09.1898 thru 06.1899.pdf - The Lowell

THE LOWELL
Ralph Weston's Two Christmas Eves.
RUTH LOCKHART.
".Home again, home again ! from a
foreign shore! 11 half muttered Ralph
Weslon, as he strode grimly along the
crowded streets"of a great city iu the
waning light of a late December day.
As the noisy jostling human sea surged
past him, he gazed with sudden interest
into the faces of the nearest passers by.
No familiar features, however, met bis
view, and his eyes gradually lott their
expression of interest as his thoughts
turned moodily to his own lonely condition.
Ke had but that day returned to his
native land after an absence of more than
ten years in London as representative of
a large American syndicate. During this
time many chaiifes had occurred in his
family at home ; his father had died, his
sister and brothers had married and were
living in distant citie?; bis friends were
scattered—he knew not where. He ft It
himself a man without ties—without responsibilities,
and the sudden realization
of his loneliness brought a momentary
pang to him.
As he wandered aimlessly along, his
attention was caught by the brilliant display
in a shop window, where toys and
costly trifles surrounded a miniature
Christmas tree, whose branches bent and
glittered under their load of flashing
baubles.
With a «tart he realized that it war, the
twenty-thi- , of December. To morrow
night would be Christmas eve! Middle-aged
man of the woild though he
was, emotion of any kind aa almost unknown
sensation, what a host of blessed
memories came thronging back upon him
at the thought!
Once more he was a,boy at home ; that
home so dear, yet now so far removed
from his daily life that it might have been
but the shadow of some well remembered
dream. -He had been growing callous
and cynical during the.«e years, he knew,
but now the re collections of the past came
rushing inmultuously serous his soul, obliterating
all thought of self and the punydisappointments
of the world.
In fancy he-saw again the dear familiar
faces of those whose lives had been linked
with bis earliest loves. He heard once
more the voice of his young mother, long
since called to the rest of Paradise, as
she told to her listening little ones the
. old, ever new story of that first Christmas
eve on distent Btthlehenfs star-lit
plains.
Then his thoughts flew onward to the
years of his early manhood—those y^ars
so full of high ambition, yet of blighted
hopes and desireu that had nearly made
a shipwreck of his life.
Through all these later visions of thepast
one face stood out distant and clear.
Sweet Nellie Hayden i Where was she
now? Did she ever think of him ? How
different life might have been if he could
only have spent it with her !
Ah, well! he would let "thedead pastbury
its dead." She bad doubtless
blessed some roan's home, and rejoicing;
in the lovi of her children had not a>
thought to spare for the poor fellcw who
had never found room :u his heart for
any woman save her.
He would like to see her again ; perhaps
the sight of her and the knowledge
that she was far removed from him might
loosen the enchantment of the past and
leave hirn free from the enthrallment of
an unrequited love.
He determined that be would run down
to his old home at Roseville for a day ;
a train left at five o'clock—he would
catch that.
Impatiently drawing out his watch, he
found thatitwas[already twenty minutes
past the hour. He checked a sigh of
disappointment, and, thinking to himself
that he would go down on the ten o'clock
train in the morning* was moving toward