Chapter VIII (1)

“A proposition, Hetty!” said my husband, throwing aside his coat and hat, and tossing a letter in my lap. “It is from a widow lady, who desires that I should take charge of her little boy, and give him a home in my family, while she goes to the continent, to secure some property lately left her by a foreign relative. It will be advantageous to us, in a pecuniary way, to have him board with us, unless it should increase your cares too much. But, as you are so fond of children, it may, perhaps, after all, prove a pleasant care to you. She is evidently a superior woman. Every line in her letter shows it.”

My husband immediately answered in the affirmative, and the child arrived a week after. He was a fine, intelligent, gentlemanly boy of eight years, with large hazel eyes, and transparently beautiful temples: disinclined to the usual sports of childhood, sensitive, shy, and thoughtful beyond his years—a human dew-drop, which we look to see exhale. He brought with him a letter from his mother, which powerfully affected my husband. During its perusal he drew his hand repeatedly across his eyes, and sat a long while after he had finished reading it, with his eyes closed, in a deep reverie. By-and-by he said, handing me the letter, “There is genius there, Hetty. I never read anything so touchingly beautiful. Mrs. West must be a very talented and superior woman.”

I glanced over the letter. It fully justified my husband’s encomiums. It was a most touching appeal to him to watch with paternal care over her only child; but while she spoke with a mother’s tenderness of his endearing qualities, she wished him taught implicitly, that first of all duties for the young, _obedience_. Then followed allusions to dark days of sorrow, during which the love of that cherished child was the only star in her sky.

I folded the letter and sat very still, after my husband left, in my little rocking-chair, thinking. Such a gifted woman as that my husband should have married. One who could have sympathised with him and shared his intellectual pursuits; who would have been something besides a toy to amuse an idle hour, or to minister to his physical necessities. Perhaps it was of this that my husband was thinking, as he sat there with his eyes closed over the open letter. Perhaps he had wed me only from a generous impulse of pity, and that letter had suddenly revealed to him the happiness of which he was capable with a kindred spirit. I was very miserable. I wished the letter had never reached us, or that I had declined the care of the child. Other letters, of course, would come, and the boy would keep alive the interest in the intervals. I wept long and bitterly. At length I was aroused by the entrance of little Charley. A bright flush mounted to his forehead, when he saw my swollen eyes. He hesitated a moment, then gliding up to my side he said, sweetly, “Are you sick? Shall I bathe your head? I used to bathe mamma’s head when it pained her.”

I stood abashed and rebuked in the child’s angel presence, and taking the boy, _her_ boy, in my arms, I kissed him as tenderly as if I had been his mother; while in his own sweet way he told me with childish confidence of his own dead papa; how much he loved mamma; how many, many beautiful things he used to bring her, saying that they were not half good, or half handsome enough for her; how distressed he used to be if she were ill; how carefully he closed the shutters, and tip-toed about the house, with his finger on his lip, telling the servants to close the doors gently; and how he promised him little toys, if he would not disturb mamma’s slumbers; and then, how like diamonds his eyes shone, when she got well; and what beautiful flowers he brought her for her vases; and what a nice, soft-cushioned carriage he brought for her to take the air; and how tenderly he wrapped the shawls about her, and how many charges he gave the coachman, to drive slowly and carefully. And then, how dear papa, at last, grew sick himself; and how mamma watched day and night beside his bed, forgetting to sleep, or eat, or drink; and how nobody dared to tell her that the doctor said he must die; and how papa grew fainter and weaker, and how he said, “Kiss me, Mary, and lay your cheek to mine; I can’t see you.” And then how mamma fainted and was carried out, and for many, many long days didn’t know even her own little Charley;—and how dreadful it was when she first waked, and tried to remember what had happened; and how nobody could comfort her but Charley; and how he used often to wake up in the night, and find her with a lamp looking at him, because when he was asleep he looked so much like dear, dead papa; and how bitterly she would sob when she was sick, because papa was not there to pity her, and bathe her aching head; and how he (Charley) meant, when he grew up to be a man, to get a nice house for her, and put everything she wanted in it, and make her just as happy as he could.

Well has the Saviour said, “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” That night I bent over little Charley’s bed, blessing the little sleeper for his angel teachings, with a heart as calm and peaceful as the mirrored lake, reflecting only the smile of Heaven.

Time passed on. Life became earnest; for a little heart pulsated beneath my own, and a strange, sweet, nameless thrill sent to my chastened lips a trembling prayer. Tiny caps and robes, with many a hope and fear interwoven in their delicate threads, lay awaiting the infant’s advent. I, myself, should know the height, and breadth, and depth of a mother’s undying love. What could come between me and _this_ new-found treasure?

Meantime, letters continued to come from Charley’s mother to her boy, and my husband. It was impossible for me to blind myself to his growing interest in them. On the days they were expected (for she wrote at regular intervals), he would be absent and abstracted, or if any delay occurred, almost irritable. When they were received, his eye kindled, his step became elastic, and his whole face grew radiant with happiness.

As the time drew near for the birth of my infant, I grew timid with sad forebodings. I was sitting, one evening at twilight, watching the setting sun, and thinking of the quiet grave it was gilding, where my silver-haired father slept, in the old churchyard, when my husband entered. An expression of pain flitted over his features, as he looked at me; and taking my hand, he said, gently, _almost tenderly_, “You are less well than usual, Hetty; you must not sit here, moping, by yourself.”

I laid my head upon his shoulder with a happiness I had not known for many months. “Listen to me, dear Grey,” said I; “I have a confidence to repose in you that will ease my heart.

