Something The Cat Brought In

Of all evenings ia 'he year for lovers to quarrel - Ohristmas ove, when the whole world should not be only at peace, but uncommonly ;ol)y; when everybody should be buying presenta for everyhody else; when Serooge should be dreaming the wonderf ui dreams and seeing the wonderful visions whieh are to eonvert him from a detestable oíd miser into the most benevolent of pul lic benefactors; when the cricket and the kettle should be beginmng, in merry rivalry, to sing their fireside songs of love and welcome; when the green Christmas trres, standing in groups in the crowded toy shops, should be wishing each other a pleasant " good-by " ero tliey are separatod to be hung with hunureds of tiny wax-tapers and pretty gifts for young and old in many a happy home; when people wlio, during the last 365 days, liad fallen out, should be serionsly thinking oï shaking hands and falling in again; when all the churches should be bright with sturdy evergreens, and sweet with lovely flowers, and musical with the sound of joyful children voices blended harmoniously together in quaint old Christmas carols. And no doubt most of these things were being done, for there was no end of laughter and merry talk in the streets, and tho shop windows were blazing with gas-jets, and crowded with all sorts of articles for all the sorts of purposes; nnd from all tho houses carne long rays of light and sounds of music and dancing and romping (where there was a house which gave forth no light or sounds of nierrinient it was only becauso the family had gone to a party nextdoor, or across the way, or aroimd the corner); and every man, woman and child abroad carried a bundie, packnge or basket, and every face wore a Binile - with one exceptiou. And that isn"t the worst of it. That exeeption wore the frowniest kind of a frown instead. Ptolemy Lollive?, carpenter, young, good-looking, honest, sober, industrious -with but one fanlt, in f act - and a shop of his own in prospect as soon as the new year was fairly installed in Üie place of the departing one; and yot here he was, on Christmas eve, walking rapidly through the street, looking neitlier to the right nor left, his fur cap pulled down over his eye-8, and his hands thrust deep in his overeoat pockets. " Cünfound tho fellow !" be muttered, " with his h andsome face and romantic name - ' Arthur Godfrey !' I wonder wliat possessed the old foJks to cali me Ptolemy - Ptolemy, 'greatin war;' that m:iy bc - I've never had a chance to flnd out - bilt mighty small in love, I take it. I snw him kiss her hand as she stood in the doorway. She must have given liim the glove. If she didu't, why should he - confound his impudence ! - flourish it I in irty face in such a triumphaut manner as I was coming up the steps ? and why, if she didn't - confound his impudence again ! - shouid he cali out: ' Take care of her, Lolliver,' as he thrust it iuto his pocket, showing those oonfounded white teeth of his all tho time ? It was hers; I'm suro of it. That shade's one in a hundred. I ought to know; I had trouble enough finding it. ' Off for a year, is he ? He'll be. back m a month - that's my opinión. I'd como back if I wtre he, and Essie had given me her glove to wear next my heart. Provokiug little ihing ! not a word would she eay ; only drew herself up with a tragedy air, and flashed lier bright eyes at me. And yet she's only known tho handsome scamp half a year, and I - why, I've loved lier ever sinee I eaw her flrst, one sumrner's day ten years ago, a cunning, rosy-cheeked, goldeu-haired girl, standing near the sehool-houso Jooking after tbc big dog that had suatehed her lunchbasket and run a way with it, with a queer look on her sweet face, as though sbe didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I gave her my lunch - two apples and a piece of gingerbread - and bought her a new basket, though it took almost all the money I'd been saving for months for the Fourth of July, leaving me only enough to buy two packages of rireeraokers and three pin-wheels. And tli h ia how i1;'a ended- ha! ha!" - laughing sardonically - " like the lireworks, in smoke. I eouldn't have expected anything else from such a featheryheaded little thing. Essie's too pretty to be constant to one, espeeially when