ON entering the main street of the pretty town, the name of Somers, in gilt capitals, was sufficiently conspicuous over the door of a very imposing shop. It boasted two plate-glass windows, at one of which were tastefully exhibited various articles of fine stationery, embroidery patterns, etc.; at the other, no less tastefully, sundry specimens of ornamental basket-work.
Kenelm crossed the threshold and recognized behind the counter—fair as ever, but with an expression of face more staid, and a figure more rounded and matron-like—his old friend Jessie. There were two or three customers before her, between whom she was dividing her attention. While a handsome young lady, seated, was saying, in a somewhat loud but cheery and pleasant voice, “Do not mind me, Mrs. Somers: I can wait,” Jessie’s quick eye darted towards the stranger, but too rapidly to distinguish his features, which, indeed, he turned away, and began to examine the baskets.
In a minute or so the other customers were served and had departed; and the voice of the lady was again heard, “Now, Mrs. Somers, I want to see your picture-books and toys. I am giving a little children’s party this afternoon, and I want to make them as happy as possible.”
“Somewhere or other, on this planet, or before my Monad was whisked away to it, I have heard that voice,” muttered Kenelm. While Jessie was alertly bringing forth her toys and picture-books, she said, “I am sorry to keep you waiting, sir; but if it is the baskets you come about, I can call my husband.”
“Do,” said Kenelm.
“William, William,” cried Mrs. Somers; and after a delay long enough to allow him to slip on his jacket, William Somers emerged from the back parlour.
His face had lost its old trace of suffering and ill health; it was still somewhat pale, and retained its expression of intellectual refinement.
“How you have improved in your art!” said Kenelm, heartily.
William started, and recognized Kenelm at once. He sprang forward and took Kenelm’s outstretched hand in both his own, and, in a voice between laughing and crying, exclaimed, “Jessie, Jessie, it is he!—he whom we pray for every night. God bless you! God bless and make you as happy as He permitted you to make me!”
Before this little speech was faltered out, Jessie was by her husband’s side, and she added, in a lower voice, but tremulous with deep feeling, “And me too!”
“By your leave, Will,” said Kenelm, and he saluted Jessie’s white forehead with a kiss that could not have been kindlier or colder if it had been her grandfather’s.
Meanwhile the lady had risen noiselessly and unobserved, and stealing up to Kenelm, looked him full in the face.
“You have another friend here, sir, who has also some cause to thank you—”
“I thought I remembered your voice,” said Kenelm, looking puzzled. “But pardon me if I cannot recall your features. Where have we met before?”
“Give me your arm when we go out, and I will bring myself to your recollection. But no: I must not hurry you away now. I will call again in half an hour. Mrs. Somers, meanwhile put up the things I have selected. I will take them away with me when I come back from the vicarage, where I have left the pony-carriage.” So, with a parting nod and smile to Kenelm, she turned away, and left him bewildered.
“But who is that lady, Will?”
“A Mrs. Braefield. She is a new comer.”
“She may well be that, Will,” said Jessie, smiling, “for she has only been married six months.”
“And what was her name before she married?”
“I am sure I don’t know, sir. It is only three months since we came here, and she has been very kind to us and an excellent customer. Everybody likes her. Mr. Braefield is a city gentleman and very rich; and they live in the finest house in the place, and see a great deal of company.”
“Well, I am no wiser than I was before,” said Kenelm. “People who ask questions very seldom are.”
“And how did you find us out, sir?” said Jessie. “Oh! I guess,” she added, with an arch glance and smile. “Of course, you have seen Miss Travers, and she told you.”
“You are right. I first learned your change of residence from her, and thought I would come and see you, and be introduced to the baby,—a boy, I understand? Like you, Will?”
“No, sir, the picture of Jessie.”
“Nonsense, Will; it is you all over, even to its little hands.”
“And your good mother, Will, how did you leave her?”
“Oh, sir!” cried Jessie, reproachfully; “do you think we could have the heart to leave Mother,—so lone and rheumatic too? She is tending baby now,—always does while I am in the shop.”
Here Kenelm followed the young couple into the parlour, where, seated by the window, they found old Mrs. Somers reading the Bible and rocking the baby, who slept peacefully in its cradle.
“Will,” said Kenelm, bending his dark face over the infant, “I will tell you a pretty thought of a foreign poet’s, which has been thus badly translated:
“‘Blest babe, a boundless world this bed so narrow seems to thee; Grow man, and narrower than this bed the boundless world shall be.’” 1
(1)Schiller.
“I don’t think that is true, sir,” said Will, simply; “for a happy home is a world wide enough for any man.”
Tears started into Jessie’s eyes; she bent down and kissed—not the baby, but the cradle. “Will made it.” She added blushing, “I mean the cradle, sir.”
Time flew past while Kenelm talked with Will and the old mother, for Jessie was soon summoned back to the shop; and Kenelm was startled when he found the half-hour’s grace allowed to him was over, and Jessie put her head in at the door and said, “Mrs. Braefield is waiting for you.”
“Good-by, Will; I shall come to see you again soon; and my mother gives me a commission to buy I don’t know how many specimens of your craft.”
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg