In five minutes he reappeared to announce, in a tone of disappointment, that he could find Daniel nowhere. He could see a light through his keyhole, but the door was locked and he could get no admittance. Just then Lu came up to present a certain--no, an uncertain--young man of the fleet stranded on parlor furniture earlier in the evening. To Lu's great astonishment, Miss Pilgrim asked Billy's permission to leave him. It was granted with all the courtesy of a _preux chevalier_, on the condition, readily a.s.sented to, that she should dance one Lancers with him during the evening.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Lu, after Billy had gone back like a superior being, to a.s.sist at the childish amus.e.m.e.nt of his contemporaries, "would anybody ever suppose that was our Billy?"

"I should, my dear sister," said I, with proud satisfaction; "but you remember I always was just to Billy."

Left free, I went myself to hunt up Daniel. I found his door locked and a light showing through the keyhole, as Billy had said. I made no attempt to enter by knocking; but, going to my room and opening the window next his, I leaned out as far as I could, shoved up his sash with my cane and pushed aside his curtain. Such an unusual method of communication could not fail to bring him to the window with a rush.

When he saw me, he trembled like a guilty thing, his countenance fell, and, no longer able to feign absence, he unlocked his door and let me enter by the normal mode.

"Why, Daniel Lovegrove, my nephew, what does this mean; are you sick?"

"Uncle Edward, I am not sick, and this means that I am a fool. Even a little boy like Billy puts me to shame. I feel humbled to the very dust.

I wish I'd been a missionary and got ma.s.sacred by savages. Oh, that I'd been permitted to wear damp stockings in childhood, or that my mother hadn't carried me through the measles! If it weren't wrong to take my life into my own hands, I'd open that window and--and--sit in a draught this very evening! Oh, yes! I'm just that bitter! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

And Daniel paced the floor with strides of frenzy.

"Well, my dear fellow, let's look at the matter calmly for a minute.

What brought on this sudden attack? You seemed doing well enough the first ten minutes after we came down. I was only out of your sight long enough to speak to the Rumbullion party who had just come in, and when I turned you were gone. Now you are in this fearful condition. What is there in the Rumbullions to start you off on such a bender of bash-fulness as this which I here behold?"

"Rumbullions indeed!" said Daniel. "A hundred Rumbillions could not make me feel as I do; but _she_ can shake me into a whirlwind with her little finger, and _she_ came with the Rumbullions!"

"What! D'you--Miss Pilgrim?"

"Miss Pilgrim!"

I labored with Daniel for ten minutes, using every encouragement and argument I could think of, and finally threatened him that I would bring up the whole Rumbullion party, Miss Pilgrim included, telling them that he invited them to look at his conchological cabinet, unless he instantly shook the ice out of his manner and accompanied me downstairs.

This dreadful menace had the desired effect. He knew that I would not scruple to fulfil it; and at the same time that it made him surrender it also provoked him with me to a degree which gave his eyes and cheeks as fine a glow as I could have wished for the purpose of a favorable impression. The stimulus of wrath was good for him, and there was little tremor in his knees when he descended the stairs. Well-a-day--so Daniel and Billy were rivals!

The latter gentleman met us at the foot of the staircase.

"Oh, there you are, Daniel!" said he, cheerily. "I was just going to look for you and Uncle Teddy. We wanted you for the dances. We have had the Lancers twice and three round dances; and I danced the second Lancers with Lottie. Now we're going to play some games to amuse the children, you know," he added loftily with the adult gesture of pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the extension room. "Lottie's going to play, too, so will you and Daniel, won't you, uncle? Oh, here comes Lottie now! This is my brother, Miss Pilgrim; let me introduce him to you. I'm sure you'll like him. There's nothing he don't know."

Miss Pilgrim had just come to the newel post of the staircase, and when she looked into Daniel's face blushed like the red, red rose, losing her self-possession perceptibly more than Daniel.

The courage of weak warriors and timid gallants mounts as the opposite party's falls, and Daniel made out to say, in a firm tone, that it was long since he had enjoyed the pleasure of meeting Miss Pilgrim.

"Not since Mrs. Cramcroud's last sociable, I think," replied Miss Pilgrim, her cheeks and eyes still playing the telltale.

