"Who do you suppose did it?" asked the General.

"Impossible to tell. A drunken brawl, with its natural consequences; that's all."

"Yes, I know; but it's awful."

"Providential."

"What do you mean?"

"Abel Newt would have made mince-meat of you and me and the rest of us if he had lived. That's what I mean," replied Mr. Condor, unruffled, and lightly whiffing the smoke. "But it's necessary to draw some resolutions to offer in the committee, and I've brought them with me. You know there's a special meeting called to take notice of this deplorable event, and you must present them. Shall I read them?"

Mr. Condor drew a piece of paper from his pocket, and, holding his cigar in one hand and whiffing at intervals, read:

"Whereas our late associate and friend, Abel Newt, has been suddenly removed from this world, in the prime of his life and the height of his usefulness, by the hand of an inscrutable but all-wise Providence, to whose behests we desire always to bow in humble resignation; and

"Whereas, it is eminently proper that those to whom great public trusts have been confided by their fellow-citizens should not pass away without some signal expression of the profound sense of bereavement which those fellow-citizens entertain; and

"Whereas we represent that portion of the community with whom the lamented deceased peculiarly sympathized; therefore be it resolved by the General Committee,

"_First_, That this melancholy event impressively teaches the solemn truth that in the midst of life we are in death;

"_Second_ That in the brilliant talents, the rare accomplishments, the deep sagacity, the unswerving allegiance to principle which characterized our dear departed brother and associate, we recognize the qualities which would have rendered the progress of his career as triumphant as its opening was auspicious;

"_Third,_ That while we humble ourselves before the mysterious will of Heaven, which works not as man works, we tender our most respectful and profound sympathy to the afflicted relatives and friends of the deceased, to whom we fervently pray that his memory may be as a lamp to the feet;

"_Fourth,_ That we will attend his funeral in a body; that we will wear crape upon the left arm for thirty days; and that a copy of these resolutions, signed by the officers of the Committee, shall be presented to his family."

"I think that'll do," said Mr. Condor, resuming his cigar, and laying the paper upon the table.

"Just the thing," said General Belch. "Just the thing. You know the Grant has passed and been approved?"

"Yes, so Ele wrote me," returned Mr. Condor.

"Condor," continued the General, "I've had enough of it. I'm going to back out. I'd rather sweep the streets."

General Belch spoke emphatically, and his friend turned toward him with a pleasant smile.

"Can you make so much in any other way?"

"Perhaps not. But I'd rather make less, and more comfortably."

"I find it perfectly comfortable," replied William Condor. "You take it too hard. You ought to manage it with less friction. The point is, to avoid friction. If you undertake to deal with men, you ought to understand just what they are."

Mr. Condor smoked serenely, and General Belch looked at his slim, clean figure, and his calm face, with curious admiration.

"By-the-by," said Condor, "when you introduce the resolutions, I shall second them with a few remarks."

And he did so. At the meeting of the Committee he rose and enforced them with a few impressive and pertinent words.

"Gratitude," he said, "is instinctive in the human breast. When a man does well, or promises well, it is natural to regard him with interest and affection. The fidelity of our departed brother is worthy of our most affectionate admiration and imitation. If you ask me whether he had faults, I answer that he was a man. Who so is without sin, let him cast the first stone."

On the same day the Honorable B. Jawley Ele rose in his place in Congress to announce the calamity in which the whole country shared, and to move an adjournment in respect for the memory of his late colleague--"a man endeared to us all by the urbanity of his deportment and his social graces; but to me especially, by the kindness of his heart and the readiness of his sympathy."

Abel Newt was buried from his father's house. There were not many gathered at the service in the small, plain rooms. Fanny Dinks was there, sobered and saddened--the friend now of Hope Wayne, and of Amy, her Uncle Lawrence's wife. Alfred was there, solemnized and frightened. The office of Lawrence Newt & Co. was closed, and the partners and the clerks all stood together around the coffin. Abel's mother, shrouded in black, sat in a dim corner of the room, nervously sobbing. Abel's father, sitting in his chair, his white hair hanging upon his shoulders, looked curiously at all the people, while his bony fingers played upon his knees, and he said nothing.

During all the solemn course of the service, from the gracious words, "I am the resurrection and the life," to the final Amen which was breathed out of the depth of many a soul there, the old man's eyes did not turn from the clergyman. But when, after a few moments of perfect silence, two or three men entered quietly and rapidly, and, lifting the coffin, began to bear it softly out of the room, he looked troubled and surprised, and glanced vaguely and inquiringly from one person to another, until, as it was passing out of the door, his face was covered with a piteous look of appeal: he half-rose from his chair, and reached out toward the door, with the long white fingers clutching in the air; but Hope Wayne took the wasted hands in hers, placed her arm behind him gently, and tenderly pressed him back into the chair. The old man raised his eyes to her as she stood by him, and holding one of her hands in one of his, the spectral calmness returned into his face; while, beating his thin knee with the other hand, he said, in the old way, as the body of his son was borne out of his house, "Riches have wings! Riches have wings!" But still he held Hope Wayne's hand, and from time to time raised his eyes to her face.

