You know how it came about that Colonel and Mrs. Boniface went to the Assembly; it was simply because they felt they ought to. If the old friends were truly sorry for having been so unfriendly, would it not be ungracious for them to decline this invitation? Would it not look as if they themselves were still harboring ill-feeling? And you also know that Harry Avery had been consulted in the matter, and that his urgent advice had been, “Go, by all means.” So the Colonel and his wife had decided to accept quite in the face of all their preferences, and dreading the ordeal far more than either was willing to confess to the other. But alas! for the decision that cost them such a personal sacrifice, and alas! for the hopefulness of Harry’s buoyant temperament; for if Colonel and Mrs. Boniface ever had reason abundantly to regret any step they had ever taken, it was going to this Dancing Assembly; and if ever two proud and sensitive hearts were stung to the quick, theirs were that evening. It seems that Harry was mistaken in thinking that the invitation had been sent because of a general desire to make amends to the Bonifaces. True it was that two members of the Assembly Committee had insisted upon their being invited, hardly thinking, however, that they would come; but alas! in case they did come some other members had resolved to make it very uncomfortable for them. Somehow or other nothing seems so completely to change a warm human heart into something as cold and hard as a stone as what men call a strong party feeling, and party feeling ran very high in those days in which our great-grandfathers lived a hundred years ago. That is to say, men felt so sure that their own opinions were the only right ones that they fairly hated those who did not agree with them.
And so it happened that, with cheeks crimsoned from the insults they had received, and with blood tingling to their very finger tips Colonel and Mrs. Boniface left the room, sending word to Josephine (who had been screened from any insult by Harry’s chivalrous devotion) to follow them. Hazel suddenly missed them from the crowd below, and knew in a flash what had happened. Indeed, the color had flushed into her own round cheeks as she thought she saw a Mrs. Potter, whose husband was a leading Whig, pretend not to see that Mrs. Boniface had made a move toward shaking hands with her. But “No,” she thought, “I must be mistaken; no lady would be so rude.” So it would seem, little Hazel; but it often happens that things are not what they seem in this queer world of ours; and as Hazel’s dear mother learned to her sorrow, several others who called themselves ladies could be just as rude as Mrs. Potter, and some of them yet more rude. Fortunately for the Mar-berrys and Starlight and Flutters, the clock was just on the stroke of eight when Hazel made her unhappy discovery, for she could not have borne to have sat there another moment looking down on that brilliant company, many of whom, looking so fine and attractive, were at heart so cruel.
“Time’s up,” said Hazel, starting to creep round to the little door at the back of the gallery, and not trusting herself to say more than that for fear a trembling voice should betray her suppressed excitement.
Hazel was the acknowledged commander-in-chief of that little party, and difficult as it was to turn abruptly from the fascinating scene, the children dropped obediently on to all fours, and followed in her train. The Marberrys’ carriage was waiting at the door, and Flutters, after helping the others in, climbed onto the box beside Jake, the driver. It was wonderful the way in which he seemed always to know intuitively the “proper thing” to do. He was constantly placed on such an equal footing with the other children that it would have been only natural for him to have frequently forgotten that, after all, he was only Miss Hazel’s little servant; but somehow or other he never did forget it; perfectly free in his manner, and never in any sense servile, yet always betraying a little air of respectful deference that was simply charming. Indeed, body-servant or no, all the Bonifaces had grown to actually loving little Flutters, and Flutters knew it and was radiantly happy.
All the way home Hazel tried to be as merry as before. It would be such a pity, she thought unselfishly, to spoil the Marberrys’ good time; but she did not succeed very well.
“Are you tired, Hazel?” asked Milly, as they neared home.
“Yes, awfully tired,” and with this admission the tears sprang into her eyes; but fortunately it was too dark in the carriage for any one to see them. “It’s very uncomfortable,” she added, “to sit with your legs curled under you so long as we had to there in the gallery.”
“Do you think so?” exclaimed Tilly; “why, I could have sat there till morning, and never known I had a leg, it was all so lovely!”
“So lovely!” echoed Milly in a tone of evident regret that it was over.
“Here we are,” said Hazel, as Flutters leaped down and opened the door for her; “good-night, Milly” (a kiss); “good-night, Tilly” (another kiss); “much obliged for the ride.”
“Much obliged for the lovely time,” the Marberrys called back, for Jake, impatient to get home and to bed, had immediately driven on.
“Why, it looks as though your father and mother were home,” Starlight exclaimed as they walked up the path.
“Yes, they are home, I know that,” said Hazel, excitedly, “and Josephine is home, and I know too that they’ve had a horrid time, and that they’ll never go to anything in New York again—never; and if there is a cowardly set of creatures in the world it’s the spiteful old Whigs.”
Starlight and Flutters stood aghast, while Hazel flew past them into the house, slamming the front door after her, as much as to say that no exasperating Whig should ever enter it again, not even if his name was Job Avery Starlight.
The boys sat down on the step of the porch and conversed in dazed, excited whispers as to what it could all mean.
Hazel flew up the stairs into her mother’s room and into her mother’s arms with one great sob.
