My voice sounded so loud that it almost seemed as though they could hear me down at the church; the people at our table all stopped talking, and I just knew they could hear my heart beat.
“You!” said grandma. “You let the cat out?”
Then she questioned, and I answered, until somehow, she had the whole story.
I don’t think any tears dropped, but my eyes and my throat felt full of them. It didn’t seem to me that I could say another word, and then grandma said: “Well, well, child, there are worse things in the world than broken dishes. Eat your wedding cake, and think no more about it.” And I heard her call one of the waiters, and say to him: “Tell little John that he may dress himself again in his best suit, and come to the dining-room as soon as he is ready.” Then I knew that I had been none too soon with my confession.
And the bride, my dear, sweet aunt Kate, leaned over toward me and spoke low, “There are better things than glass dishes,” she said; “there are little nieces who are true.”
And papa looked across the table at me, and nodded, and smiled.
And in spite of the lovely broken dish, and the tablecloth, and my being ashamed, and all, I never felt happier in my life.
And as for the verse, if you girls can’t fit it to the cat story, I shall not be surprised; for I can’t explain it myself, but I know they fitted when the time came. Good-by!
WATER that flows from a spring, does not freeze in the coldest winter. And those sentiments of true friendship which flow from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity.
THERE are four of us young people at home: first I, who am sixteen, then there is a long gap, and next comes Katie, who is eight, and Bessie, who is six, and last of all baby Harry, who is not yet two. But we were all a year younger when what I mean to tell you of happened, for that was a year ago.
I spoke of Katie and Bessie and Harry and myself as the young people, because I think I am rather too old to be called a child, and I didn’t know how else to put it, but I don’t at all mean to call father and mother old. It is true father has a great many gray streaks in his hair, but I think that is more from care than from age.
It makes me sad, however, very sad, to see father’s hair changing color; but when I speak of it, he only laughs and says: “The whites are gaining the ascendency, and the aborigines becoming extinct.”