“It was pity, only, that drew your heart to mine; you do not love me. I have known it a long while since. At first, the discovery gave me a pang keener than death; but I have had a long and bitter struggle with myself, and have conquered. It is not your fault that you cannot love me. To the many voices of your heart, which cry, ‘Give, give,’ my response is weak and unsatisfying. Your wife should be gifted. She should sympathise with you in your intellectual pursuits. She should stimulate your pride, as well as your love. Such a one is Charley’s mother. Your _heart_ has already wed her, and as God is my witness, I have ceased to blame you. We cannot help our affections. I cannot help loving you, though I know her mysterious power over your heart. I have seen your struggles, your generous self-reproaches, in some sudden outburst of kindness toward me, after the indulgence of some bright dream, in which I had no share. Dear Grey, she is worthy of your love. She has a heart, noble, good and true; a heart purified by suffering. I see it in every line she writes. Should I not survive the birth of my infant, I could give your happiness into her keeping without a misgiving, though I have never looked upon her face.”

Little Hetty’s noble heart has long since ceased to throb with joy or pain. To her husband’s breast is folded the babe, for whose little life her own was yielded up. Threads of silver prematurely mingle amid his ebon locks; for memory writes only on bereaved hearts the virtues of the dead, while, with torturing minuteness, she pictures our own short-comings, for which, alas! we can offer no atonement but our tears.

AUNT HEPSY.

It was a comical little old shop, “Aunt Hepsy’s,” with its Lilliputian counter, shelves and stove, and its pigmy assortment of old-fashioned ginghams, twilled cambrics, red flannels, factory cotton and homespun calicoes; its miniature window, with its stock of horn-combs and candy, tin horses and peppermint drops, skeins of yarn and Godfrey’s Cordial, gaudy picture books, and sixpenny handkerchiefs, from whose centre Lafayette and George Washington smiled approbatively upon the big A’s and little A’s printed round the border.

“Aunt Hepsy;” so every brimless-hatted urchin in the neighbourhood called her, though it would have puzzled them worse than the multiplication table, had you asked them why they did so. Year in and year out, her ruddy English face glowed behind the little shop window. Sometimes she would be knitting a pair of baby’s socks, sometimes inventing most astonishing looking bags out of rainbow fragments of silk or ribbon. Sometimes netting watch-guards, or unravelling the yarn from some old black stocking, to ornament the “place where the wool ought to grow,” on the head of some Topsy doll she was making. Sometimes comforting herself with a sly pinch of snuff, or, when sunbeams and customers were scarce, nodding drowsily over the daily papers.

Aunt Hepsy _had_ been a beauty, and her pretty face had won her a thriftless husband, of whom champagne and cigars had long since kindly relieved her. And though Time had since forced her to apply to the perruquier, he had gallantly made atonement by leaving her in the undisputed possession of a pair of very brilliant black eyes. Add to this a certain air of coquetry, in the fanciful twist of her gay-coloured turban, and the disposal of the folds of her lace kerchief over her ample English bust—and you have a faithful daguerreotype of “Aunt Hepsy.”

From the window of her little shop she could look out upon the blue waters of the bay, where lay moored the gallant ships, from whose tall masts floated the stars and stripes, and whose jolly captains might often be seen in Aunt Hepsy’s shop, exchanging compliments and snuff, and their heavy voices heard, recounting long Neptune yarns, and declaring to the buxom widow that nothing but the little accident of their being already spliced for life, prevented their immediately spreading sail with her for the port of Matrimony. Aunt Hepsy usually frowned at this, and shook her turbaned head menacingly, but immediately neutralized it by offering to mend a rip in their gloves, or replace a truant button on their overcoats.

It was very odd, how universally popular was Aunt Hepsy. She had any number of places to “take tea,” beside a standing invitation from half-a-dozen families, to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and to New-Year’s suppers. She had an eligible seat in church, gratis; an inexhaustible bottle of sherry for her often infirmities, fresh pies on family baking days, newspapers for stormy day reading; tickets to menageries, and invitations to picnics.

She always procured lodgings at a cheaper rate than anybody else; had the pleasantest room in the house at that, the warmest seat at table, the strongest cup of coffee, the brownest slice of toast, the latest arrival of buckwheats, the second joint of the turkey, and the only surviving piece of pie. To be sure, she always praised ugly babies, asked old maids why they _would_ be so cruel as to persist in remaining unmarried, entreated hen-pecked husbands to use their powerful influence over their wives to secure to her their custom, begged the newly-fledged clergyman to allow her a private perusal of his last Sunday’s able discourse; complimented ambitious Esaus on the luxuriant growth of their very incipient and microscopically perceptible whiskers; asked dilapidated, rejected widowers, when they intended taking their choice of a wife out of a bevy of rosy girls; and declared to editors that she might as well try to get along without her looking-glass, as without their interesting newspapers.

One day the little shop was shut up. Nine o’clock came—eleven o’clock, and the shutters were still closed, and Aunt Hepsy so punctual, too! What _could_ it mean? Old Mrs. Brown was ready to have fits because she couldn’t get another skein of yarn to finish her old man’s stockings. Little Pat Dolan had roared himself black in the face, because he couldn’t spend his cent to buy some maple sugar; and the little match girl stood shivering at the corner for a place to warm her poor benumbed fingers, while the disappointed captains stamped their feet on the snow, stuffed their cheeks with quids, and said it was “deuced funny;” and an old maid opposite, who had long prayed that Aunt Hepsy’s reign might be shortened, laid her skinny forefinger on her hooked nose, and rolled up the whites of her eyes like a chicken with the pip.

