Chapter IV (3)

On the whole, the wedding went off with great _éclat_. The happy pair set off the next day for Boston, to embark for Quebec. On the following week, Captain Fayerweather was to set sail on a two years’ voyage—on his return from which he was to claim his bride.

On the day previous to George’s departure, he gave his father a cabinet of ebony, curiously inlaid, and of costly and peculiar workmanship, which a French prisoner, whose release he had been instrumental in procuring in one of the British ports, had prevailed upon him to accept as a token of gratitude for the service.

“Thank you, my son,” said Mr. Fayerweather, not a little gratified; “that will be just the thing for my valuable papers, the little trunk I keep them in is too crowded.”

“I wish you would let me have that, sir, to take with me; I always took a fancy to it,” rejoined his son.

“You shall have it, and Judith shall have a jewel-box well filled on her wedding-day, too.” So saying, Mr. Fayerweather ran down stairs to the counting-room and quickly returned with the little trunk in his hand to his own chamber, where he and his son had been communing. He sat down panting, and remained a minute or two without speaking, with his hand on his side.

“What’s the matter, sir, that you are so out of breath?” his son anxiously inquired; “why didn’t you let me go for you? I didn’t know what you left the room for.”

“Oh, it’s nothing but a slight palpitation of the heart, to which I have been subject a little of late—it will soon go off.”

It did not go off, however, and the attack continued longer than usual; but Mr. Fayerweather without heeding it, or suffering any indications of it to appear before his son, proceeded to remove the papers into their new place of deposit—and George took the little trunk into his own possession. The day after Mr. Fayerweather felt more unwell than he was willing to make known, wishing to spare his family any additional weight upon their spirits, at the time of his son’s departure. After this his attacks became more frequent and of longer duration, rendering it impossible to conceal them any longer from Madam, who, in alarm, sent immediately for Dr. Holly. The latter, upon inquiring into the symptoms, and examining the pulse of his patient, looked grave. His prescriptions were successful, however, and Mr. Fayerweather in a few weeks appeared to be restored to his usual health.

But to return to George; his usual gay spirits deserted him as he was taking his leave of Judith, and a depression wholly unknown to him before seized him, as the boat which was to bear him to the vessel appeared merrily dancing over the waves to the wharf, opposite the window near which they were standing.

“Farewell, Judith!” said he, then adding playfully, but with a voice not wholly free from a slight tremor, “when I return, do not let me find you the bride of some dashing Englishman.”

“Oh, George! how can you say so?” she replied, the tears gushing into her eyes; “how can you think I could ever be the bride of any man but you; but if there is any truth in dreams, the one I had last night, tells me I shall never be a bride.”

“Oh, psha upon dreams!” he said, running off to hide the tears which, in spite of his manliness, were now streaming down his own cheeks. She saw him spring into the boat, which she kept in sight until it reached the vessel. Then going up to her own room, with a spy-glass she watched the vessel as it gradually receded from view, until its tallest mast sunk beneath the waves. She yielded to a burst of anguish, which she in vain attempted to control, and sat for some moments sobbing, then her tears ceased to flow, and her countenance resumed its wonted serenity; she then went below, superintended old Mary, and prepared her grandfather’s supper with more than usual care, her generous nature not suffering her own private feelings to interfere with the comfort or happiness of others.

[_Conclusion in our next._

* * * * *

JOY AND SORROW.

BY RICHARD COE.

“I am happy, O, how happy!”
Said a little child, one day,
At his play,
With his ball of twine and kite,
That to his supreme delight,
To the skies
Did arise,
Far from human sight.
Came a sudden gust and squall,
Gone was kite and twine and all;
Tears were in his eyes!

“I am happy, O, how happy!”
Said a maiden young and fair;
On the air,
Scarce the words had fallen, when,
Lo! her lover, down the glen,
Now she sees,
On his knees,
Like to other men,
Vowing love to fairer maid;
Words she overheard he said
That her soul did freeze!

“I am happy, O, how happy!”
Said a gay and laughing bride;
By her side
Stood the husband of her choice,
Who did in his strength rejoice:
Months have fled;
O’er the dead
Now she lifts her wailing voice!
From her lonely pillow now
Who may lift her pallid brow?
Who may raise her head?

“I am happy, O, how happy!”
Said a mother fair and mild;
On her child
Gazing with her love-lit eyes—
The sweet cherub from the skies,
That in love,
Like a dove,
Strayed from Paradise:
Lo! the angel Death, one day,
Took her darling one away,
Beckoning her above!

