Chapter LXVI

MRS. SMITH'S REVERIE, WRITTEN OUT BY FANNY FERN.

"'All dissimulation is disloyality to love.'

"'I've _thought_ so before,' said Mrs. Smith; 'but now I _know_ it, _because I read it in the newspapers_. These editors beat the D--utch for understanding human nature, (all except female nature;) _there_ they are decidedly benighted. However, it isn't for my interest to throw any light on _that_ subject; it is an interesting study that I shan't interfere with. But this is a digression. As I was saying, 'dissimulation is disloyalty to love.' Didn't Mr. Smith tell me, when he asked me, on his knees, to make him the happiest of men, that I was the only daughter of Eve he ever fancied; and didn't I, before the honey-moon was over, find in his old bachelor trunk, locks of hair of every color the sun ever shone upon? And doesn't it do me good to put my matrimonial foot on the cricket that I stuffed with them? Certainly--I only wish I had their entire scalps!

"Well--didn't he come home one Sunday, with a face as long as an orthodox steeple, and give me 'the text and heads of the discourse,' when he had been off rolling ninepins all the morning? And didn't I always know, when he kissed me, or gave me a twenty dollar bill, (which was much more acceptable!) that it was the premonitory symptom of a desperate flirtation with somebody? and wasn't I sure, when that buff vest, and blue coat with bright brass buttons, went on, that there was immense execution to be done somewhere on forbidden ground?

"Well--'Life is short;' so is Mr. Smith. No help for either, that I know of! I'm too busy, amusing myself, to attend to his little derelictions. If there's anything that I ignore it is curiosity. It is so decidedly a _masculine failing_ that I scorn to be guilty of it!"