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CHAPTER II.
It was Thanksgiving Day, and just three minutes to the dinner-hour at the Lamberts', and all the guests had arrived except the one that Elsie had bidden.
"Don't fret, Elsie," whispered Mrs. Lambert to her, as she noted the two red spots burning in her cheeks and her anxious glances toward the clock,—"don't fret; she's probably going to be fashionably exact on the stroke of the hour."
Elsie gave a little start at this, and, laughing nervously, began to talk to Joe Marchant, while tick, tock, the clock beat out the time.
"We'll wait five minutes for her," thought Mrs. Lambert. "If there hasn't been an accident to detain her, she's very rude, and certainly not fit to be a teacher of manners , and I don't wonder she's unpopular with the girls."
The three minutes, the five minutes sped by, and the awaited guest did not appear. To wait longer would be unfair to the others, and Mrs. Lambert gave orders for the dinner to be served. It was seemingly a very cheerful little company that gathered about the dinner-table; but there was something pathetic in it, when one came to consider that each one of these guests was for the time at least sitting at the stranger's feast instead of with his own kith and kin on this family day. Mrs. Lambert herself felt this pathos, and it brought back, too, the losses and limitations in her home circle; for what with death and absence, her five children had no one now but herself to look to, where once were the dear grandparents, the fond father, and a score or more of other relations. But she must not dwell on these memories with all these guests to serve. She must put her own needs aside to see that little Miss Jenny Carver had a better choice of celery, that Molly Price and that big lonesome-looking Ingalls boy had another help to cranberry sauce, and Joe Marchant a fresh supply of turkey.
It was while she was attending to this latter duty, while she was laughing a little at Joe's clumsy apology for his appetite, and telling him jestingly that she hoped to see him eat enough for two, because one guest was missing,—while she was doing this, there came a great crunch of carriage wheels on the driveway, and a great ring at the door-bell, and, "There she is! there she is!" thinks Mrs. Lambert, with the added thought: "It's rather putting on airs, seems to me, to take a carriage when she is at such a little distance from us,—rather putting on airs, but—What are you jumping up for?" she calls out to Elsie, who has suddenly sprung from her seat. "What are you jumping up for? Ellen will attend Miss Matthews upstairs, and send her into us when she has removed her wraps. Sit down, Elsie; don't be so fidgety. I will—" But the dining-room door was here suddenly flung wide, and Mrs. Lambert saw coming toward her, not, oh, not Miss Matthews, but a tall gentleman with a thin, worn face crowned with snow-white hair; and, catching sight of this snowy crown, Mrs. Lambert did not recognize the face until she felt her hand clasped, and heard a low eager voice say,—
"I am so glad to come to you,—to see you and the children again, Caroline. I was away when Elsie's letter arrived; but as soon as I got into New York yesterday, I started off, and I am so glad to come, so glad to come;" and here Mrs. Lambert heard the eager voice falter, and saw the glisten of tears in the eyes that were regarding her and in the next instant felt them against her cheek as a tender kiss was pressed upon it. It was all in a moment, the strange surprise of look and word and tone and touch, the joyful cries of "It's Uncle John, it's Uncle John!" from some one of the children. Then all in a moment the strangeness seemed to have passed, and John Lambert was taking his place amongst them with the fond belief that he was his sister-in-law's chosen guest. And she, with those warm, manly words of thanks, those joyful cries of childish welcome in her ears, could she undeceive him,—could she say to him: "It was not I who sent for you; I am the same as ever, as full of wild regrets and bitter resentments"? Could she say this to him? How could she, how could she, when over the wild regrets and bitter resentments there kept rising and rising a flood of earlier memories of an earlier time when this guest had been a welcome guest indeed, and she had heard again and again those very words, "I'm so glad to come"? Those very words, but with what a difference of accent, and what a difference in the speaker himself,—only a year and his face so worn, his hair so white, she had not known him! He must have suffered,—yes, and she—she had suffered; but she had her children, and he had no one!
The dinner was over. They had all risen from the table, and were going into the parlor, and Uncle John had his namesake Johnny on one side of him and little Archie on the other. They had taken possession of him from the first, when Elsie, hanging back, clung to her mother and whispered agitatedly,—
"Oh, mamma, mamma, it was what you said last week about Tommy's invitation that made me think of—of inviting Uncle John; but perhaps I ought to have told you—have asked you."
"No, no, it is better as it is. Don't fret, dear, it—it is all right. But there is Ann bringing the coffee into the parlor. Go and light your little teakettle, Elsie, and make your uncle a cup of tea as you used to do; he can't drink coffee, you know."