said Rosie. "Don't you see that's what she is doing?"

"I am thinking of those little friends of mine," sighed their mother; "asking myself 'Where are they now?' Ah what changes life brings! how short and hasty it is, and how soon it will be over! I mean the life in this world.

"It is likened in the Bible to a pilgrimage, a tale that is told, a flower that soon withers or is cut down by the mower's scythe, a dream, a sleep, a vapor, a shadow, a handbreadth; a thread cut by the weaver."

"Mamma, are those friends of yours all dead?" asked Walter.

"I will tell you about them," she answered. "Herbert Carrington died young--he was barely sixteen."

With the words a look of pain swept across the still fair, sweet face of the speaker, and she paused for a moment as if almost overcome by some sad recollection.

Violet, who had heard the story from Grandma Rose, understood it.

"Mamma, dear," she said softly, "what a happy thing it was for him--poor sufferer that he was--to be taken so early to the Father's house on high where pain and sin and sorrow are unknown!"

"Yes," returned her mother, furtively wiping away a tear, "and calling to mind the dreadful scenes of the war that followed some years later, and the sore trials that resulted in the Carrington family--I feel that he was taken away from the evil to come.

"Of the others forming that little company Flora Arnott too died young.

Mary Leslie married and moved away, and I have lost sight of her for many years. Carrie Howard lived to become a wife and mother, but was called away from earth years ago. The same words would tell Isabel Carleton's story.

"Lucy Carrington and I are the only ones left, and she, like myself, has children and grandchildren. I hear from her now and then, and we meet occasionally when I go North or she pays a visit to the old home at Ashlands."

"Mrs. Ross," said Rosie half in a.s.sertion, half inquiringly.

"Yes, that is her married name."

"And Aunt Sophy who lives at Ashlands now, is--"

"The widow of Lucy's older brother Harry, and also your Grandma Rose's sister; as you all know."

"Mamma," said Walter, "you didn't mention Grandma Rose at all in telling your story of that Christmas and New Year's. Wasn't she there?"

"No, my son; my father--your grandpa--and I were living alone together at that time. The next summer we went North, and while there visited at Elmgrove, Mr. Allison's country seat, which gave papa and Miss Rose an opportunity to become quite well acquainted.

"I had known and loved Miss Rose before, and was very glad when papa told me she had consented to become his wife and my mother.

"They were married in the fall and when we returned to the Oaks she was with us.

"That made my next Christmas and New Year still happier than the last, and when yet another came round my treasures had been increased in number by the advent of a darling little brother."

"Uncle Horace," said Walter. "Mamma, were you very glad when G.o.d gave him to you?"

"Indeed I was!" she answered with a smile. "I had never had a brother or sister and had often been hungry for one.

"And he has always been a dear, loving brother to me," she went on, "and your Aunt Rose, who came to us while we were in Europe some eight years later, as sweet a sister as any one could desire."

"But about those holidays, mamma, the first when you had a brother?"

persisted Walter; "aren't you going to tell about them?"

"Yes," she answered; "it was a particularly enjoyable time, for we had our cousins--Mildred and Annis Keith--with us. Mildred, though, had become Mrs. Landreth, and had her husband and baby boy with her.

"Annis was a dear, lovable little girl just about my own age. They spent the winter at the Oaks, Annis sharing both my studies and my sports. We had a Christmas party, our guests remaining through the rest of the week."

"Oh mamma, do please go on and tell the whole story of that Christmas, and all the good times you had that winter," pleaded Rosie. "I have always enjoyed it so much, and I'm sure Eva and Lulu and Gracie will."

Rosie's request was seconded by several other voices in the little crowd, and Grandma Elsie, ever willing to give pleasure, kindly complied.

But as my young readers have already had the story in Mildred's Married Life, I shall not repeat it here. Suffice it to say it seemed to greatly interest all her listeners, and Lulu gathered from it a far different impression of Mr. Dinsmore, as a father, from that she had derived from tales told her by some of the old servants in the family connection.

They had given her the idea that he was exceedingly stern and tyrannical, but his daughter painted him as a most loving and indulgent parent. Mayhap the truth lay somewhere between the two pictures, for as he himself had often said, Elsie was ever won't to look upon him through rose colored gla.s.ses.

"You did have a very nice time, Grandma Elsie! I could almost wish I'd been in your place," exclaimed Lulu, when the tale had come to an end.

"But no I don't, either, for then I couldn't be my father's child,"

putting her arm round the captain's neck and laying her cheek to his, "and to belong to him is better than anything else!"

"My little Lulu being the judge," laughed the captain, tightening the clasp of his arm about her waist.

"Or any other of your children, papa," added Grace from her seat on his knee, affectionately stroking his face with her small white hand as she spoke. "Grandma Elsie, won't you please go on and tell about other Christmases that you remember?"

"I think, my dear, I have done my full share of story telling for one evening," replied Mrs. Travilla pleasantly. "It is your father's turn now, as the next in age. Captain, will you not favor us with some of your reminiscences of former holiday experiences? or of something else if you prefer. I know you are a famous story teller."

"Oh yes, captain!" "Oh yes, papa do, please," urged the others.

"Some other time, perhaps," he said. "Do you know how late it is? time to call the servants in to prayers, and then for the little folks to seek their nests. Max, my son, ring the bell."

"Then you don't mean to let us stay up to watch the old year out and the new year in, papa?" queried the lad, as he rose and obeyed the order.

"Hardly," his father answered with a slight smile; "You are all too young to be allowed to lose so large a portion of your night's rest. To do so would spoil all the antic.i.p.ated pleasure of to-morrow."

"Then I am sure we don't want to, captain," said Evelyn, "for we are looking forward to a great deal of pleasure."

CHAPTER XII.

"My little Grace looks tired," the captain said, bending down and taking her in his arms as the little folks were bidding good night. "I shall carry you up stairs, darling, after the old custom."

"Thank you, papa; I'm very willing," replied Grace, clasping his neck with her small arms.

"Lulu, shall I say good night to you first?" he asked, smiling down at his eldest daughter, standing by his side; "as you have Eva with you, you will perhaps not care for the usual bit of good night chat with your father?"

"Yes, indeed I do care for it, papa!" cried Lulu. "Why, I sha'n't have another chance this year! I wouldn't miss it for anything!"

"Then you shall not," he said, looking both pleased and amused; "that sounds as though the next opportunity were far in the distance."

He pa.s.sed out of the room as he spoke, and on up the wide stairway, Lulu and Eva following, each with an arm about the other's waist.