"Oho! so you don't want any introduction," exclaimed Master Billy. I didn't know you knew each other, Lottie."

"I have met Mr. Lovegrove in society. Shall we go and join in the plays?"

"To be sure we shall!" cried Billy. "You needn't mind; all the grown people are going to."

On entering the parlor we found it as he had said. The guests being almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of jolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till we tired of that--Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidly as Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted down and caught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his sight stood in the way of his making an audacious figure in the world. Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed "Doorkeeper"--a suggestion accepted with great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown people a.s.senting.

To Billy--quite as much on account of his shining prominence in the executive faculties of his character, as host--was committed the duty of counting out the first person to be sent into the hall. There were so many of us that "Aina-maina-mona-mike" would not go quite around; but with that promptness of expedient which belongs to genius, Billy instantly added on "Intery-mintery-cutery-corn," and the last word of the cabalistic formula fell upon me, Edward Balbus. I disappeared into the entry amid peals of happy laughter from both old and young, calling, when the door opened again to ask me who I wanted, for the pretty, lisping flirt who had proposed the game. After giving me a coquettish little chirrup of a kiss and telling me my beard scratched, she bade me, on my return, send out to her "Mither Billy Lovegrove." I obeyed her; my youngest nephew retired and, after a couple of seconds, during which Tilly undoubtedly got what she proposed the game for, Billy being a great favorite with the little girls, she came back pouting and blushing, to announce that he wanted Miss Pilgrim. The young lady showed no mock modesty, but arose at once and laughingly went out to her youthful admirer, who, as I afterward learned, embraced her ardently and told her he loved her better than any girl in the world. As he turned to go back she told him that he might send to her one of her juvenile cousins, Reginald Rumbullion. Now, whether because on this youthful Rumbullion's account Billy had suffered the pangs of that most terrible pa.s.sion, jealousy, or from his natural enjoyment of playing practical jokes destructive of all dignity in his elders, Billy marched into the room, and, having shut the door behind him, paralyzed the crowded parlor by an announcement that Mr. Daniel Lovegrove was wanted.

I was standing at his side and could feel him' tremble--see him turn pale.

"Dear me!" he whispered, in a choking voice; "can she mean me?"

"Of course she does," said I. "Who else? Do you hesitate? Surely you can't refuse such an invitation from a lady."

"No; I suppose not," said he, mechanically. And, amid much laughter from the disinterested, while the faces of Mrs. Rumbullion and his mother were spectacles of crimson astonishment, he made his exit from the room.

Never in my life did I so much long for that instrument, described by Mr. Samuel Weller--a pair of patent, double-million magnifying microscopes of hex-tery power, to see through a deal door. Instead of this I had to learn what happened only by report.

Lottie Pilgrim was standing under the hall burners with her elbow on the newel-post, more vividly charming than he had ever seen her before, at Mrs. Crajncroud's sociable or elsewhere. When startled by the apparition of Mr. Daniel Lovegrove instead of little Rumbullion whom she was expecting--she had no time to exclaim or hide her mounting color, none at all to explain to her own mind the mistake that had occurred, before his arm was clasped around her waist and his lips so closely pressed to hers that, through her soft, thick hair she could feel the throbbing of his temples. As for Daniel, he seemed in a walking dream, from which he waked to see Miss Pilgrim looking into his eyes with utter, though not incensed stupefaction,--to stammer, "Forgive me! do forgive me! I thought you were in, earnest."

"So I was," she said tremulously, as soon as she could catch her voice, "in sending for my cousin Reginald."

"Oh dear, what shall I do! Believe me, I was told you wanted me. Let me go and explain it to mother. She will tell the rest--I couldn't do it--I'd die of mortification. Oh, that wretched boy Billy!"

On the principle already mentioned, his agitation rea.s.sured her.

"Don't try to explain it now--it may get Billy a scolding. Are there any but intimate family friends here this evening?"

"No--I believe--no--I'm sure," replied Daniel, collecting his faculties.

"Then I don't mind what they think. Perhaps they'll suppose we've known each other long; but we'll arrange it by and by. They'll think the more of it the longer we stay out here--hear them laugh! I must run back now.

I'll send you somebody."