It was no great enigma (at any rate, not after you found it out!). Rich old Mr. Potts ventured into Aunt Hepsy’s shop one day to buy a watch-ribbon. He was very deaf; so Aunt Hepsy had to come round the counter to wait upon him, and the upshot of it was, that she and Cupid together hailed him through an ear-trumpet; and all I know about it is, that they have now a legalized right to a mutual pillow and snuff-box, and that the little shop window still remains unopened, while the old maid hisses between her teeth, as Aunt Hepsy rolls by in her carriage, “How do you suppose she did it?”

THOUGHTS AT CHURCH.

I have an old-fashioned way of entering church before the bells begin to chime. I enjoy the quiet, brooding stillness. I love to think of the many words of holy cheer that have fallen there, from heaven-missioned lips, and folded themselves like snow-white wings over the weary heart of despair. I love to think of the sinless little ones, whose pearly temples have here been laved at the baptismal font. I love to think of the weak, yet strong ones, who have tearfully tasted the consecrated cup, on which is written, “Do this in remembrance of me.” I love to think of those self-forgetting, self-exiled, who, counting all things naught for Gethsemane’s dear sake, are treading foreign shores, to say to the soul-fettered Pagan, “Behold the Lamb of God.” I love to think of the loving hearts that at yonder altar have throbbed, side by side, while the holy man of God pronounced “the twain one.” I love to think of the seraph smile of which death itself was powerless to rob the dead saint, over whose upturned face, to which the sunlight lent such mocking glow, the words, “Dust to dust,” fell upon the pained ear of love. I love, as I sit here, to list, through the half open vestry door, to the hymning voices of happy Sabbath scholars, sweet as the timid chirp of morn’s first peeping bird. I love to hear their tiny feet, as they patter down the aisle, and mark the earnest gaze of questioning childhood. I love to see the toil-hardened hand of labour brush off the penitential tear. I love—“_our_ minister.” How very sad he looks to-day. Are his parishioners unsympathetic? Does the labourer’s “hire” come tardily and grudgingly to the overtasked faithful servant? Do censorious, dissatisfied spirits watch and wait for his halting?

Now he rises and says, slowly—musically, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Why at such sweet, soul-resting words, do his tears overflow? Why has his voice such a heart-quiver? Ah! there is a vacant seat in the pastor’s pew. A little golden head, that last Sabbath gladdened our eyes like a gleam of sunlight, lies dreamlessly pillowed beneath the coffin lid; gleeful eyes have lost their brightness; cherry lips are wan and mute, and beneath her sable veil the lonely mother sobs. And so the father’s lip quivers, and for a moment nature triumphs. Then athwart the gloomy cloud flashes the bow of promise. He wipes away the blinding tears, and with an angel smile, and upward glance, he says, “_Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him._”

THE BROTHERS.

Close the door. One would scarcely think, in this luxurious atmosphere, that we had left mid-winter behind us. The warm air is heavy with the odour of blossoming greenhouse plants, over whose fragrant clusters a tiny fountain tosses its sparkling spray: bright-winged, sweet-voiced canaries dart, like flashes of sunlight, through the dark green foliage: beautiful are those sculptured infants, cheek to cheek, over whose dimpled limbs the crimson drapery throws such a rosy glow: beautiful is that shrinking Venus, with her pure, chaste brow, and Eve-like grace: lovely those rare old pictures to the artistic eye: beautiful that recumbent statuette of the peerless, proud “Pauline.”

Hush! tread softly; on yonder couch a gentleman lies sleeping. His crimson velvet cap has fallen back from his broad white forehead, his long curving lashes droop heavily upon his cheek, and his Grecian profile is as faultless as a sculptor’s dream. Pity that the stain of sensuality should have left so legible an impress there.

A servant enters, hearing a note upon a silver tray. His master languidly opens a pair of large dark eyes, and beckons him to approach. As he breaks the seal, a contemptuous sneer disfigures his handsome lip, and an angry flush mounts to his brow. Motioning the servant away, he crushes the note between his fingers, muttering, “No—no; as he has made his bed, so let him lie in it.” Then walking once or twice rapidly across the room, he takes up a small volume, and throws himself again upon the velvet couch. He does not turn the leaves; and if you peep over his shoulder, you will see that the book is upside down. His thoughts are far away. He remembers a bright-eyed, open-browed, guileless-hearted brother, whom early orphanage had thrown upon his fraternal care; whose trusting nature he had perverted; whose listening ear he had poisoned with specious sophistries and worldly maxims; whom he had introduced to the wine party, where female virtue was held in derision, and to the “green room,” where the foreign _danseuse_ understood well how to play her part; whom he had initiated into modern follies and dissipations, and then launched upon the Charybdis of fashionable society, without chart, or rudder, or compass, other than his own headstrong passions and unbridled will.

Soon came a rumour—at first vague and undefined, and then voraciously seized upon and circulated by Paul Pry penny-a-liners (who recked little, in their avidity for a paragraph, of broken-hearted mothers or despairing gray-haired fathers), of a true heart that had been betrayed, of a disgraced household, of a fair brow that must henceforth walk the earth shame-branded. Then from his avenging pursuers the rash boy fled for refuge to him who had first turned his youthful steps aside from truth and honour. He was repulsed with scorn; not because he had wronged his own soul and hers whose star had for ever set in night, but because he had not more skilfully and secretly woven the meshes for his victim.