CHAPTER XC.

UNDER THE MISLETOE.

The hand which held that of old Boniface Newt was never placed in that of any, younger man, except for a moment; but the heart that warmed the hand henceforward held all the world.

We have come to the last leaf, patient and gentle reader, and the girl we saw sitting, long ago, upon the lawn and walking in the garden of Pinewood is not yet married! Yes, and we shall close the book, and still she will be Hope Wayne.

How could we help it? How could a faithful chronicler but tell his story as it is? It is not at his will that heroes marry, and heroines are given in marriage. He merely watches events and records results; but the inevitable laws of human life are hidden in God's grace beyond his knowledge.

There is Arthur Merlin painting pictures to this day, and every year with greater beauty and wider recognition. He wears the same velvet coat of many buttons--or its successor in the third or fourth remove--and still he whistles and sings at his work, still draws back from the easel and turns his head on one side to look at his picture, and cons it carefully through the tube of his closed hand; still lays down the pallet and, lighting a cigar, throws himself into the huge easy-chair, hanging one leg over the chair-arm and gazing, as he swings his foot, at something which does not seem to be in the room. Cheerful and gay, he has always a word of welcome for the loiterer who returns to Italy by visiting the painters; even if the loiterer find him with the foot idly swinging and the cigar musingly smoking itself away.

Nor is the painter conscious of any gaping, unhealed wound that periodically bleeds. There are nights in mid-summer when, leaning from his window, he thinks of many things, and among others, of a picture he once painted of the legend of Latmos. He smiles to think that, at the time, he half persuaded himself that he might be Endymion, yet the feeling with which he smiles is of pity and wonder rather than of regret.

At Thanksgiving dinners, at Christmas parties, at New Year and Twelfth Night festivals, no guest so gay and useful, so inventive and delightful, as Arthur Merlin the painter. Just as Aunt Winnifred has abandoned her theory it has become true, and all the girls do seem to love the man who respects them as much as the younger men do with whom they nightly dance in winter. He romps with the children, has a perfectly regulated and triumphant sliding-scale of gifts and attentions; and only this Christmas, although he is now--well, Aunt Winnifred has locked up the Family Bible and begins to talk of Arthur as a young man--yet only this Christmas, at Lawrence Newt's family party, at which, so nimbly did they run round, it was almost impossible to compute the actual number of Newt, and Wynne, and Bennet children--Arthur Merlin brought in, during the evening, with an air of profound secrecy, something covered with a large handkerchief. Of course there could be no peace, and no blindman's-buff, no stage-coach, no twirling the platter, and no snap-dragon, until the mystery was revealed; The whole crowd of short frocks and trowsers, and bright ribbons, and eyes, and curls, swarmed around the painter until he displayed a green branch.

A pair of tiny feet, carrying a pair of great blue eyes and a head of golden curls, scampered across the floor to Lawrence Newt.

"Oh, papa, what is that green thing with little berries on it?"

"That's a misletoe bough, little Hope."

"But, papa, what's it for?"

The painter was already telling the children what it was for; and when he had hung it up over the folding-doors such a bubbling chorus of laughter and merry shrieks followed, there was such a dragging of little girls in white muslin by little boys in blue velvet, and such smacking, and kissing, and happy confusion, that the little Hope's curiosity was immediately relieved. Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.

But when Arthur Merlin himself joined the romp, and, chasing Hope Wayne through the lovely crowd of shouting girls and boys, finally caught her and led her to the middle of the room and dropped on one knee and kissed her hand under the misletoe, then the delight burst all bounds; and as Hope Wayne's bright, beautiful face glanced merrily around the room--bright and beautiful, although she is young no longer--she saw that the elders were shouting with the children, and that Lawrence Newt and his wife, and his niece Fanny, and papa and mamma Wynne, and Bennet, were all clapping their hands and laughing.

She laughed too; and Arthur Merlin laughed; and when Ellen Bennet's oldest daughter (of whom there are certain sly reports, in which her name is coupled with that of her cousin Edward, May Newt's oldest son) sat down to the piano and played a Virginia reel, it was Arthur Merlin who handed out Hope Wayne with mock gravity, and stepped about and bowed around so solemnly, that little Hope Newt, sitting upon her papa's knee and nestling her golden curls among his gray hair, laughed all the time, and wished that Christmas came every day in the year, and that she might always see Mr. Arthur Merlin dancing with dear Aunt Hope.

When the dance was over and the panting children were resting, Gabriel Newt, Lawrence's youngest boy, said to Arthur,

"Mr. Merlin, what game shall we play now? What game do you like best?"

"The game of life, my boy," replied Arthur.

"Oh, pooh!" said Gabriel, doubtfully, with a vague feeling that Mr.

Merlin was quizzing him.