“I am happy, O, how happy!”
Said a Christian on his bed,
With his head
Turned toward the setting sun:
“Soon my labor will be done,
Then will I,
With a sigh,
To the mighty One,
Who is e’er the Christian’s friend
All my anxious cares commend,
And will calmly die!”

* * * * *

STANZAS.

BY R. PENN SMITH.

The tears of morn that steep the rose
A zephyr soon may kiss away;
Sporting ’midst odor to unclose
The virgin bud to foliage gay.

But then at eve the fragrant flower,
Oppressed with dews, will droop—decay;
For zephyr hath no longer power
To kiss the dews of night away.

Our childhood’s tears like dew-drops flow;
A mother’s kiss soon dries the tear;
But tears the aged shed in wo,
Are only dried up on the bier.

* * * * *

LETTY RAWDON.

AN EPISODE IN AMERICAN LIFE.

BY THOS. R. NEWBOLD.

The ever-changing hues of the kaleidoscope, and the varying tints of our autumnal forests do not present more changeful or varied scenes than are to be found in real life in this country. The decay of one family, the rise of another, depending as they do on the pecuniary fortunes of their possessors, render American society a scene of constant excitement, and he who is at the top of the social ladder to-day, falls to-morrow with the fall of stocks to the bottom. The little tale which follows is but a type of what is daily occurring around us, and is presented as a general outline, which all may fill up at their leisure to suit their pleasure.

Letitia, or as she was usually called in her girlhood, Letty Rawdon, was the only daughter of old Elias Rawdon, a thrifty and prosperous tailor in the pleasant village of Middlebury. The old man had married rather late in life, after he had in his own phrase “got a little something snug about him.” She followed the usual course of village girls, and at the dame’s school had learned those difficult arts of reading, writing, and ciphering. In her young days, the road to learning was not the plank or rail-road track on which our young people now travel so readily. The A, B, C, required some study to ponder out, and in 179—, the portals to learning were not thrown so wide open as they are in the year of grace 1852. Be that as it may, Letty, however, mastered them. From her earliest years she had been an ambitious child, never content unless she was among the foremost; as eager for superiority over her little schoolmates in play as in study, as if she had been born to rule them. She was not what would be termed a handsome child, but her features were delicate, and her full hazel eye looked out from its long lashes with a glance that showed full well the determined soul within. She was her father’s darling, who denied her nothing, whence she soon obtained a complete ascendancy in the dwelling of the old tailor.

When Letty was about thirteen years of age, a fashionable boarding-school was opened in the village, and the old man yielded at once to her wishes to become a day-scholar at it. Here her ambition carried her rapidly onward, and if Letty, when she entered it, was comparatively a raw, ignorant country-girl, no one who saw her at the termination of her course of studies there, could have recognized in the graceful, intelligent, and accomplished girl before him, the little awkward being, who, four years before had there commenced her career. The principal of the school, an elegant and accomplished lady, was early attracted to her by her aptitude for learning, and her desire to acquire it, and Letty was soon a favorite pupil. Nor whilst cultivating her mind did she neglect her person. The elegant manners of her preceptress made a most decided impression on her; gradually she found her own forming on the model before her, and in process of time, though she made no pretensions to great beauty, it would have been difficult to have found a more attractive person than Letty Rawdon, the tailor’s daughter.

The young men of the village and neighborhood were the first to make this discovery, and at all the general merry-makings which occurred, Letty Rawdon was, beyond all rivalry, the village belle. We say general merry-makings, for our village, like all others large and small, had its aristocracy, and in the eyes of the “upper circle,” we mean the female part of it, of its fifteen hundred inhabitants, she was only “that conceited, forward thing, the daughter of old Rawdon, the tailor.” Mrs. Baxter, the wife of the leading lawyer of the place, in an interview with Mrs. Danforth, the wife of the physician, had settled—“that, although they supposed in their small place they must know the tailor’s daughter when they met her in the street, or at church, or other public place, still she was not to be on any account admitted into their set.” How often has many a lovely girl been thus tabooed, not that she would not confer honor on them, but she might mayhap be in the way of an advantageous settlement of some marriageable daughters, perchance less attractive than herself.

