The mocking-bird sang as of old in the myrtle-boughs that shaded the study-window, and within the parsonage reigned the peaceful repose which seemed ever to rest like a benediction upon it. A ray of sunshine stealing through the myrtle-leaves made golden ripples on the wall; a bright wood-fire blazed in the wide, deep, old-fashioned chimney; the white cat slept on the rug, with her pink paws turned toward the crackling flames; and blue and white hyacinths hung their fragrant bells over the gilded edge of the vases on the mantelpiece. Huldah sat on one side of the hearth peeling a red apple; and, snugly wrapped in his palm-leaf cashmere dressing-gown, Mr. Hammond rested in his cushioned easy-chair, with his head thrown far back, and his fingers clasping a large bunch of his favorite violets, His snowy hair drifted away from a face thin and pale, but serene and happy, and in his bright blue eyes there was a humorous twinkle, and on his lips a half-smothered smile, as he listened to the witticisms of his Scotch countrymen in "Noctes Ambrosianae."
Close to his chair sat Edna, reading aloud from the quaint and inimitable book he loved so well, and pausing now and then to explain some word which Huldah did not understand, or to watch for symptoms of weariness in the countenance of the invalid.
The three faces contrasted vividly in the ruddy glow of the fire. That of the little girl, round, rosy, red-lipped, dimpled, merry- eyed; the aged pastor's wrinkled cheeks and furrowed brow and streaming silver beard; and the carved-ivory features of the governess, borrowing no color from the soft folds of her rich merino dress. As daylight ebbed, the ripple danced up to the ceiling and vanished, like the pricked bubble of a human hope; the mocking-bird hushed his vesper-hymn; and Edna closed the book and replaced it on the shelf.
Huldah tied on her scarlet-lined hood, kissed her friends good-bye, and went back to Le Bocage; and the old man and the orphan sat looking at the grotesque flicker of the flames on the burnished andirons.
"Edna, are you tired, or can you sing some for me?"
"Reading aloud rarely fatigues me. What shall I sing?"
"That solemn, weird thing in the 'Prophet,' which suits your voice so well."
She sang 'Ah, mon fils!' and then, without waiting for the request which she knew would follow, gave him some of his favorite Scotch songs.
As the last sweet strains of "Mary of Argyle" echoed through the study, the pastor shut his eyes, and memory flew back to the early years when his own wife Mary had sung those words in that room, and his dead darlings clustered eagerly around the piano to listen to their mother's music. Five fair-browed, innocent young faces circling about the idolized wife, and baby Annie nestling in her cradle beside the hearth, playing with her waxen fingers and crowing softly. Death had stolen his household jewels; but recollection robbed the grave, and music's magic touch unsealed "memory's golden urn."