A round of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman's wit told her how to retaliate and divide the embarra.s.sment of the occasion. As she pa.s.sed me she said in an undertone:

"Answer quick! Who is that fat lady on the sofa who laughed so loud?"

"Mrs. Cromwell Craggs," said I, quietly.

Miss Pilgrim made a satirically low courtesy and spoke in a modest but distinct voice:

"I really must be excused for asking. I'm a stranger, you know; but is there such a lady here as Mrs. Craggs--Mrs. _Cromwell_ Craggs? For, if so, the present doorkeeper would like to see Mrs. Cromwell Craggs."

Then came the turn of the fat lady to be laughed at; but out she had to go and get kissed like the rest of us. Before the close of the evening Billy was made as jealous as his parents and I were surprised to see Daniel in close conversation with Miss Pilgrim among the geraniums and fuchsias of the conservatory.

"A regular flirtation," said Billy, somewhat indignantly. The conclusion which they arrived at was that after all no great harm had been done, and that the dear little fellow ought not to be peached on for his fun.

If I had known at the time how easily they forgave him, I should have suspected that the offence Billy had led Daniel into committing was not unlikely to be repeated on the offender's own account; but so much as I could see showed me that the ice was broken.

Billy's jealousy did not outlast the party. He became more and more interested in "his girl," and often went in the afternoon, after getting out of school, ostensibly to play with Jimmy. Daniel's calls, according to adult etiquette, made in the evening, did not interfere with my younger nephew's, and as neither knew that the other, after his fashion, was his most uncompromising rival, my position, as the confidant of both, was one of extreme delicacy. But the matter was more speedily settled than I expected.

Billy came to me one day and told me that he intended to get married immediately; that he was going to speak to his Lottie that very afternoon. He was prepared to meet every objection. He had asked his father if he might, and his father said yes, if he had money enough to support a wife--and Billy thought he had. He'd saved up all the money his Uncle Jim and Aunt Jane had sent him for Christmas; and besides, if he were once married, his father wouldn't see him want for stamps, he knew. Then, too, he was going to leave school and be a merchant next year--and I'd help him now and then, if he got hard up, wouldn't I?

If he were driven to it, he could be a good boy again, and save up the money to buy Lottie presents with, instead of giving it to nasty old "Objecks." He was so much older than when he had the savings-bank that he ought to have at least ten cents a day now for being good; didn't I think that was fair? As to his age, if Lottie loved him, he didn't care--anyway he would be lots bigger than she was before long--and he'd often heard his ma say she approved of early marriages; hers and pa's was one. So he ran off up Livingston Place, the most undaunted lover that ever put an extra shine on his proposal boots, or spent half an hour on the bow of his popping necktie.

Shortly after, Daniel went into the street. Not meaning to call upon his _inamorata_, but drawn by the irresistible fascination of pa.s.sing her house, he strolled in the direction that Billy had gone. As he came to the Rumbullions', something suddenly bade him enter--a whim he called it, but not his own--one of the whims of destiny which are always gratified.

"Yes, sir," said the servant, "Miss Pilgrim is in, I will call her."

His step was always light. He pa.s.sed noiselessly into the front parlor and sat down among the heavy brocatelle curtains which shadowed the recess of one of the windows. He supposed Miss Pilgrim to be upstairs, and while his heart fluttered, expecting her footfall at the particular door, he heard an earnest boyish voice in the inside room. Looking from his concealment he beheld Miss Pilgrim on a sofa in the pier and sitting by her side, with her hand clasped in his, his brother Billy. Before he could avoid it, he became aware that Billy was unconsciously but eagerly forestalling him.

"Now, Lottie, my dear Lottie! I wish you would! I'll do everything I can to make you happy. If you'll only marry me, I'll be good all the time! Come now! Say yes! Father's got a really nice place over the stable--they only use it for a tool room now; we could clear it out and have it scrubbed and go to housekeeping right away. Ma'd let us have all her old set of chinai I've got a silver mug Uncle Teddy gave me and a napkin ring and four spoons. As soon as I make my money I'll buy a nice carriage and horses, any color you want 'em. Oh, my darling, darling Lottie, I do love you so much and we could have such a splendid time! Do say yes, Lottie--please, _do_ please!"