the one's Ptolemy Lolliver, a carpenter, b'unt and rough-looking, and the other's Arthur Grodfiey, liandsome and well educated. Great heavens 1 howl love her!" " You do!" squeaked an old woman against whom he ad ïuu. ' ' Then you'd better go and teil lier so, instead of upsetting inarket-baskets, and knocking honest folts down and walking over them," which, to put it mildly, was a slight exaggeration. " I begyour pardon. I'm very sorry," said Ptolemy. "Piek up the potatoes and 111 believe yon, young man," said the old woman. " My back's too stiff to bend - and there's an onion rolled into Ihe gutter.' " Potatoes, onions, love andjealousy," said Ptolemy, abatraetodly, as he collected the scattered - " what a strange mixture !" ' ' Leavo out one of theni ingredients and put a bit of meafc in its place, and it'd be a very nice mixture," said the old woman ; ' ' and then let it go elow - slow, young man, over a slow flre, and you'll havo no reason to be dissatisfied with it. Merry Christmas ! " Any other timo he would havo burst into a genial roar, and given the old woman two Merry Christmases for her one, with a " God bless you, auntie ! ' thrown in, but nowhe didn't even smile, but thrust his hands into his pockets again, and, walking on rnpidly, took up the toread the basket had broken. 'Til see her once more, though I told herto-night we'd parted forever, and I'll ask her (ipain, aeriouely and oalmly )nn timo, 'for I was in rather a temper last night, if she gave him the glove ; and, if she refuseB to answer, or if her amswer is ' YeB,' 111 be off myself to some foreign land for a year - or two-or ten - ortwenty." And waxing angrier and angrier lie went on: "She always was a flirt, and always made me wretched. There's Frank Mears, sho danced with him almost all thé evening at Kate Gninea's party, and Al Adams carries a violet in liis pocket-book she gave him last spring ; and as for this dandy bookkeeper, she's smiled so sweetly on him ev( ry time sbe met him that it's been with the greatest difficulty I've kept myself from knocking him down. Hang it ! if I had him here I would knock him down ;" and he squared off and shook a formidablo flst at the empty air, jnst as, from the basement of a small church he was passing, rang out in swoet childieh voices a verse of an old, old Christmas hymn : And with trno lovc nd brothcrhood Kiioh other uow embrac ; This holy tide of Chriatmas All olhers duth efface. Christmas morning. Essie Smith sat in her pretty little room holding har pretty littlo hands over her pretty little eais. In truth, the noise was deui'ening, for Essie's modest apartments were only a small part of the big house in which she lived, and all the other rooms were blessed with the presence of two or moro ehildren. Whistles and tin horns were being blown, drums beaten, rattles sprung, and all kinds of animáis - Santa Claus animáis I mean - were uttering or trying to utter all kinds of cries, and pparently alive to the importance of the day, and anxious to contribute eacii hia mitc to the general rejoicing. Essie's canary, taking a second breakfüst in n desultory way, sang loud and shrill after every seed. Esther was a saleswoman in a large millinery establishment, and very glad she was of a holiday that was really a holiday, for most of the days so called were for her the hardest working days of all. A pretty girl - a very pretty girl - with frank hazol eyes, shaued by wonderful curling lashes, and bronze-browii hair arranged in some mysterious manner iu puffa and waves and braids, all mingled together so that you couldn't teil where the puffs began and the braids ended. The waves, however, rippled nway from a low, fair brow, and down behind two pretty little ears - mentioned before, I believe - and lost themselves in the braids at the back of the head, and just above the left ear was stuck a coquettish butterfly kuot of blue ribbon. Essie was uot alone. Brother Joe was there, too, his chair tipped back on its hiud-lrgs and his feet on the windowsill, reading a thrilling romance in The Wonder of the World. Brother Joe was three yeais yonnger than his sister, and cashboy in the Bame store she brightened by her preseuce every day, Sundays and holidays excepted, for moderate salarr, paid weekly. Suddenly ho threw