The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-02-24
THE BENNINGTON BANNER FRIDAY FEBRUARY "a. 1898

women, and all that sort of thing" per-
sisted the boy, but you'll have to love
Louise if you care for me, and-well, as
l said, it win only be family party.
Louis half orphan, you know, but her
mothers brick and her cousins are aw-
fully nice people, and you're sRre to like
them ALL Wen only ourselves be there,
and it will be q regular Christmas din
ner, with holly and ivy and mistletoe."
oh, how the major hated Christmas,
its gladness and its festivities! Tie
very memories of those happy Christ
masses of the dead past accumulated that
hate and embittered it. 1t was on
Christmas day that he had first dared to
kiss the woman he had afterward de-
serted. They had brought down from
New York the mistletoe from the other
side of the sea. He had dared to snatch
the kiss she was dying to give as she
stood beneath its white berried branches
All the rest of the merry evening he had
sat drinking in her sweetness with all his
eyes, and later on in the night, when
only the two of them were together, he
had built the first of his dream castles
as he sat beside her and kissed and ca
ressed her again.
1t all came back when Cyril mentioned
the mistletoe. There she stood in loose
white muslin, the sunny beauty of the
south. The candle light seemed laugh
ing in her golden hair as he approached
her; the red flush rose in her cheeks at
his touch.
All, that was Lowell
But now love was all dead, all withered,
all gone IN the long ago.
The major cursed himself up and down
for recalling it, and angrily tapped the
loose sole of his boot against the register.
Cyril was gone. The major hardly no.
ticed his absence, but calculated,
You're brick, Cyril, my boyr' as
though he thought the lad were near by.
In the dim light of the afternoon Cyril
had not noticed that the lines in his
friends face were more drawn than
usual; that his eyes were brighter than
they had ever seemed before, and that
there was a strange pallor over his gray
features. Neither did he notice much
the maid of'all works inquiry, us him
self all right, sir?" But then, you see,
he had not learned that it was now three
days since the major had stirred from
his room.
AS the evening wore on the major
never altered his attitude, though ne
huhOiCu obldllSO ODlHRS W himself.
First he called himself a driVeling
idiot; then hectic flush would mount
his face and he extolled himself as
penitent martyr.
Serves you right, you coward; serves
you right" he muttered, and his ewes
cleaned exultingly. "Who's to pity YOU
now? What good are your dreams. Won
idiot? Starve, d. you! Starye,
starve, you dreamer of dreams!"
he not eaten anything for Ave DAYS.
1t was the oath of December, and he
knew he would have no money where
with to purchase even a roll before the
advent of the new year. Yet ne gloried
in it-gloried fiendishly.
"To-morrow's Chrstmas!' he
chuckled. swell, you loafer, you can
dream or its dinners and bliss! You've
dreamed before, you dreamer; dream
now. Fill yourself, glut yourself with
dreams!"
And again he tapped the register with
his broken shoe and crooned over it. and
though the darkness had settled like a
pail he still forebore to light the gas or
stir from his seat in the corner.
Presently he saw one of the most fan
tastic dreams of bygone folly take
shape outside in the gloom and creep in
through chink in the window. 1t was
once beautiful dream-a vision of end
less fame and millions. 1t crawled in
thrannh a nhinL aud at--ItI..Iy v.-rS- ~
hind him. He begged of it to go away,
but it only jeered at him and then dis
guised itself in the garb of a horrible
shroud. The shroud was fetid and damp
and black and frOze his sole with terror.
1t came and wound itself all around him,
and stitled and choked him with it's
weight and CLEANLINESS. He tried to
shrek out, but tho ghost of another
dead dream came and strangled him and
gagged his mouth with gag. Then an
other dream of glory came and meta
morphosed itself into redhot spike and
ground itself into his head, and all the
other dreams his fancy once had painted
came disguised as cold Jumps of lead and
pounded themselves against the inside
of his stomach.
On Christmas morning the maid of all
work found him there, limp and uncon-
sciOus, a senseless lump of humanity
Jum6led up in heap beside the register.
1t was a charming Christmas party.
A bit old fashioned and unpretentious
for people of wealth and fashion perhaps,
but then, it was purely a family affair,
they none of them minded looking free
and easy.
The coffee merchant himself was there
with his son, and he seemed proud of
the boy as he watched him lowering af-
ter the little girl with the blue eyes and
the gold curls.
The cousins, too, were of the best.
Old Mr.. Hartley locked as if he ought to
have been an archbishop. Mr.. Hartley,
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