Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-09-09

here so often; wish you would go up in the
parlor tonight; come! pleaded Caroline.
mot |" laughed the merchant hoarsely.-|
=" Why, girl, they wouldn't know me up
there Men know John Balfour ON State
Street and in his counting-room; Mrs. John
Balfour knows me when she asks for q hundred
dollars or SO, to squander in fnery my girls
know me, too, when they tease for pin-money,
or the means to give party; but that's all
Mrs. John Balfour and her daughters drive out
daily in their carriage; they attend concerts
and the opera they give entertainments but
poor John Balfour is never seen there. Little
one. l begin to think that John Balfour is only
silent partner in this concern" " And again
that strange laugh-a mixture of sarcasm and
Ipan-foated out through the dim basement
room, where the merchant sat often till mid
night at baize-covered table over his papers.
"Oh, uncle, don't I wish l could do
something to make you feel happier " said
Caroline.
"Well, don't you?" echoed the merchant
Who steals down here every night to bring
me my tea, to warm my slippers, and then
creeps into my lap, and looks into my eyes with
the eyes of her mother? No, Carrie, I have
no daughter but you!" And the sadness of
John Balfour's voice would have moved you to
tears. Child, / did not look forward to see
this day when, forty years ago, slung my lit
tie bundle of clothes over my shoulder, and,
kissing my mother and Katy last up there in the
old farmhouse, set out to seek my fortune.
have worked and toied. married poor girl
poor but ambitious-and we worked and
toiled together till fortune smiled or me, and I
grew to be a rich man. Rut riches don't al
ways bring happiness, child-no, no Poor
Joseph He came to the city q year or two
after |, got into business, was sent to India by
the firm, and accumulated an immense fortune
but he didn't live to enjoy it; left it all to
Ralph. No wealth doesn't always bring hap
pioess. I'd give half I'm worth to enjoy life
as Eben does, up in Vermont in the old home
stead. I fairly enved him last summer" "
Uncle, why don't you buy faru up there
and leave this business, that wears you to
death ?" asked Caroline. g 1t would be SC
beautiful among the birds and flowers, and in
those grand old maple forests y
The old man s eye kindled. "The same ma.
pie woods where Katy and used to play it
childhood he said enthusiastically then hi
kindling eye faded. It's impossible, child
| am chained to it here-the ceaseless treadmil
of trade. Once might have done it but not
now."
Why, uncle, everybody calls you yer.
wa2J ny vpoNn and I'm spre it wonldn't cost s.
very muchto buy nice little farm, exclaimed
the girl,
"No, not so very much but if-girl do yor
know? ?" And John Balfour whispered some
thing strangely exciting in his niece's car,
one might judge from the start which Carri
gave, and the bitter, hopeless expression tina
settled on his own compressed lips.
{" Oh, uucle is it so bad as that! " sh
queried. "Why don't you tell them of it?-
I'm sure they would economize, and do any
thing to prevent it "
Economize! girl, the word is unknown i
Mrs John Balfour's vocabulary. Once, whe
she was Henrietta Stevens, the milliner, whe
we went to housekeeping in a narrow cour
and up three flights at that, it might have been
but not now, when she lives in stone front 0
B Street, and keeps her footman. 1t is tC
late Didn't protest against this nights d.
ings-this nights music, and supper, and ne
dresses, which at least will cost five hundr(
, dollars-and that five hundred not my ow
3 money? And all to welcome Ralph, who, aft
all, didn't come Wonder if they'd take on
hundreth part the pains to welcome broth
q Eben's boy, who's coming from beneath the o
a homestead to begin new life in this toilir
4 city? Heaven save him from the mistake
: poor old uncle made All, Carrie, it's II
late " said the old man sadly and bitterl,
g they've got to take it when it comes, and we
q all 60 down together?"
n And there, while the harassed, carewo
t merchant sat in the gloomy communion of /
t own thoughts, with Carrie Lindsey soft che
= pressed closer to his, the feet oil merry dance
/! shook tho floor above, and the intoxicatl
2 strains of one of Straus waltzes filled all t
e silence.
n Mirth, o Sadness, how oft ye tread-u
}, recognized, but twin-handed-side by side