Trumps | Page 5

had previously been alarmed about the effect of the
bottle of port--which he metaphorically called a glass--that he had
drunk at dinner, and to guard against evil results he had already, that
very afternoon, as he was accustomed to say with an excellent humor,
been to the West Indies for his health.

"Bless my soul, Doctor, you haven't filled your glass! Permit me."
And the old gentleman poured into the one glass and then into the
other.
"And now, Sir," he added, "now, Sir, let us drink to the health of Mr.
Gray, but not of the boys--ha! ha!"
"No, no, not of the boys? No, not of the boys. Thank you, Sir--thank
you. That is a pleasant liquor, Mr. Burt. H'm, ha! a very pleasant liquor.
Good-afternoon, Mr. Burt; a very good day, Sir. H'm, ha!"
As Hope left her grandfather, Mrs. Simcoe was sitting at her window,
which looked over the lawn in front of the house upon which Hope
presently appeared. It was already toward sunset, and the tender golden
light streamed upon the landscape like a visible benediction. A few
rosy clouds lay in long, tranquil lines across the west, and the great
trees bathed in the sweet air with conscious pleasure.
As Hope stood with folded hands looking toward the sunset, she began
unconsciously to repeat some of the lines that always lay in her mind
like invisible writing, waiting only for the warmth of a strong emotion
to bring them legibly out:
"Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, And its fragments are
sunk in the wave; Though I feel that my soul is delivered To pain, it
shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me; They may
crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture, but shall not
subdue me; 'Tis of thee that I think, not of them."
At the same moment Mrs. Simcoe was closing her window high over
Hope's head. Her face was turned toward the sunset with the usual calm
impassive look, and as she gazed at the darkening landscape she was
singing, in her murmuring way,
"I rest upon thy word; Thy promise is for me: My succor and salvation,
Lord, Shall surely come from thee. But let me still abide, Nor from my
hope remove, Till thou my patient spirit guide Into thy perfect love."

CHAPTER III.
AVE MARIA!
Mr. Gray's boys sat in several pews, which he could command with his
eye from his own seat in the broad aisle. Every Sunday morning at the
first stroke of the bell the boys began to stroll toward the church. But
after they were seated, and the congregation had assembled, and Dr.
Peewee had gone up into the pulpit, the wheels of a carriage were heard
outside--steps were let down--there was an opening of doors, a slight
scuffing and treading, and old Christopher Burt entered. His head was
powdered, and he wore a queue. His coat collar was slightly whitened
with-powder, and he carried a gold-headed cane.
The boys looked in admiration upon so much respectability, powder,
age, and gold cane united in one person.
But all the boys were in love with the golden-haired grand-daughter.
They went home to talk about her. They went to bed to dream of her.
They read Mary Lamb's stories from Shakespeare, and Hope Wayne
was Ophelia, and Desdemona, and Imogen--above all others, she was
Juliet. They read the "Arabian Nights," and she was all the Arabian
Princesses with unpronounceable names. They read Miss
Edgeworth--"Helen," "Belinda."--"Oh, thunder!" they cried, and
dropped the book to think of Hope.
Hope Wayne was not unconscious of the adoration she excited. If a
swarm of school-boys can not enter a country church without turning
all their eyes toward one pew, is it not possible that, when a girl comes
in and seats herself in that pew, the very focus of those burning glances,
even Dr. Peewee may not entirely distract her mind, however he may
rivet her eyes? As she takes her last glance at the Sunday toilet in her
sunny dressing-room at home, and half turns to be sure that the collar is
smooth, and that the golden curl nestles precisely as it should under the
moss rose-bud that blushes modestly by the side of a lovelier bloom--is
it not just supposable that she thinks, for a wayward instant, of other

eyes that will presently scan that figure and face, and feels, with a
half-flush, that they will not be shocked nor disappointed?
There was not a boy in Mr. Gray's school who would have dared to
dream that Hope Wayne ever had such a thought. When she appeared
behind Grandfather Burt and the gold-headed cane she had no more
antecedents in their imaginations than a rose or a rainbow.