Across the seas, amid the reckless debauchery of God-forgetting Paris, the miserable boy sought oblivion; welcoming with desperate eagerness the syren Pleasure, in every chameleon shape that could stifle conscience or drown torturing memory. Sometimes by a lucky throw of the dice he was enabled to shine as the Adonis of some ball, or theatre, or gay saloon: sometimes destitute as the humblest chiffonier, who suns himself in the public square, to solicit charity of the indifferent passer-by. In the rosy glow of morning, the bright stars paled while Harry sat at the enticing gaming table, till even those accustomed to breathe the polluted atmosphere of those gates of perdition, turned shuddering away from the fiendish look of that youthful face.

Nature revenged herself at last. Wearisome days of sickness came, and he who was nurtured in luxury was dependent upon the charity of grudging strangers.

Oh! what a broad, clear beam eternity throws upon the crooked by-paths of sin! how like swift visions pass the long-forgotten prayer at the blessed mother’s knee; the long-forgotten words of Holy Writ; the soothing vesper hymn of holy time; the first cautious, retrograding step—the gradual searing of conscience, till the barrier between right and wrong is ruthlessly trampled under foot; the broken resolutions, the mis-spent years, the wasted energies; the sins against one’s own soul, the sins against others; the powerless wish to pray, ‘mid paroxysms of bodily pain; the clinging hold on life—the anxious glance at the physician—the thrilling question, “Doctor, is it life or death?”

Poor Harry! amid the incoherent ravings of delirium, the good little grisette learned his sad history. Her little French heart was touched with pity. Through her representations, on his partial restoration to health, a sufficient sum was subscribed by the American consul, and some of his generous countrymen, to give him the last chance for his life, by sending him to breathe again his native air. Earnestly he prayed that the sea might not be his sepulchre.

Tearfully he welcomed the first sight of his native shore. Tremblingly he penned those few lines to the brother whose face he so yearned to see—and on whose fraternal breast it would seem almost easy to die. Anxiously he waited the result, turning restlessly from side to side, till beaded drops of agony started from his pallid temples. Walter would not refuse his _last_ request. No—no, The proud man would at least, at the grave’s threshold, forget that “vulgar rumour” had coupled his patrician name with disgrace. Oh, why had the messenger such leaden footsteps? when life and strength, like hour-glass sands, were fleeting! A step is heard upon the stairs! A faint flush, like the rosy tinting of a sea-shell, brightens the pallid face.

“No answer, sir,” gruffly says the messenger.

A smothered groan of anguish, and Harry turns his face to the wall, and tears, such only as despair can shed, bedew his pillow.

“_Do_ go, dear Walter; ’tis your own brother who asks it. If he has sinned, has he not also suffered? We all so err, so need forgiveness. Oh, take back those hasty words; let him die on your breast, for _my_ sake, Walter,” said the sweet pleader, as her tears fell over the hand she pressed.

“That’s my own husband,” said the happy Mary, as she saw him relent. “Go _now_, dear Walter. Take away the sting of those cruel words, while yet you may, and carry him these sweet flowers, he used to love, from me. Quick, dear Walter.”

* * * * *

“This way, sir, this way. Up another flight,” said the guide, gazing admiringly at the fine figure before him, enveloped in a velvet Spanish cloak. “Second door to the left, sir. Maybe the gentleman’s asleep now; he’s been very quiet for some time. Seen trouble, sir, I reckon. ’Tis not age that has drawn those lines on his handsome face. He’s not long for this world, God rest his soul. That’s right, sir; that’s the door. Good day, sir.”

Walter stood with his finger on the latch. He had at all times a nervous shrinking from sickness—a fastidious horror of what he termed “disagreeables.” He half repented that he had suffered a woman’s tears to unsettle his purpose. Perhaps Harry would reproach him. (His own conscience was prompter to that thought.) There he stood, irresolutely twirling Mary’s lovely flowers in his nervous grasp.

If Harry should reproach him!

Slowly he opened the door. The flowers fell from his hand! Was that attenuated, stiffened form, his own, warm-hearted, bright-eyed, gallant young brother?

“Reproach?”

Oh, Walter, there is no “reproach” like that passionless upturned face; no words so crushing as the silence of those breathless lips; no misery like the thought that those we have injured are for ever blind to our gushing tears, and deaf to our sobs of repentance.

CURIOUS THINGS.

CURIOUS: The exaggerated anxiety of wives to see the women who were
formerly loved by their husbands.—_Exchange._

Well, yes—rather curious; there are a great many curious things in this world. Curious, your husband always perceives that you are “sitting in a draft,” whenever one of your old lovers approaches you in a concert room; curious he insists upon knowing who gave you that pretty gold ring on your little finger; curious that you can never open a package of old letters, without having his married eyes peeping over your shoulder; curious he never allows you to ride on horseback, though everybody says you have just the figure for it; curious he always sends his partner on all the little business trips of the firm; curious such an ugly frown comes over his face when he sees certain cabalistic marks, in a masculine hand, in the margin of your favourite poet; curious that he will not let you name your youngest boy Harry, unless you tell him your confidential reasons; curious he is almost most gracious to the most uninteresting men who visit the house; and _very_ curious, and decidedly disagreeable, that whenever you ask him for money, he is so busy reading the newspaper that he can’t hear you.

THE ADVANTAGES OF A HOUSE IN A FASHIONABLE SQUARE.

“Whom did you say wished to see me, Bridget?”

The broad-faced Irish girl handed her mistress a card.

“‘Mrs. John Hunter!’ Was there _ever_ anything so unfortunate? Had she called on any other day in the week, I should have been prepared to receive her, but on a ‘washing day,’ when nothing but a calico wrapper stands Master George’s clawings and climbings; when the nursery maid is in the kitchen, and the baby on my hands for the day; when my ‘Honiton collar’ is in soak, the parlour-window curtains in the wash-tub, and the dimensions of the whole family, big and little, are flapping on the clothes line, displaying their rents and patches in full view of the parlour windows! Was there ever anything so unfortunate? What _could_ induce Mrs. John Hunter to call on a washing day?”

