you are all glad to see me," he added, sitting down on the low seat that Alice had left, and looking up in her face as she stood by her uncle.

Alice shook her head with a pretty assumption of displeasure, as she said, "I told you I did not want to see you till to-morrow." But hardly half an hour had elapsed before she and Herbert had wandered off into the parlor, and Uncle John and I were left to watch them through the open door.

"If he were not so impulsive," said Uncle John, abruptly,—"if he were not so full of fancies! Kate, you are a wise and discreet little lady, and we understand each other. Did I say too much?"

Just then Alice looked back.

"Chloe is the one who sings madrigals to-night, Uncle; she is going to read Colin a lesson"; and, sitting down at the piano, she let her hands run over the keys and burst out joyously into that variation of Raleigh's pretty pastoral song,—

years have passed since Alice sat at Uncle John's feet and listened to his words that gave lessons of wisdom while they seemed only to amuse; and now she sits again on the low stool, looking up in his face, while I stand behind him and look down on her, marking the changes that those years have wrought. She has come back to us, our own Alice still,—but how different from the impetuous, impulsive girl who left us five years ago! Her face has lost its early freshness, though it seems to me lovelier than before, in its matured, womanly expression; but her eyes, which used to be lifted so eagerly, to glance so rapidly in their varying expression, are now hidden by their lashes even when she is talking earnestly; her lips have lost their mobility, and have even something stern in their fixedness; whilst her hair, brought down smoothly over her forehead and twisted firmly in the low knot behind, and her close-fitting widow's dress add to the sobriety and almost matronliness of her appearance.

For Alice is a widow now, and has come back to us in her bereavement. We have known but little of her real self for some years, so guarded have been her letters; and not until the whole terrible truth burst upon us, did we do more than suspect that her married life had not brought the happiness she anticipated. She is talking freely now she is at home again among her own people.

"I have sometimes thought, Uncle John, that all you said to me, the last night I spent here, had some meaning deeper than met the ear. Had you second sight? Did you foresee the future? Or was there that in the present which foreshadowed it to you?"

"I am no prophet, Alice. I spoke only from what I knew of life, and from my knowledge of your character and Herbert's. But I am yet to know how my words have been fulfilled."

"It makes no difference now," said she, slowly, and with a touching weariness. "And yet," she added, rousing herself, "it would make all the difference in the world to me, if I could see clearly where it was that I was to blame. Certainly I must have done wrong; such wretchedness could not have come otherwise."

Uncle John drew her hand within his,