Letty soon found that there was a determination in the female magnates of the village to crush her rising into any importance among them. But the spirit of the girl rose with the occasion. In a short time it became generally known that she was to be kept at a distance by the village fashionables. What cared she? Her father had accumulated a snug little competency, and few girls in the neighborhood would be as well dowered as Letty. On this she was allowed to draw as she pleased. New and tasty furniture adorned the best “sitting-room,” and Letty’s brilliant performance on by far the best piano in the village, caused many a hasty step to loiter on its way, as it passed the tailor’s door. Nor were the listeners confined to the outside of the house, for within were frequently found all the “most desirable” young men, who showed a decided preference for Letty’s fine music and lively conversation, to the more dignified, but less agreeable assemblages of the exclusives of the place. Nor abroad did she attract less admiration than at home, and envy itself was at length compelled to confess that Letty Rawdon was by far the best dressed and most stylish girl in the village.

As a natural consequence, suitors followed. Phil Dubbs, the only child of the wealthiest farmer in the neighborhood; young Harry Edmonds, just called to the bar, and for whom his friends already predicted a brilliant career; Edward Simpson, the junior partner of the principal mercantile firm in the place, were prominent among these. Each wooed in his peculiar way. Dubbs had enjoyed no advantages of education beyond what the village grammar-school afforded; but then he was an accomplished graduate in all rural sports. No young man in the country had as good a horse, or rode him as well; he had the best pointers, and was the best shot to be found in 20 miles round, and was in all such accomplishments perfect. To him Letty was under obligations for finishing completely one part of her education; for he broke a favorite colt for her especial use, and under his skillful tuition she became a fearless and accomplished horse-woman. Edmonds quoted Byron and Moore to her constantly, when he had better have been employed over Coke and Starkie; and spoiled as much paper in perpetrating bad verses to her, as would have sufficed for his pleas and declarations during a year’s practice; and Simpson never returned from “the city,” whither he went to make the purchases of goods for his firm, without a selection of the choicest articles for Letty’s especial use, accompanied with directions as to the latest style of making them up.

Thus strengthened and fortified, Letty saw her foes gradually yielding before her. One by one they surrendered at discretion, until Mrs. Baxter, herself, at last sought the acquaintance, and at twenty years of age, Letty Rawdon, the tailor’s daughter, stood the supreme arbitress of _ton_ in her native village. Although she was grateful to her allies for the assistance they had afforded her, she was by no means disposed to bestow herself in return on any of them. She was not one of those whose hearts are easily won. She was prodigal of her smiles; she was ready to do a kind act, or say a kind word, but the surrender of her heart and hand was another matter. She was ambitious of social distinction. She had achieved the highest place at home, and she panted for triumphs yet to come on a wider and loftier stage. Since she had left school her time had not been misspent. She continued to cultivate, under the tuition of her former master, her very decided musical talents; her mind was strengthened and enlarged by a course of judicious reading, for which Harry Edmonds supplied her with the material; and the foreign languages she had acquired were not forgotten. She felt herself far superior to all her companions, and that her genius was hidden in the comparatively obscure place in which her lot was cast.

There are few women who do not at some period or other, or in some form or other, meet their fate in the shape of a man. Happy, they, who are exempt from this general calamity of the sex; for calamity in too many cases we believe it to be. For our part, we plead guilty to a sneaking liking to single women, yclept by vulgar minds, old maids. Under this denomination, we do not, however, include that numerous bond of “single sisters,” hovering between the ages of 35 and 45, to whom a superannuated bachelor, or an interesting widower, especially if he be a parson with a half a dozen responsibilities, is a god-send. Oh, no! we mean none of these, but one of these dignified ladies, of nameless age and easy fortune, of whom all of us count one or more among our acquaintance. Where are such complete establishments to be found as among these? Go to visit them, and your ears are not deafened by a practicing miss of 14, thumping an unfortunate piano, until if it had any powers of speech it would certainly cry out “pianissimo;” or by one of those lively squalls from the upper regions, which resembles nothing earthly but the serenade of an amatory cat at midnight. From these, and such like annoyances you are exempt, and then if you enjoy the privilege of an intimacy which admits you to the tea-table—where else is such superb Imperial or glorious Souchong to be found? Piping hot, it is poured into a cup of such clean and delicate texture, that the fragrance of the grateful shrub is heightened thereby. The water with which it has been compounded has certainly boiled. Just the right quantity has been admixed. It does not require to be ruined, by having a supply of tepid water added to it after it has been poured in to your cup; nor does it come on table a tasteless slops, at which even a four-footed animal, unmentionable to ears polite, would utter a grunt of dissent if presented to it. No. Commend me to one of those tea-tables. The muffins also, are so hot, so “just done;” or the toast without being burned to a cinder, or hardened to a board, is crisp and delightful as the most fastidious could require. The cream, too—please do not mention it—the same milk-man may serve her next door neighbor, but in her mansion no skim-milk is mixed therewith, to eke out to a large family the amount required in the compound used therein, and which is called by courtesy, tea. And then the sugar, sparkling as so many diamonds in the antique silver bowl in which it rests; no “broken-topped” or “crushed,” but “Stewart’s” or “Lovering’s extra loaf” is alone used here. It sometimes happens that a “_petit souper_” is substituted for the tea-table. The oysters, Morris river coves, when they can be had, certainly: the terrapins, none but the genuine Egg-harbors ever enter her doors, and the inimitable John Irwin has exhausted on them all the resources of his skill. All the appliances of her table are in keeping, and as you admire the dignified courtesy with which she attends to the wants of each guest, or leads the conversation into channels she thinks most acceptable to those around her, the mind involuntarily recurs to the days of hoops and hair-powder, trains and high-heeled shoes.

