LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 302, 1 June 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

TOLD ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

Chapter IV. violet's story.

Concluded.

And Charles had waited, but he had not ehanged at all. He meant to go as soon as the New Year came in. He meant to remain true to Daisy Leighton; and through his soul there ever rang an appealing and plaintive voice, ' Keep my memory green.' ' Papa,' said Violet, putting her hand on her father's, and turning her wistful eyes to his, ' in my story there is a girl, like me and perhaps you will think her wicked and ungrateful to her father, who is just like you; but you will hear all about her quite to the end before you say so. Won't you, papa?' ' If she is like my girl,' she can't be very bad said Arnold Silver, laughing proudly, and patting her pretty hand, ' Go on, my dear.' We,are all anxiety to hear this tale. Violet turned her face from theirs, elapsed her hands on her lap, and fixed her eyes musingly on the leaping amethyst and molten gold of the flames, licking the great sides of the logs on the huge andirons, and began her tale. In her voice there was something strangely timorous, just as though she feared to tell it. ' Some years ago, there were two brothers, partners in a great business, just, papa, as you and Uncle Aurelius are; and one of them hadtwosons, and the other only onelittle

child, a girl ; and the two mothers were dead. Now, the elder brother, the father of the two boys, was a strange man, cold and haughty and like iron in everything he said and did; and when his wife died—he was very fond of her —he he " ' What are you telling ?' interrupted Mr Silver. ' Hear me to the end, please, Uncle Aurelius.' ' Yes, yes, the tale must be heard to the end,' put in Arnold Silver. And Violet went on. ' This elder brother grew colder and harder, though I know it was only pride ; in his heart he was good. His eldest son, who was many years older than the other, was like the dear mother who had died, and a generous high-spirited lad, and I am quite sure all the time the father hardly seemed to know he had a son; he was proud and fond of his boy, only it was not his way to show his heart to the world. But he must have loved him. Don't you think so, papa ?' 'I suppose so, Pussy,' said Arnold Silver, very soberly, and looking straight at the fire. Aurelius never spoke. His face lay in the shadow cast by the marble pillars of the mantlepiece. Violet glanced at him. Her eyes were very bright; her sweet young voice was steady and clear as silver as she resumed her story. ' How much that poor young man was to be pitied ! —that firstborn son ! He was left so much to himself : his father was so absorbed in his own business that he had no time to see the evil which was gathering around the lad—and he was only eighteen. Had he seen it, he would have been so angry that he might not have moved a finger to save him. Not that he meant to be cruel ; you must not think that for a moment : but but ;he said and thought that for a truly honorable and upright nature, fthere could be no such thing as temptation.' Aurelius Silver winced : and drew his face further into the shade, ' He said that those who fell, fell from inclination ; and as they fell, so, for him, should they lie. For it had come about that his son had done something very, very wrong about money matters : that he might have been been tried for. Are you listening, papa ?' Arnold Silver slightly nodded, but spoke not. He was looking as though he did not much like the tale.

'Well, the boy's father quietly turned him adrift, 'to herd,' as he said, 'with the dregs of the earth his crime had levelled him to.' He was cold and impassive still, as I have heard. I don't believe he even seemed angry : but none of us can fancy what he felt in his secret soul. He must have thought that, perhaps, if he had acted differently himself, watched and guarded the boy from currupt influences, this would not have happened : and oh, how dreadful that thought must have been ! But the boy disappeared.' ' And thus your story ends,' said Aurelius Silver impatiently, as though he wished it over.

' No, Uncle Aurelius, it has a sequel. Had it ended here, I should never have told it. Perhaps never have known it.' 'Go on, Violet,' said Charles, who was staring at her with all the earnestness of his deep-blue eyes. ' The son went on board ship, and escaped to another country. There he turned over a new leaf, and began to work in earnest. It was California—where fortunes are to be made for the trying. He had a great and a good heart, this son, and it carried him on eagle wings, far above the associations, such as they were, of his former life. For years he battled on manfully, and he gained fortune ; and in the faint hope that his father had forgotten all but that he was his eldest son, he turned his steps homeward and came back over the seas.'

Violet stopped ; it seemed from emotion. Her cheeks were flushing and paling. ' He came back safely, this son, and went to his own home; not openly, but cautiously in secret, that is. There he met his cousin, now a woman grown, how it does not matter; and oh ! papa, she was very, very like me ; but don't begin to hate her just yet : and he begged that she would try to soften his father toward him; and, from one thing to another, the girl and he got to—to love each other better than all the world. They met very often, but he had to go away up to town about his affairs more than once, and while he was there the last time, the family went away from their pretty summer villa, he and she did not meet again until a few days ago. And she promised and promised to beg his father to forgive him; but she was such a coward," cried Violet, bursting into tears, ' as well as such a wicked, deceitful thing to her own father, who was the best and dearest in in the whole wide world, that she piit off speaking until Christmas Eve: and oh ! uncle, that's—that's the story, and you must finish it.'

Violet turned, fell into her father's arms, which folded tightly about her, and hid her face amid the ruffles decorating his expansive chest.

'Aurelius Silver, said Arnold, solemnly, as Violet trembled in his arms, 'I charge you to finish it as your heart and conscience urge you to do. I gather that the young man is here. Dear Aurie !—as we 'iised to call him. Remember how we loved him !' A peculiar smile, gracious yet shadowed, crossed the lofty face of Aurelius Silver. He rose and came toward them.

' Doubly my daughter !' he said, taking Violet into his arms, and kissing her pure, young brow : ' the good Angel of this Christmas Eve. You shall finish your Christmas tale as you will.' ' Papa, dear,' cried Violet, the tears dropping, ' tell me that you don't hate me for my dreadful deceit. 1 could not help it; indeed I could not.'