down tho paper, dropped his feet on the floor, aud couverted the chair from a biped to a quadruped with a thuinp that made the flower-pots on the wmdow-sill tremble. " Oh, I say, Essie," he shouted, ' ' Cake down your hands; I want to speak to you - shut up, will you !" to the canary; and springing from his seat he grasped the two little hands, bringing away with one of them as he did so the butterflyish blue bow. " There, now, Joe, see what you've done ! and I dare say you've tumbled all my hair about, too," said Essie, making a wrinkle - it didn't amount to a f rown; - in her brow. " Tumbled your hair !" said Joe, with a broad griu. "Why, I couldn't have tumbled it mucli more than it was - crinkled and frizzed and standing out ten ways for Sunday. But I say, Es, ien't Tol coming here to-day ! That was all bosh about parting forever, wasn't it ?" ' I'm sure I don't know whether Mr. Lolliver is coming here to-day or not, and I'm sure I don't care, either," said Essie, with a toss of the bronze-brown head - the bow was carefully pinned in its place again. "Phewl" whistled Joe. "Ain't yon gettin' polite, sis? 'Mr, Lolliver,' when hes been ' Tol' ever siuce I was a email chap. I say, Es, wasn't I a iovely babe ? And you ' don't care, either,'" niimicking the toss of the head. " What a whopper ! If he don't come, nioe time I'll havo with you. Look out for red eyes and noses." Which flippant reimrks were received in dignified silence. Not at all disconeerted, Joe began agiiin : " Look-a-here, sis, I think - and, as you're an orphan, and I'm your only guardián 'cept auntje, and she don't amouut to nothin', you ought to pay a little attention to my odíhíous - I think it wasn't quite right for you not to answer ' Mr. Lolliver' about that glove." " Don't say aiiother word, Joe, on that snbjeet - not another word," interrupted Essie, her eyes flashing and her cueek flushing. " How dare he insult me by askiug me such n question ? I'll nevor auswer it - no, never. Homd, jealous old thing ! And he alwayB was, too, expecting - becanse - because - I mustn't look at anybody else. Let him stay awny. If lie comes I wout see him. " A knock at the door. ' There he is now" - with a smile that looked wonderfidly liko a glad one. " Joe, don't you leave the room." Joe took a chair and The Wonder of the World again, and Essie hastily snatched a handkerchief from the table and began to hem it, as she oalled out, in a voice sho tried to mnke severe: "Come in !" It was Ptolemy, heavy-eyed and grave-faced, and, for the first time in teu years, he and Esaie exchanged no " Merry Christmas " on Christmas morning; but in silence he flung his hat on the floor, marched straight up to his betrothed, captnrod the handkerchief, took lier round chin in his hand, and f oroed her to look in his face. Then he asked, with droadful eolemnity: "Did you give him the glove, Esther?'' No annwer. The pretty niouth was firmly shut, and a look of determination confronted him iu the fnJl, hazel eyes. "If you will not reply to that question - " "I told you I wouldn't," mnrmured Essie. "If any absurd vow, made in an angry moment," he went on, " prevenís your speaking, show me tho pair of gloves, and I')l say no more." E8ie put her hand into her apron pocket aud brought out one small glove of a dark, indescribable hue. " Great heavens ! Then you did give it to him," cried Ptolemy, releasing her chin, dropping the handkerchief, and striding wilcily about the room. "How could you, Essie - how could you? After I walked the street for hours, and went into 550 stores - " " Take off one, or a half, or even a quarter," said Joe, who, finding the lovers' quarrel still more interesting tlmn " The Pirate's Ghost," had dropped that marwlously constmeted and cnrioUBly-written story, and was listening intently. " Looking," continued Ptolrmy, " for that particular shade which you said you must have to match your mayonnaise." "Polonaise," corrected Essie, mildly. " Deuce take it ! I don't care what it is," thundered Ptolemy. "ButI do," said Essie, with great gravity. ' ' I much pref er - as a garment, I mean - a polonaise to mayonnaise; for although, I suppose, in some far-off lands the savnge maidens might think a combination of well-beaten eggs and oil and -" "Bother!" iuterrupted Ptolemy. "How