But what was a “washing day” to Mrs. John Hunter, who lived in St. John’s Square, kept four servants, and patronized a laundry? What did she know of Monday’s picked up dinners and littered parlours, cluttered china closet, and untidied nurseries? Mrs. John Hunter, who came down to breakfast every morning in a fawn-coloured silk morning dress, trimmed with cherry, over an elaborately embroidered white skirt; in a cobweb lace cap, silk stockings, and the daintiest of Parisian toilette slippers; how could _she_ see the necessity of going down into the cellar, after breakfast, to see if the pork was under brine, the pickle jar covered, and the preserves unfermented? What did _she_ know about washing up breakfast-cups, polishing the silver sugar-bowl, filling the astral lamp, counting up the silver forks and spoons, or mending that little threadbare place in the carpet, that would soon widen into an ugly rent, if neglected? What did she know about washing children’s faces for school, or finding their missing mittens, or seeing that Webster’s spelling-book and a big apple were safely stowed away in their satchels? How did she (whose family broadcloth the tailor mended) know that Monday was always the day when husbands threw their coats into wives’ lap “for just one stitch,” which, translated, means new sleeve-linings, new facings for the flaps, a new set of buttons down the front, and a general resuscitation of dilapidated button-holes? How did she know that the baby always got up a fit of colic on washing days, and made it a point to dispense with its usual forenoon nap?—that all the collectors for benevolent societies, and bores in general, preferred it to any other day in the calendar?—that school teachers always selected it to ferule children for sneezing without permission—that milkmen never could spare you, on that day, your usual share of milk by two quarts—that the coal, potatoes, starch, soap, molasses, and vinegar always gave out on Monday—that “the minister” always selected it for his annual call, and country cousins for a “protracted meeting?” How should the patrician, Mrs. John Hunter, know all that?

There she sat in the parlour taking notes, after the usual fashion of lady-callers, while Mrs. John Smith hurriedly tied on her bonnet, to hide her dishevelled tresses, threw on a shawl, and made her appearance in the parlour as if “just returned from a long walk.”

How their tongues ran! how fashions and gossip were discussed; how Mrs. Smith admired Mrs. Hunter’s new dress hat; how the latter lady advised Mrs. Smith to “insist on her husband’s moving from such an undesirable neighbourhood into a more aristocratic locality;” and how Mrs. Smith wondered that the idea had never struck her before; and how Mrs. Hunter told her that of course Mr. Smith would refuse at first, but that she must either worry him into it, or seize upon some moment of conjugal weakness to extort a binding promise from him to that effect; and how the little wife blushed to find herself conniving at this feminine piece of diabolism.

Mrs. John Smith’s husband commenced life in a provision store. He was well acquainted with cleavers, white aprons, and spare-ribs—was on hand early and late to attend to business—trusted nobody—lived within his income, and consequently made money.

Miss Mary Wood kept a dressmaker’s establishment just over the way. Very industriously she sat through the long summer days, drooping her pretty golden ringlets over that never-ending succession of dresses. Patiently she “took in,” and “let out,” bias-ed, flounced, tucked, gathered, plaited, at the weathercock option of her customers. Uneasily she leaned her head against her little window at sun-down, and earnestly Mr. John Smith wished he could reprieve for ever from such drudgery those taper little fingers. Very tempting was the little basket of early strawberries, covered with fresh green leaves, that went over the way to her one bright summer morning—and as red as the strawberries, and quite as tempting, looked Miss Mary’s cheek to Mr. John Smith, as she sat at the window, reading the little billet-doux which he slily tucked into one corner.

The milkman wondered why Mr. Smith had grown so particular about the flowers in the bouquets his little grand-daughter plucked for sale, and why there must _always_ be “a rose-bud in it.” Miss Rosa Violet couldn’t imagine what ailed her dressmaker, Miss Wood (who was always so scrupulous in executing orders), to make her bodice round, when she told her so particularly to make it pointed. The little sewing-girls employed in Miss Wood’s shop were “afraid she was getting crazy,” she smiled so often to herself, broke so many needles, and made so many mistakes in settling up their accounts on pay-day; and very great was their astonishment one day, after finishing a pretty bridal dress, to find that Miss Wood was to wear it herself to church the very next Sunday!

One bright June morning found the little dressmaker in a nice, two-story brick house, furnished with every comfort, and some luxuries; for the warm-hearted John thought nothing half good enough for his little golden-haired bride. As time passed on, other little luxuries were added; including two nice, fat, dimpled babies; and within the last year John had bought the house they lived in, and at Mary’s suggestion introduced gas, to lighten the labours of the servant, and also added a little bathing-room to the nursery. His table was well provided—the mother’s and children’s wardrobes ample, and not a husband in Yankee-land was prouder or happier than John Smith, when on a sunshiny Sunday, he walked to church with his pretty wife, whose golden curls still gleamed from beneath her little blue bonnet, followed by Katy and Georgy with their shining rosy faces, and pretty Sunday dresses.

It was quite time the honeymoon should wane, but still it showed no signs of decrease. Little bouquets still perfumed Mary’s room. John still sprung to pick up her handkerchief, or aid her in putting on her cloak or shawl. The anniversary of their wedding day always brought her a kind little note, with some simple remembrancer. Trifles, do you call these? Ah, a wife’s happiness is made or marred by just such “trifles.”

