News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1881-12-22
LITTLE SILVER LOCKETS.

A STORY FOR CHRISTMAS, BY LOUISE
CHANDLER MoULToE.
Perhaps one girl seldom loves so
dearly as loved Grace Ellsworth and
that may have been the reason why the
wound in my heart, when it came, was
so sore and hard to heal. Since I have
been a grown woman, and fallen into
the way of really thinking about things,
it has often seemed to me that in some
natures jealousy is the, black shadow of
love; and you know how exaggerated
and distorted our shadows always look.
remember the first time I ever saw
Grace. 1t was when I was only four
years old. That is long way back to
remember; but I have heard people
tell of really distinct memories extend
ing back still farther than that. My
first memory was Grace.
I have been told sir ce that my par
ents had just moved into the town
which was Grace's home. Our mothers
had been friends long before, and so
one day was taken to see Grace. Do
such little creatures as was then,
think, wonder?
I hardly know but there is picture
before my eyes, as distinct as any /
have ever seen on canvas, of little girl
in q white frock, with a red ribbon
round her waist, with big black eyes,
and yellow hair hanging about her pink
cheeks.
She had been told by her mother -
but this is one of the things I have
learned since-that I would be little
sister for her and she came toward me,
her small hands outstretched in well
come, without the least childish shy
ness, and said:
"How 90 do, Cahwy? I'm glad 90
come"
believe had the pleasing habit, at
that epoch, of saluting strangers with
a prolonged wall of doubt and dismay;
but this beautiful and friendly vision
put to fight the incipient howl, and I
submitted to be led away by her in tri-
umph. / think I must have been in
PRODUCED to large family of dolls and
storehouse of playtlaings, but 1 re-
member nothing of them; remember
only Grace.
From that day we we're almost daily
together. Is was the easiest way of
Smusing rs; for I was an only child,
SO, to all intents OF companionship,
was Grace, though she had half sister
some ten years older than herself. This
half-sister, Mary, was our benignant
special providence, and I loved her al
most as well as Grace did.
We grew up together, Grace and /;
went to the same school, studied the
same books, dreamed the same dreams.
We used to trace out on our maps the
routes by which we would like to travel.
have been over some of them since,
but not with Grace We used to go
oftenest in our fancy to Rome. We
were full of interest in Roman history,
and we longed to stand among the
stately ruins of that oId-time glory.
have been there when the light was
soft upon the Alban hills, and the sun
low, and thought heard a voice-her
veice-say, gently, 'Here we are, at
last" but / knew it must be the wind
among the stone pines.
When took my last draught from
the fountain of Trevi, under the spring
moonlight, heard the voice again, or
seemed to hear it; but this time it must
have been the murmur of the fountain
itself, for know not what tongue they
speak in the land where Grace is now.
When we were in our fourteenth year
have I told you that we were of the
same age, Grace and pa cousin came
to spend the summer and autumn with
her. This cousin was a nice enough
girl, and really, the most preiudiced
mind could hardly blame her for having
been sent to stay at her Aunt Eilsworth's
while her parents madea journey across
the Atlantic.
But jealousy and justice are not of
the same family, though they begin
with the same letter; and was jealous
of Edith Stanhope from the first.
She was city girl, with pretty little
ways of her own, and various manners
and customs to which Grace and I were
strangers. Her toilets were perfection;
but / honestly think she thought no
more of them than we did of our brown
Holland frocks. She would have been
called handsorner than either of us,
have no doubt; and yet to me her pink
and white face had ne charm compar-
able to that of Grace's rather pale face,
with the great dark eyes, full of truth
and tenderness.
At first Grace tried to make Edith and
me friends; and no doubt it was my
fault that she did not succeed. I wanted
Grace quite to myself, as had had
her all my life; and because could not
SO have her, was touchy and disagree
able; and soon Miss Stanhope let me
see clearly enough that she returned my
Indifference. All the same, she was
Grace's guest, and Grace could not
leave her to come to me- as of old.
When I went there, I could not see
my darling alone, and grew to think
my lot very hard. I was an imaginative
girl, and took refuge in melancholy
poetry, and even dropped into rhymes
myself, in which / bewailed my cruel
fate, and accused my friend of stony
hearted ingratitude ami indifference.
Grace always had an uncomfortable
amount of common sense; and when,
one day, left the most melancholy of
these rhymed lamentations in her desk
at school, I saw her smile as she read
it; a smile full of honest fun, which L
magnifed into scorn and ridicule. My
vanity was as sorely wounded as my
heart, and at once took open issue
with, her. I accused her of preferring
her cousin. / told hel grandiloquently
that she had taught me how little life