Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-09-10
AFTER THE WAR.


we are wont to have in New York in
mid-winter If the old English saw
keeps its teeth in our New England
civilization, this Christmas would make
a lean churchyard, for although the
brilliant shop windows were smartly
decked with green, the streets and the
roofs were white with snow. There had
been heavy fall the night before, and
the moist flakes had heaped themselves
into a soft and fleecy cushion foot
thick; then in the morning had come a
sharp frost freezing out the water from
the snow-banks cast up by the plows of
the street car companies, and by the in
dividual efforts of the householders,
And now it was Christmas Eve, and the
hurrying multitudes, anxious or joyous,
happy or gloomy, some expanding I'M
der the glow of the merry season, some
shutting themselves only the tighter in
their shells-all tramped up and down
Broadway, crunching the hard, dry
crystals beneath their feet, and shaking
from their heads the continuous hail of
tiny particles which blew from every
housetop.
Amid this throng of men and women
buying the final, forgotten Christmas
gifts, and hurrying home for the Christ
mas rejoicing and rest, walked Alfred
Rollinston, so deeply absorbed in his own
thoughts that he did not see the people
as they passed him. He was thinking of
the letter he had written two days be-
fore. He had asked for an immediate
answer; the mail should be in New York
by this time; and in few minutes more
that answer ought to be in his hands.
He could hardly doubt what it would be
yet he hoped family that it might not
be what he expected. The hope, vague
and slight as it was, made him a little
less unwilling to get the answer and
know the worst at once. His letter had
been written to Susan Hallett, to whom
he had been engaged for years; and it
was to ask her to meet him two days
hence, that they might be married with
out further delay; and he was hoping
feebly that her answer would reveal
some just cause or impeachment why they
should not be joined together in matri-
mony.
1t was the breaking out of the war
which first parted them. He was only
IA years DID, but he went to the front
with the first company from the cape,
and as a drummer-boy he saw four
years hard fighting with the Army of
the Potomac. In all those years he was
able to get home only once to see her
and to see his mother. Just before his
brigade left Appomattox to take part in
the final grand review of the armies of
the Union, there came to him a letter
from her, with deep edges of black, tell
ing him of his mothers sudden death,
but saying nothing of the loving care and
comforting service which she had Law
ished on that mother, left alone while he
was doing his duty in the sharp tussle of
war. What kindness there was in the
simple words of that letter. He re-
called every sentence of it, though
it was eighteen years since he
had read it. All his recollections of
cious and tender, and as his mind went
along old tracks of thought, and as his
memory gave up numberless instances
of her womanly goodness, his heart
smote him, and he reproached himself;
he even wondered at himself, and he
dimly dreaded the day when she should
discover the change in him.
His rapid walk up Broadway brought
him to to the intersection Of Broadway
and Fifth avenue at Twenty third
street. He crossed the street and en-
tered the Fifth avenue hotel. As he
stood before the counter of the office,
the clerk nodded to him in cheerful
recognition, and said:
Il do not know whether the ladies are
in yet. Mr.. Rollinston, but can send
your card up"
Alfred Rollinston flushed to the tenn
Piles, as a man may do when he discov-
ers suddenly that another has noticed
what he supposed he had kept close.
THANK you," he said with an imper-
ceptible effort, "but l can not pay any
visits this afternoon. came to see if
you had a letter for me. I'm expecting
one by the afternoon maitland asked
to have it addressed here, IS may dine
here before leave the city tonight"
The impassive but observant clerk
glanced at handful of letters and said,
"There is nothing for you here, Mr.
Rollinston."
There is perhaps hardly time for it
just yet" replied Rollinston as he turned
away. He drew long breath of relief,
like man reprieved.
AS he walked out of the hotel, and
across the broad avenue to Madison
square, he wondered how the clerk had
come to notice his visits to the hotel
Surely they had not been enough to ex-
cite remark. Once in the square, he
turned and gazed up at the windows of
one of its apartments. But in the dusk
of the twilight there was nothing to be
seen at these windows, the shades of
which had not yet been lowered. Alfred
Rollinston turned abruptly and began to
walk up Fifth avenue. With approach
ing night the air seemed more chill, and
he fastened another button of his over
coat. Suddenly, from the tall mast in
the center of Madison square, there
flashed out the electric light, etching on