* * * * *

“Katy will make somebody’s heart ache one of these days,” said John Smith to his wife. “Katy will be a beauty. Did you hear me, Mary?”

“Yes,” said Mary, drooping her bright ringlets till they swept John’s cheek, “and I was thinking how I hoped she would marry well, and whether it would not be better for us to move into a more genteel neighbourhood, and form a new set of acquaintances.”

“_My_ little wife getting ambitious!” said John, smoothing her ringlets back from her white forehead; and “where would you like to live, Mary?”

“St. John’s Square is a nice place,” said the little wife, timidly.

“Yes; but, my dear Mary, rents there are enormous, and those large houses require a greater outlay of money than you have any idea of. The furniture which looks pretty and in good taste here, would be quite shabby in such an elegant establishment. The pretty de laine, which fits your little round figure so charmingly, must give place to a silk or brocade. Katy and Georgy must doff their simple dresses, for velvet and embroidery; broad-faced, red-fisted Bridget must make way for a French cook. The money which I have placed in the bank for a nest-egg for you and the children in case of my death must be withdrawn to meet present demands. But we will talk of this another time: good-by, Mary dear; not even your dear face must tempt me away from business; good-by,” and he kissed his hand to her, as he walked rapidly out the door.

But somehow or other Mary’s words kept ringing in John’s ears. It was very true Katy must be married some day, and then he ran over the circle of their acquaintance; the Stubbses, and the Joneses, and the Jenkinses—good enough in their way, but (he confessed to himself) _not just the thing for his Katy_. John was ambitious too: Mary was right; they ought to consider that Katy would soon be a woman.

It is not to be supposed because John Smith never sported white kids, save on his wedding day, that he was not a man of taste; by no means. Not an artistic touch of Mary’s feminine fingers, from the twist of a ringlet or ribbon to the draping of a curtain, the judicious disposal of a fine engraving, or the harmonious blending of colours in a mantel bouquet, escaped him. It was his joy and pride to see her glide about his home, beautifying almost unconsciously everything she touched; and then, he remembered when she was ill, and Bridget had the oversight of the parlours—what a different air they had; how awkwardly the chairs looked plastered straight against the wall—how ugly the red cloth all awry on the centre table; what a string-y look the curtains had, after her clumsy fingers had passed over them Yes, Mary would grace a house in St. John’s Square; and if it would make her any happier to go there (and here he glanced at his ledger) —why, go she should—for she was just the prettiest, and dearest, and most loving little Mary who ever answered to that poetical name. What would full coffers avail him, if Mary should die?—and she might die first. His health was good—his business was good. Mary and Katy _should_ live in St. John’s Square.

Mary and Katy _did_ live in St. John’s Square. The upholsterer crammed as many hundreds as possible into the drawing-rooms, in the shape of _vis-a-vis_ antique chairs, velvet sofas, damask curtains, mirrors, tapestry, carpets, and a thousand other nick-nacks, too numerous to mention: then the blinds and curtains shut out the glad sunlight, lest the warm beams should fade out the rich tints of the carpets and curtains, and left it us fine and as gloomy as any other fashionable drawing room. There was a very pretty prospect from Mary’s chamber windows, but she never allowed herself to enjoy it after Mrs. John Hunter told her that it was considered “decidedly snobbish to be seen at the front window.” The Smiths took their meals in a gloomy basement, where gas was indispensable at mid-day. Mary was constantly in fear that the servants would spoil the pictures and statues in the parlour, so she concluded to sweep and dust it herself, before there was any probability of Mrs. John Hunter’s being awake in the morning. As this was something of a tax, she and Mr. Smith and the children kept out of it, except on Sundays and when company called, burrowing under ground the residue of the time in the afore-mentioned basement.

Directly opposite Mrs. Smith lived Mrs. Vivian Grey, the leader of the aristocracy (so Mrs. Hunter informed her) in St. John’s Square. It was a great thing to be noticed by Mrs. Vivian Grey. Mrs. Hunter sincerely hoped she would patronise Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Hunter, after a minute survey, pronounced Mrs. Smith’s establishment quite _comme il faut_, but suggested that a _real_ cachemire should be added as soon as possible to Mrs. Smith’s wardrobe, as Mrs. Grey considered that article quite indispensable to a woman of fashion. She also suggested that Mrs. Smith should delicately hint to her husband the propriety of his engaging a man servant, which appendage was necessary to give a certain _distingué_ finish to the establishment; an Irishman would do, if well trained, but a _black_ man was more fashionable, provided he was not _green_—and Mrs. Hunter smiled at her own wit.

The cachemire was added—so was the black servant man. Katy no longer skipped and jumped, but minced in corsets and whalebone. She never _ate_ unless at a private lunch with mamma. Mr. John Smith staid late at his counting-room, and looked anxious, and two ugly lines made their appearance on Mrs. Mary’s fair forehead. The French cook gave away provisions enough to feed an entire family of French emigrants. The black man-servant pulled up his dicky and informed Mrs. Smith that it was at the price of his reputation to live with a family who dispensed with the use of finger-bowls; and the house-maid (who had the honour of being descended from the establishment of Mrs. Vivian Grey) declined remaining with a family who didn’t keep a private carriage.

Mrs. Vivian Grey was _not_ baited by the real cachemire, and her son, little Julius Grey, a precocious youth of ten, told little George Smith that his mamma had forbidden him playing marbles with a boy whose father had kept a provision store.

A scurrilous penny paper published a burlesque of Mrs. Smith’s first grand party, on the coming out of Miss Katy, in which, among other allusions to Mr. Smith’s former occupation, the ball-room was said to be “elegantly festooned with sausages.” This added “the last ounce to the camel’s back;” even Mrs. Hunter’s tried friendship was not proof against such a test.