In those days, rail-roads were a thing which had entered into the imagination of no man as a mode of travel, and he who should have spoken of an iron horse rushing on his course, and drawing hundreds of human beings after him at a speed of 30 miles an hour, would have been considered quite as great a believer in the marvelous, as those now are, who have faith in Paine’s light. Even post-coaches were a novelty off of the great thoroughfares, and the public conveyance usual to such small places as Middlebury, was the old long-bodied stage, with its three or four seats behind the driver’s, and stowing away some ten or twelve passengers. Blessings on those old carriages, we say. It is true, their pace rarely got up to five miles an hour, and that at every five miles or so they stopped “to water,” at an expense of some fifteen minutes of time; but what of that? Minutes seem to be more valuable to travelers now, than hours were then. But what mixed feelings did not these produce in our bosom, when seated in the old stage on our route out of town for the holydays, between impatience to arrive at our journey’s end, and the airy fabrics we erected, of what we should do when we reached there. There was the best and kindest of grandmothers as impatiently waiting for the arrival which was to enable her to spoil “the boys” with indulgences, as we were to be spoiled. There was the well-remembered pony, a little less anxious we opine to be dashed around the country, than we were to dash him. Then, there was the mill-dam, where the many-colored sun-fish awaited our hook and worms, and the bathing-place below the dam, where we could venture to try our newly-acquired skill across “the hole” without danger; and the store, where gingerbread and candy, and pipes for soap-suds bubbles were bought, with those “odd quarters” which grandma so freely bestowed. Who can ever forget these early days? And the deeper he sinks into the sere and yellow leaf, the brighter do they rise up. They constitute the small portion of our lives upon which we can look back with perfect complacency; for the light shadows which once partially clouded them have long since faded away and been forgotten, and nought but the memory of the bright joyous sunshine remains.

The old stage which plied between Middlebury and the city of Quakerdelphia, one day landed as a passenger at the former place a young man of some thirty years of age. Whether business or pleasure attracted him thither is of no consequence to this story, although from the character of the man it was more probably the former. At the age of sixteen John Smithson found himself an apprentice in a dry-goods store of Quakerdelphia. He had come thither with a sound constitution, a good, solid English education, such as was then less frequently obtained in country schools than now is; great industry and indomitable perseverance. These last traits had early attracted the attention of his acquaintance, and his success in whatever he should undertake predicted. He soon attracted the attention and confidence of his employers, and the respective grades of apprentice, clerk, and junior partner were attained by him. In the mercantile world he had for some time been noted for his intimate acquaintance with and complete knowledge of business, and for the integrity, straightforwardness and manliness of his character, and no one was surprised when the senior member of the firm retired a year before, that it took the title of Jones, Smithson & Co. John Smithson had achieved mercantile distinction. Wealth had commenced flowing in upon him in a continuous and unbroken stream, and a few years would in all probability see him among the richest merchants of his adopted city. But social distinctions were wanting to him. In his younger days he had been too busy to think of matrimony, or indeed, of female society at all. He was too much engaged in achieving the position he now occupied to care much for aught else, and his intercourse with men had rubbed off the awkward angles of the raw country lad. Still the want of refined female society had necessarily left him without that polish which can be derived from it alone. He occupied then no social position. His home connection was respectable, and his growing wealth would enable him to take a place among the magnates about him; all his future, then, depended on his choice of a wife; for he began about this time to be cognizant of the fact that it was high time for him to marry.

