“Only taking notes of these remarks, Tom,” answered Mr. Wharton, “for your benefit on some future occasion.”

There was only one in that Christmas party who could not heartily join in the glee; it was poor Emily, to whom this scene brought back so vividly other holiday seasons passed with those who had “gone from earth to return no more,” that only by a strong effort could she prevent her own sadness from casting a shade over the happiness of others; for they all loved cousin Emily so dearly, that they could not be merry when she was sad.  Emily was usually so quiet, that in their noisy play they did not miss her as she retired to the sofa and shaded her eyes with her hand; but her kind uncle noticed her, and readily understood the reason of her sadness.  Taking a seat by her he put his arm around her, and took her hand in his.  This act of tenderness was too much for poor Emily’s already full heart, and laying her head on her uncle’s shoulder, she sobbed out her grief unchecked.

IV.

Cousin Betty.

   “Come, wilt thou see me ride!”—­HENRY VIII.

Cousin Betty was a little bit of a woman, with a face as full of wrinkles as a frozen apple, and a pair of the busiest and most twinkling little black eyes you ever saw, a prominent and parrot like nose, with a chin formed on the very same pattern, only that it turned up instead of down, the two so very nearly meeting that the children said they had “to turn their faces sideways to kiss her.”  She had some very unaccountable ways too, which no one understood, and which she never made any attempt to explain, perhaps because she did not understand them herself.

For instance, whenever meals were ready, and the family prepared to sit down, though cousin Betty might have been hovering round for an hour or two before, she was often missing at that very moment, and when a search was instituted she was sometimes found taking a stroll in the garret where she could have no possible business, and sometimes poking about in the darkest corner of the dark cellar, without the slightest conceivable object.  If her thimble or spectacles were lost, she has often been known to go to the pantry and lift up every tumbler and wine-glass on the shelf, one after the other, and look under it as if she really expected to find the missing article there; and to take off the cover of vegetable dishes to look for her snuff-box, or open the door of the stove, if her work-bag, or knitting were missing, apparently with the confident expectation of finding them unharmed amidst the blazing fire.

Cousin Betty had a very uncomfortable fashion of dying too, every little while, which at first alarmed her friends so much that restoratives were speedily procured; but as she never failed to come to life again, they became, after a time, accustomed to the parting scene, so that there was great danger that when she really did take her departure, nobody would believe it.