A council of war was called. Mrs. Smith begged her husband, as her repentant arms encircled his waistcoat, to buy a place in the country. John very gladly consented to turn his plebeian back for ever on the scene of their humiliation; and, what with strawberries and cherries, peaches, picnics, early rising and light hearts, the Smith family have once more recovered their equanimity, and can afford to laugh when “St. John’s Square” and Mrs. John Hunter are mentioned.

WINTER IS COMING.

Welcome his rough grip! welcome, the fleet horse with flying feet, and arching throat, neck-laced with merry bells! welcome, bright eyes, and rosy cheeks, and furred robes, and the fun-provoking sleigh-ride; welcome, the swift skater who skims, bird-like, the silvery pond; welcome, Old Santa Claus with his horn of plenty; welcome, the “Happy New Year,” with her many-voiced echoes, and gay old Thanksgiving, with his groaning table, old friends and new babies; welcome, for the bright fireside, the closed curtains, the dear, unbroken home-circle, the light heart, the merry jest, the beaming smile, the soft “good-night,” the downy-bed, and rosy slumbers.

Alas for his rough grip! the barrel of meal is empty, and the cruse of oil fails. Sharp winds flutter thin rags ‘round shivering limbs. There are pinched features, and benumbed feet, and streaming eyes, and repulsed hands, and despairing hearts; there are damp corners, and straw pallets, and hollow coughs, and hectic cheeks! there are dismantled roofs, through which the snow gently drops its white, icy pall over the wasted limbs of the dying; there are babes whose birthright is poverty, whose legacy is shame, whose baptism is tears, _whose little life is all winter_.

“THE OTHER SEX.”

“Let cynics prattle as they may, our existence here, without the
presence of the other sex, would be only a dark and cheerless void.”

_Which_ “other sex?” Don’t be so obscure. Dr. Beecher says, “that a writer’s ideas should stand out like rabbits’ ears, so that the reader can get hold of them.” If you allude to the female sex, I don’t subscribe to it. I wish they were all “translated.” If there is anything that gives me the sensations of a landsman on his first sea voyage, it is the sight of a bonnet. Think of female friendship! Two women joining the Mutual Admiration Society; emptying their budget of love affairs; comparing baits to entrap victims; sighing over the same rose leaf; sonnetizing the same moonbeam; patronizing the same milliner, and _exchanging female kisses_! (Betty, hand me my fan!)

Well, let either have one bonnet or one lover more than the other—or, if they are blue stockings, let either be one round the higher on Fame’s ladder—bodkins and darning needles! what a tempest! Caps and characters in such a case are of no account at all. Oh, there never should be but one woman alive at a time. Then the fighting would be all where it belongs—in the masculine camp. What a time there’d be, though! Wouldn’t she be a belle? Bless her little soul! how she would queen it. It makes me clap my hands to think of it! _The only woman in the world!_ If it were I, shouldn’t they all leave off smoking, and wearing those odious plaid continuations? Should they ever wear an outside coat, with the flaps cut off, or a Kossuth hat, or a yellow Marseilles vest?—or a mammoth bow on their neck-ties; or a turnover dickey; or a watch-chain; or a ring on the little finger?—or any other abomination or off-shoot of dandyism whatsoever? Shouldn’t I politely request them all to touch their hats, instead of jerking their heads, when they bowed? Wouldn’t I coax them to read me poetry till they had the bronchitis? Wouldn’t they play on the flute, and sing the soul out of me? And then if they were sick, wouldn’t I pet them, and tell them all sorts of comicalities, and make time fly like the mischief? Shouldn’t wonder!

SOLILOQUY OF MR. BROADBRIM.

“There’s another of Miss Fiddlestick’s articles! She’s getting too conceited, that young woman! Just like all newly-fledged writers—mistakes a few obscure newspaper puffs for the voice of the crowd, and considers herself on the top round of the literary ladder. It will take _me_ to take the wind out of her sails. I’ll dissect her, before I’m a day older, as sure as my name is Ezekiel Broadbrim. I don’t approve her style; never did. It’s astonishing to me that the editor of the Green Twig dare countenance it, when he knows a man of my influence could annihilate her with one stroke of my pen. She has talent of a certain inferior order, but nothing to speak of. She’s an unsafe model to follow; will lead her tribe of imitators into tremendous mistakes. It’s a religious duty for a conspicuous sentinel, like myself, on Zion’s walls, to sound the blast of alarm;—can’t answer it to my conscience to be silent any longer. It might be misconstrued, The welfare of the world in general, and her soul in particular, requires a very decided expression of my disapprobation. I’m sorry to annihilate her, but when Ezekiel Broadbrim makes up his mind what is the path of duty, a bright seraph couldn’t stop him. Perhaps I may pour a drop of the balm of consolation afterwards, but it depends altogether upon whether I succeed in bringing her into a penitential frame of mind. It is my private opinion she is an incorrigible sinner. Hand me my pen, John. Every stroke of it will tell.”

WILLY GREY.

A stern, unyielding, line-and-plummet, May-flower descendant, was old Farmer Grey, of Allantown, Connecticut. Many a crop had he planted, many a harvest had he garnered in, since he first became owner of Glen Farm. During that time, that respected individual, “the oldest inhabitant,” could not remember ever to have seen him smile. The village children crept close to the stone wall, and gave him a wide berth when he passed. Even the cats and dogs laid their ears back, and crept circumspectly by him, with one eye on his whip-lash.