He was fully impressed with this idea when he first met Letty Rawdon, nor did subsequent interviews with her serve to weaken the impression. Indeed, he began to be fully convinced of the necessity of the fact, and after paying some four or five visits to Middlebury, determined to inquire of Letty what was her opinion on the subject. On being interrogated by him, therefore, on this point, she still further strengthened his determination by agreeing fully with him thereon. Here was one point gained. Still another step, however, was to be taken. He again had recourse to his adviser, and she, on being interrogated whether it would be best for her to drop the name of Rawdon and take that of Smithson, determined it also affirmatively, to the entire satisfaction of the querist.

Letty, clear-sighted woman that she was, saw at an early period of her acquaintance the influence she was gradually acquiring over John Smithson. It is true he was not very handsome, but he had a manly, intelligent face and a good figure. If he did not understand all the mazes of a cotillion—waltzing was then unknown here, and the polka would have horrified our reputable predecessors—he had not entirely forgotten all the figures of the country-dance or the reel which he had learned when a boy. He rode well, too, and often accompanied the young lady in her gallops about the country. It is true he was more conversant with the qualities of Yorkshire woolens or India piece-goods, than with most of those lighter accomplishments by which alone many conceited addle-pates think that women are to be caught. But he was by no means uninformed. His reading had not been very extensive, but as far as it went it had been good—history, biography, travels comprised the chief of it—Shakspeare had, however, attracted him to his magic page, and many an idle hour which had been spent by many of his brother clerks in the theatre, the oyster-cellar or the billiard-room, had been passed by him in the manner above described. He was a close observer also of men and things, and Letty soon began to find his society much more to her taste than that of any unmarried man with whom she had ever associated.

She then asked herself the state of her own heart. Ambitious though she was, she was too true and honest a woman to give her hand without her heart; and after a brief, but careful consultation with herself, decided that she could in all honesty take him “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer.” In a worldly point of view it was the chance of a lifetime. The rich and rising merchant of the great city proposing to make her, the daughter of a village tailor, the future partner of his greatness. Letty was not insensible to this—we will not say she was grateful for it; she had too just an appreciation of her own merits to be so; but she was not blind to its advantages in a worldly point of view. Had it occurred some two years sooner, all the aristocracy of Middlebury would have cried out “shame;” but now it was received as a thing of course, and Smithson was warmly congratulated on his admirable taste.

It was decided by Letty, and confirmed by Smithson, that in order to secure high social position, a good start was necessary. There must be no false step, no blunder at the outset. How many apparently promising fortunes has this one false step marred. He accordingly took a good house in the most desirable part of Hazelnut street, the very centre and focus of fashion in Quakerdelphia. To furnish the house was in those days the business of the wife, and Letty determined to disburse the, for his situation, very considerable dower her father could give her, in fitting up her new mansion, leaving it to her future lord and master to furnish the sinews of war for carrying on the ensuing campaigns. Accompanied by her former preceptress, the assistance of whose taste she had evoked, Letty proceeded on her first visit to “the city.” We shall not stop to describe her first sensations on entering so large a place. Reading and descriptions had given her a pretty correct idea of what a city was, and she did not, like another country-girl we have heard of, complain “that she could not see the town for the houses.” Let not this be considered an exaggeration, for the reverse of the case occurred in our own presence a very few years since. We were at a country-house a few miles from the city, when a friend of its owner arrived there, accompanied by one of her children, a lovely little girl of some five years of age. From some cause or other she had never since she could remember been in the country before, and delighted with all she saw—the trees, the green fields, the flowers, she hurried with a smiling face to her mother, exclaiming—“Oh, mamma, is this indeed the real country?”

After a day or so devoted to sight-seeing, the serious business which brought her there was entered upon by Letty. Cabinet-makers were visited, upholsterers consulted, and trades-people of various kinds looked in upon, until finally, like a genuine woman, she stopped buying, simply because her money was all gone. Articles of _vertu_ were not so common in those days as now, but yet our friend contrived to mingle a good deal of the ornamental with all of the useful in her purchases, and when, some time after, a carriage whirled to the door of a capacious Hazelnut street mansion, and a lady and gentleman descended therefrom, few ladies of Quakerdelphia entered a more elegant and luxurious home than did Mrs. John Smithson when she passed its portals.