0159
“Why, Hazel, my little daughter, what is the matter?” and Mrs. Boniface, whom Hazel had found sitting in a low rocker at the window, still in the dress she had worn to the ball, drew Hazel’s brown head on to her shoulder, and soothingly stroked the brown wavy hair; but the tears were in her own eyes, and her heart was very heavy.
Hazel could not speak at first for crying, but the caressing touch of that dear hand was wonderfully calming, and presently she was able to say, “I know all about it, mother. I know they treated you shamefully. I saw that horrid old Mrs. Potter when she—”
“Hazel! Hazel, dear, you must not talk like this.”
“But it’s true, every word of it is true, and tell me” (and Hazel straightened herself up and looked through blinding tears into her mother’s face), “didn’t they insult you? didn’t they treat you very rudely, and didn’t you all come home on that account?”
“Well, they certainly were not very kind, Hazel, and it seemed best for us to come home; but it is not worth caring too much about, you know.”
“And to think how friendly Mrs. Potter used to be, and how much she pretended to think of you, mother,” and Hazel becoming a little less excited, thoughtfully turned the little turquoise ring on her finger round and round, and shook her head sadly from side to side, as though her faith in human nature was forever shaken, as indeed it had reason to be.
It was a pretty picture, albeit a rather sad one, the mother and daughter, in the graceful costumes of a hundred years ago, sitting there in the low studded room, dimly lighted by the little rush-light on the mantel—a high narrow mantel, with the glowing embers on the andirons beneath it crackling loudly now and then, after the manner of a good fire that is slowly dying out. An oblong mirror, hung at a wide angle from the wall, surmounted the high mantel, and reflected the little rocker with its double load, and the pretty old-fashioned drapery at the window. It was not often that that little mirror, nor any other mirror for that matter, had the chance to frame a picture for itself full as lovely as ever artist dreamed of.
But while Hazel and her mother were talking, and Hazel herself was growing calmer and Mrs. Boniface’s heart lighter with the effort to cheer her, some other things were happening in which we have an interest. Captain Boniface was striding along the road that led on to the Marberrys, trying to walk off the angry feelings that threatened to get the mastery over him. There is nothing like a good brisk walk in bracing air to get a feverish, excited mind into normal condition, and the Captain knew it; but when the force of the angry mood had spent itself, there still was left to him a sense of sad hopelessness for which he saw no remedy. To have a little family on one’s hands and no money to care for them is enough to make the bravest heart heavy; but to have reached that point, and at the same time to see every chance of ever getting on one’s feet again absolutely taken away, is enough to break a man’s spirit. And matters had come to just that pass that evening with Captain Boniface. If the old friends had at last shown themselves friendly, he would have felt there was a hope of his making his services valuable to some of them, as indeed there would have been, for every one acknowledged Captain Boniface to be a man of rare ability. But it had now been shown him very plainly that there was no use in longer trying to stem the tide of hate and prejudice that set so strongly against him, and with the future a hopeless blank, he finally turned his face homeward. But the other thing that was happening, and in which we too have an interest, was of a cheerier sort, and was taking place at the Assembly, which had only fairly gotten under way when the Bonifaces left it.
That old-fashioned law of a partner for the evening, to be chosen by lot, of course applied only to the young folks, and the more staid, middle-aged, and elderly people were free to chat with each other, else why should they have cared to go to the ball at all?
Now it happened that Aunt Frances, who was quite in ignorance of the sad experiences of the Bonifaces, was having a most satisfactory conversation with a Mrs. Rainsford, a near neighbor, whom she had not seen since her flight from home nearly two years before, for Mrs. Rainsford was able to answer a great many questions which Aunt Frances had been longing to ask about her own home, and the care it was having.
“No, I should not think the place had been greatly abused,” said Mrs. Rainsford, while Aunt Frances sat, an eager listener. “Captain Wadsworth moved his men down to the barracks at Fort George a month ago, and since then he has been giving the house a thorough overhauling. You know he has resigned his commission, and intends to remain in this country.”
“Yes; and I know, too, that he intends to remain in my home,” sighed Aunt Frances. “I wonder if he would sell it to me, though, for that matter, it’s as much mine to-day as it ever was. But there’s no use to talk about that either, for I have saved from the wreck barely money enough to live upon.”
“But, Miss Avery,” said Mrs. Rainsford in a serious whisper, that was scarcely audible above the music, “I’ll tell you one thing: I do not believe Captain Wadsworth will remain in your house very long.”
“Indeed! why not?” and Aunt Frances’s elevated eyebrows betrayed her surprise.
“Why, because it is going to be so very uncomfortable for all Loyalists here in the city.”
“I do not quite see what you mean, Mrs. Rainsford.”
“No, of course not, dear,” replied Mrs. Rainsford (seeming to regard Aunt Frances in the light of an older daughter, though, in point of fact, there was but little difference in their ages.) “No, of course not; your kind heart would never dream of such things as are happening on every side. The leading Whigs, now that the Revolution has been successful, say that they’ll make this town too hot to hold a single Tory, and, mark my words, they’ll do it, too. Perhaps you haven’t noticed how the Bonifaces were treated tonight; they went home some time ago.”
“Why, Mrs. Rainsford, can that be possible?” questioned Aunt Frances, looking vainly about the room in search of her friends; “I call that cruelty of the most unwarrantable sort.”
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