Farmer Grey considered it acceptable to the God who painted the rainbow, and expanded the lily, and tinted the rose, to walk the bright earth with his head bowed like a bulrush, and his soul clad in sackcloth. No mercy fell from the lips of _his_ imaginary Saviour; no compassion breathed in His voice; no love beamed in His eye; His sword of justice was never sheathed.

The old farmer’s wife was a gentle, dependent creature, a delicate vine, springing up in a sterile soil, reaching forth its tendrils vainly for some object to cling to. God, in his mercy, twined them lovingly around a human blossom. Little Willy partook of his mother’s sensitive, poetical nature: A yearning spirit looked out from the fathomless depths of his earnest eyes. Only eight short summers the gentle mother soothed her boy’s childish pains, and watched his childish slumbers. While _he_ grew in strength and beauty, _her_ eye waxed dim, and her step grew slow and feeble.

And so sweet memories were only left to little Willy,—dear, loving eyes, whose glance ever met his on waking; a fair, caressing hand, that wiped away his April tears; a low, gentle voice, sweet to his childish ear as a seraph’s hymning.

Willy’s father told him that “his mother had gone to Heaven;” John, the plough-boy, said, “she was lying in the churchyard.” Willy could not understand this. He only knew that the house had grown dark and empty, and that his heart ached when he stayed there; and so he wandered out in the little garden (his mother’s garden); but the flowers looked dreary, too; and her pretty rose-vine lay trailing its broken buds and blighted blossoms in the dust.

Then Willy crept up to his father’s side, and looked up in his face, but there was something there that made him afraid to lay his little hand upon his knee, or climb into his lap, or in any way unburden his little heart; so he turned away, more sorrowful than before, and wandered into his mother’s chamber, and climbed up in her chair, and opened her drawer, to look at her comb and hair brush; and then he went to the closet, and passed his little hand, caressingly, over her empty dresses, and leaning his little curly head against them, sobbed himself to sleep.

By and by, as years passed on, and the child grew older, he learned to wander out in the woods and fields, and unbosom his little yearning heart to Nature. Reposing on her breast, listening to the music of her thousand voices, his unquiet spirit was soothed as with a mother’s lullaby. With kindling eye, he watched the vivid lightnings play; or saw the murky east flush, like a timid bride, into rosy day; or beheld the shining folds of western clouds fade softly into twilight; or gazed at the Queen of Night, as she cut her shining path through the cloudy sky; or questioned with earnest eyes the glittering stars.

All this but ill pleased the old farmer. He looked upon the earth only with an eye to tillage; upon the sloping hill, with its pine-crowned summit, only with an eye to timber; upon the changeful skies, only as reservoirs for moistening and warming his crops; upon the silvery streams, that laced the emerald meadows, only as channels for irrigation; upon the climbing vine, as an insidious foe to joists, and beams, and timbers; and upon flowers only as perfumed aristocrats, crowding and over-topping the free-soil democracy of cabbage, onions, and potatoes.

In vain poor Will tried to get up, “to order,” an enthusiasm for self-acting hay-cutters, patent ploughs, rakes, hoes, and harrows. In vain, when Sunday came, and he was put “on the limits,” did the old farmer, with a face ten-fold more ascetic than the cowled monk, strive to throw a pall of gloom over that free, glad spirit, by rehearsing in his ear a creed which would for ever close the gate of heaven on every dissenter, or inculcate doctrines, which, if believed, would fill our lunatic asylums with the frantic wailings of despair.

Restlessly did Will, with cramped limbs and fettered spirit, sit out the tedious hours of that holy day, which should be the “most blessed of all the seven,” and watch, with impatient eye, the last golden beam of the Sabbath sun sink slowly down behind the western hills.

Oh, well-meaning, but mistaken parent! let but one loving smile play over those frigid lips; let but one tear of sympathy flood that stony eye: let but _one drop_ from that overflowing fountain of love that wells up in the bosom of the Infinite, moisten the parched soil of that youthful heart! Open those arms but once, and clasp him to the paternal heart; for even now, his chafed spirit, like a caged bird, flutters against its prison bars; even now, the boy’s unquiet ear catches the far-off hum of the busy world: even now, his craving heart beats wildly for the voice of human love!

* * * * *

Weary feet, houseless nights, the scant meal, and the oft-repulsed request: what are _they_ to the strong nerve, and bounding pulse, and hopeful heart of the young adventurer? Laurel wreaths, dizzy places on Ambition’s heights—have not its aspirants reached them by just such rugged steps?

“Will” is in the city. Will sits upon the steps of the New York City Hall, reading a penny paper: he has begged it from a good-natured newsboy, who has also shared with him a huge slice of gingerbread. As Will’s eye glances over the sheet, it falls upon the following paragraph:—

“PROSPECTUS OF THE WEEKLY CHRONICLE.

“The Weekly Chronicle is a paper founded on the demands of the age for
a first-class journal. It soars above all sectional and personal
considerations, and fearlessly proffers its feeble aid, in developing
the natural resources of the country, fostering the genius of the
people, rewarding meritorious effort in every department of art,
exalting virtue, however humble, and confounding vice, however
powerful, The editor and proprietor of the Chronicle is Mr.
Philanthropas Howard; office, No. 199 Cloud Street.

“Boy wanted immediately at the above office: one from the country
would be preferred.”

Will threw down the paper, and started to his feet: “199 Cloud Street?” He asked orange-women; he asked image-boys; he asked merchants; he asked clerks; he asked lawyers; he asked clients; he investigated cellars; he explored attics; he travelled through parks and through alleys; till, finally, he coaxed a graceless, bare-footed urchin to show him the way.