' I shall get over it in time, I daresay, Fussy,' replied he with twinkling eyes. ' Did you know of this, Charles ? ' 'Partly,' replied Charles. 'I did not know until now that he was my brother. To say the truth, I thought the affair was over and done with. 1 will go and find him.' They came back arm in arm. A man with dark lustrous eyes and the kingly port of the Silvers, but with a face all his own and his dead mother's. Such was Aurelius the younger. Violet stood by her father, her eyes glistening. Mr Silver, showing more emotion than anyone would have believed, clasped his son's outstretched hands. _ ' Welcome home, my boy,' he whispered. And, retaining still the hands, he turned to his brother.

'Arnold,' he said, 'where is your wel come ?'

'Here,' replied Arnold Silver, taking Violet's rosy hand and placing it in his nephew's ;' one more expressive than words.'

' A good gift!' said Aurelius Silver, musingly. 'lt is but exchanging one brother for the other. She was to have been yours, Charles.'

' She and I never thought that, father.' ' Your brother is lea\ ing us—for California, or elsewhere,' said Mr Silver to his new-found son. ' Possibly you may have heard of it—and its cause ?' ' Yes,' was the answer, given in a tone of sad sympathy. ' Perhaps Charlie will stay here, though, now I am come.' There was a moment's pause. Mr Silver broke it. 'Violet, as Charles's promised bride, I bought you a set of jewels. As the betrothed of my son Aurelius, I should like to clasp them on your neck and arms.' • Oh, uncle, thank you—thank you !' was Violet's impulsive answer. ' How good you are ! How good everyone is !' Mr Silver left the room, to fetch, as was supposed, the promised jewels. |But he seemed rather long about it. Violet was talking to Charles when he returned, her eyes pitiful. ' This Christmas has held nothing for you,' she said ; it is very sad.' ' Except a darling sister and brother,, said Charlie, clasping her hands in his. ' And wife !' said the voice of Aurelius Silver behind them. They turned their faces to him, in a silence born of awe, —a pallid silence, through which Violet's voice rang out in wild exultation. ' Daisy ! Oh, Charlie, this was the ghost I saw to-day ! She was looking out of that private room of my uncle's, and I thought it was a real ghost and fainted away. I was ashamed to confess it afterwards: I supposed 1 must have been in a dream.' Aurelius Silver stood towering like some lofty column, crested with sparkling snow ; and by his side a dark and beautiful little creature whose wide and speaking eyes were fixed on Charles's face. ' Take her,' said Mr Silver to his son Charles. ' She is yours. When she fell into the lake—for that was the cause of her disappearance, her eyesight no doubt deceiv ing her—l was close at hand, and fortunately was enabled to save her ' ' Do you mean you got her out, Uncle Aurelius ?' interrupted Violet, in her eagerness. • Yes, I got her out.' ' But why did you not bring her home !' ' She was quite insensible: and I thought she would recover better in the gamekeeper's cottage; and so I conveyed her thither. She had an illness alter that—a fever. For some weeks she was not herself; and the gamekeeper's wife attendnd on her. I enjoined silence on them. Before she at all recovered, we left the villa for this place.' ' But, uncle, why did you not tell us ? Why have left us suffer all that suspense and distress ?'

' I had my reasons for it,' calmly replied Mr Silver. ' For one thing, I wished to see what Charles's professed love for her really was; whether it would last, or was but ephemeral, as a butterfly's summer day. She is here now, and you make the most of her.'

'He has been as a dear father to me,' whispered Daisy, with tears in her eyes. 'As a dear, loving, generous father. Oh, you cannot think how good he is ; and we used to think him so proud and stern.'

It had been all as Mr Silver said. No sooner had he turned his back upon the lake that night, than the awful wickedness of his conduct flashed over him in blood-red colors. With a half-breathed prayer for forgivenness he rushed back, and rescued Daisy. She could not be said to have quite recovered yet; but he had caused her to be brought to them here, had smuggled her into the house that afternoon at dusk, that she might take her place once more amid them this this Christmas Eve. But he never supposed there was a surprise in store fer himself as .veil as for them —in the restoration of his elder son. He had believed him to be dead: and it was perhaps the distress of his loss, the self-reproach for his own conduct, that had rendered him in manner so hard and stern. The sternness would give place now to loving generosity. Truly, God had been very good to him ! ' Do you like them, Arnold ? ' He turned Violet to face her father, the brilliant diamonds gleaming on her neck, in her ears, on her fair arms ; flashing, costly, priceless gems, worth almost a king's ransom.

' Aurelius ! how extravagant you have been ! How could you spend so much on mere ornaments.'

*lt seems to me, Arnold, that I could spend the whole of my fortune this night, and not regret it.' ' In thankfulness for Aurie's safety ?'

' I have a deeper cause for thankfulness than even that,' was the answer. ' None will ever know how deep, save God !' ' And, Charles, I suppose you will give up your sea-going trip ?' ' I expect I shall; Uncle Arnold.' 'You'll have to forfeit your passage-money, young sir.' ' I'll put the receipt up]to auction and sell it to the highest bidder,' retorted Charles, a laughing happiness in his eyes that had long been absent from them. The silvery-toned clock on the mantel piece, rang out twelve. Violet turned to look at it, her diamonds flashing. ~i • Midnight!' she exclaimed with surprised ' Whoever would have thought it could be so late ! Why this is Christmas morning ? What a happy Christmas Eve it has been.' t ' A merry Christmas to lis all, my dear ones,' spoke Aurelius Silver with emotion ; to you especially, Daisy, and to you, my new-found son God has been so merciful to us in this past year : so merciful ? It might have been a Avorse Christmas than any of you can dream of. Hark ! there are the bells.