can you go on so when you know I'm wretched? And I bought them at the very placo you told me to - Jugla's - thcugh ld forgotten the name and gone into acy namber of places before I carne to it. And now, after all my trouble - thongh that goes for nothing, for I'rt do a tihoasnnd times as mticli for you - I you've given one of them to Arthnr Godfrey. And you won't explain ! Perhaps you can't esplain. He niay have bound you to silence. Why don't you spenk, Essie ? Confound the glovep ! I wish I'd nover seen them. What shall I do ?" " Cut your Jugla," BUggosted Joe. "Boy ! " began Ptolemy. "Vile caitiff1 would be better," said Joe. The indignant lover cast a withering glance of Bcorn at him, but Joe smiled " child-like and bland," and didn't wither a bit. "Esther," began Lolliver again, "you know how I lovo yon, yon know how I've loved yon for years, and yet yon never gave me a glove." "I couldn't afford to," said Essie, innocently. " I've never hart but tvo pairs of kida a year, and threml glovcs are not poetical, nor woolen ones cither. I might have given you a lace mitten last slimmer, but I didn't think of it." " A mitten !" cried he, choking with rage. " I underf-tand you, but 111 say no more. I will be calm" - choking more than ever. " It's all over. This Christmas, which I hoped would be the merriest, will be the saddest of my life, and the New Year - Good-by." "Sweetheart, good-by," gently added Joe. Essie put her apron to her eyes, and began to cry. "Oh! oh! oh!" she sobbed, " who would have dreamed of such a thing ? My Tol saying ' goodby' on Christmas day ! But you alw.iys were the jealousest tliing," taking the aprou away to look reproachfully ut him, " and I don't know liow I've endured you so long," and up went the apron again, "and I've worked your initials" - sob - "in my hair" - another sob - "in my hair" - another sob - "on a silk handkerchief for you" - many sobs. "You didn't give it to him!" cried Tol, a ray of hope darting into his face. " Thea where is it?" No reply, only sobs behind the apron. A shadow quickly succeeded the ray. "Good-by, Essic," said Ptolemy, the obstinate wreteh. And as he tumed to leave Uie room, cnrrying his head very high, he stumbled over Suowball, Essie'a great white cat, and her especial pet, that was coming quickly in with a mouse - no, not a mouse - mioe are not of a dark, indeseriuable shade - but some small object dangling from her mouth. " O, sis !" yelled Joe, falling flat on the floor in his eagerness to snatch the prize. " What, Joe, what is it?" cried Essie, and down came the apron, leaviug the wonderful long lashes glittering with tears. "Something the cat brought in," he shouted. " Hurrah !" And there, soiled and wet by the snow in which it had lain all night, was the missing glove. "I must have dropped it as Arthur kissed my hand," said Essie, as cool as you please. " I suppose the one he had was líate Guinea's. She went and got a pair like mine the moment she sa v them. They're engagcd, but tbey didn't want her father to know it, so he made believe he was in love with me." Ptoiemy seized Snowball in his arms, anl feil on tis kuees - he did, indeed. " My darling, forgive me,"'he said - ouly this and nothing more. His eloquence ha-J fled with his iealousy. "Don't you do it, Es," said Joe. "He'll bo jealous again to-morrow, and swear somebody's got that bow in your hair, if you should happen to lose it and puss didn't find it." "Try me, Essie," pleaded the lover. Essie turned away. "Don't turn from me, dear. Oh, how unjust I've been ! and so unhappy, Essie ! Won't you couiü to my arms, my own little girl ?" "Hjwcan I, Tol Lolliver?" said his 'own little girl,' mischievously, "when yon've got the cat?" "Bles8 my soul ! so I have," said Ptolemy, dropping Puss as uQceremoniously as he had picked her up. " What ingratitude !" said Joe. "Essie," again entreated the penitent, holding out bis arms. Essie took one step, Tol t h-o- on his knees - and, as he cla8ped her to his heart, kissing the laughing eyes and lips, the noon-time Christmas chimes burst out merri] y with the good old-faíliioned tuue, ' ' Life Let üs Cheri8h." " By all means," said Joe, waving liis silk handkeröhief sbove his head, and joining in the last notes with " Tol-Lolhver !" - Jlarpcr's Bazar.