The Old Homestead Part 65

Somehow Yankee Doodle wavered off into various other airs quite unknown to the dancers, all swelling free and with a bold sweep of sound, as if the musician improvised as much in his music as the company certainly did in their dancing. But it was the more exhilarating for that, and never did enjoyment run higher or mirth gush out more cheerily.

Mary Fuller had made her way quietly into the barn, and seating herself by uncle Nathan, watched the bright revel as it went on, filled with a pleasant sort of wonder that anything could be so happy as these gay revellers seemed. Once or twice she was asked to dance, but shrunk sensitively from the proposition.

Salina stood erect by uncle Nathan, with her arms folded and her head on one side, filled with burning indignation against mankind in general, and dear old uncle Nathan in particular, because she was left a solitary wall-flower planted in the very calf-skin shoes which she had expected to exhibit, at least in a French Four, with that rotund gentleman.

There was a change in the music. The strings trembled and thrilled a moment, then out came a wild gush of melody that made the very dancers pause and hold their breath to listen.

Mary Fuller started to her feet one moment. The color left her lips, and then back it came, firing her face with scarlet to the brows.

"Uncle Nat, uncle Nat," she said, seizing him by the arm, "that music!--I've heard it before--listen--listen!"

She sat down trembling from head to foot, but her grey eyes flashed from beneath their drooping lids, and her mouth grew tremulous with agitation. When the air was finished, for it died off in a few plaintive notes, as if the violinist had entirely forgotten the dancers, Mary arose and crept softly toward the musician, till she could obtain a view of his face. By the stray candles that wavered to and fro among the evergreens, she could dimly see the white outline of those pure features and the mysterious beauty of the eyes.

Now her countenance, hitherto varying and anxious, settled into a warm flush of joy; she drew close to the musician, and resting one hand on the back of his chair, placed the other softly on his arm.

"Joseph--Joseph Esmond," she said, in a voice that scarcely rose above a whisper. "Is it you, Joseph?"

He started and turned his eyes toward her.

"I know the touch of your hand, Mary Fuller; and your voice is full of the old music. Where am I? How does it happen that you and I meet here?"

"I live here--I have friends, oh! such kind friends. And you, Joseph, how came you here? Where is your father--that dear, good father?

Surely he is well."

"My father," said the youth, bowing his head, with a look of touching sorrow, "my father is dead--I am alone in the world, but for this!"

He touched his violin with a mournful smile.

"Then you and I are orphans alike." But she added more cheerfully, "we are not alone, you have your music, and your art, and I have my, my--oh, I have many things."

"Music, music!" called out the dancers, impatiently, from the floor.

Mary drew back.

"Don't leave me," said the youth, anxiously. "Come listen to my old friend here, and we will talk between the dances."

"Leave you?" replied the young girl; "you do not know, you cannot guess how happy I am to see you again."

"And I," answered the youth, smiling softly, "I can feel how beautiful everything is around me when you are near. Did you know how my father loved you, and how he grieved over it when you left us?"

"Did he?" answered Mary, with a low sob, "how often I thought of you and him; but he must have known where we went."

"Not till Frederick came back at vacation; soon after you began to write, Mary. Then he was so pleased to hear from you. We heard you had been taken from the Alms-House."

"Music, music!" clamored the dancers once more. The young man took up his bow with a sigh.

"Listen, listen," he said, softly, drawing it across the strings. "Do you remember the music we had that night? I will give it to you again."

He began to play, and while others were dancing merrily, she listened till her young heart filled and her eyes were crowded full of tears.

She remembered that small room high up in a city dwelling. The furniture was scant but neat, and so daintily arranged. The bright cooking-stove, the bird-cage, the little round work-stand, above all, the handsome, cheerful woman, with her household love and genial benevolence, Isabel Chester's mother--how vividly the sight of that young minstrel brought all this to her memory.

The music was ringing cheerily through the barn, which trembled to the buoyant movements of the dancers, till the garlands shook upon the walls, and all the lights seemed to twinkle and reel with sympathetic motion. But the face of the violinist grew sad in its expression, and as Mary Fuller gazed at it through her tears, her heart trembled within her, though a gleam of most exquisite pleasure lay at the bottom--pleasure so unlike anything she had ever felt that its very newness made her tremble.

"Don't you dance, Mary?" inquired the musician, speaking to her, but without a break in his music.

"Dance!" she answered, smiling upon him, "no, I never have danced in my life."

"Oh! if you would dance now. I should like to see how you look when quite happy--my heart used to ache to see you thus, Mary."

Mary shrunk back blus.h.i.+ng and frightened, he spoke so earnestly.

"No, no," she stammered, "I don't know how to dance; but I am very, very happy."

The young musician shook his head, and the light of a stray candle rippled through his hair like gold. There was something angelic in his aspect, as he murmured amid the music,

"Oh! but she is heavenly. Never on earth have I heard a voice so full of melody. Sweet spring sounds and the breath of flowers seem floating in it. Oh! she is so good, this dear child."

Then he began to smile again; richer sounds gushed from beneath his fingers; the dancers fell into a circle; the steps grew lighter. The ring of life flashed round beneath the lights, whirling its way amid floods of laughter, like a water-wheel casting off rainbows and foam in the suns.h.i.+ne. The ring gave way; its sunny links broke into pairs; balancing, smiling, and gliding off to the half-hushed music; all glad to rest, but eager to begin again.

That moment the double doors were softly pushed open, and a group of visitors entered the barn, almost unnoticed at first, but that soon cast a restraint upon all this hilarity.

It was a young man, evidently from the city, and a fair girl so beautiful that the whole company paused to look at her.

She was dressed very plainly, in a dark silk travelling-dress, and her air was remarkable only for its simple quietness, though her large eyes turned with a look of eager haste from form to form, as if she were searching for some one.

Mary Fuller, who had been standing by the violinist, very thoughtful, and with her eyes dim with heart-mist, saw the group come in. She drew her hands across her eyes to clear their sight, clasped them with an exclamation of joy, and moving down through the shadows stood close to the young stranger.

"Isabel! Isabel!" broke from her eager lips.

Isabel Chester turned. Her face was radiant. She opened her arms, and with an exclamation of delight, received Mary to her bosom.

"Mary, dear, dear little Mary Fuller--how glad I am. You love me yet, I know. She never would forget me, any more than I could forget her.

Come, talk to me, I was determined to see you before I slept, and so persuaded Fred--Mr. Farnham, I mean--oh, Frederick, isn't she a dear creature?"

Isabel drew Mary's face from her bosom, and stood with one arm around her as she said this.

Young Farnham reached forth his hand; before he could speak, Isabel went on.

"She has grown a little, too; reaches to my shoulder and rather more; her eyes, oh! I knew her eyes would be beautiful; and, and there is something about her that I didn't expect. Frederick, why don't you tell Mary Fuller that she's handsome? There now, isn't that look something better than beauty? Oh! Mary Fuller, how glad I am to see you."

Tears were flas.h.i.+ng like diamonds down the peachy bloom of Isabel's cheek; for Mary had crept to her bosom again, and she felt the s.h.i.+ver of delight that shook the young creature from head to foot. Her own heart leaped back to its old memories, and swelled against the clinging form of her friend.

"That's right, that's just about as it ought to be," exclaimed Salina, coming forward triumphantly, for her honest heart rose to meet the scene. "I knew she'd be here afore bed-time, if New York finery and foreign countries hadn't completely upset her. Isabel Chester, you're a fust rate gal, and I say it. Mr. Farnham, she's a credit to human nature. You may reckon on that, now I tell you. Says I to myself, says I, 'that are gal is sure to come up to the Old Homestead afore bed-time or I lose my guess.' Wasn't I right?"

"You always think too well of me," said Isabel, laughing through her tears. "Come, Mary, let me hear your voice. You haven't spoken a word yet."

"Oh! I love you so much Isabel! I'm _so_ happy, Isabel."