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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78710 ***
+
+
+
+
+ IN DOORS AND OUT;
+
+ OR,
+
+ VIEWS FROM THE CHIMNEY CORNER.
+
+
+ BY
+
+ OLIVER OPTIC.
+
+
+ BOSTON:
+ LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS.
+
+ NEW YORK:
+ CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM.
+
+
+
+
+ Copyright,
+ William T. Adams,
+ A. D. 1875.
+
+
+
+
+               TO
+
+         MY OLD FRIEND
+
+  _THE HON. CHARLES KIMBALL,_
+
+     SHERIFF OF MIDDLESEX,
+
+          This Volume
+
+ IS RESPECTFULLY RE-DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+Some of the sketches contained in this volume have appeared in the
+Boston True Flag, the American Union, and, one of them--“The New
+Minister”--in Gleason’s Pictorial; the remainder have not been
+published before.
+
+A great variety of sketches has been introduced, nearly all of them
+practical in their application, and illustrative of the social and
+domestic duties of life. No attempt at “fine writing” has been made in
+them; they are simply _home_ thrusts at the follies of the parlor and
+the kitchen; of the shop and the counting-room; in short, of life “in
+doors and out.”
+
+The author is encouraged to collect these simple stories in a volume,
+by the advice of partial friends, and by a desire to redeem them of
+a kind of literary orphanage to which the unscrupulousness of some
+reckless man of paste and scissors has reduced them. Many of them are
+now travelling over the country, like a dog without a collar; but
+unlike that highly respectable puppy which isn’t any body’s dog, they
+have an anxious friend at home, who takes this method of calling them
+back to the fold again.
+
+                                                            W. T. A.
+
+DORCHESTER, Sept. 12, 1854.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.
+
+
+This volume, originally issued twenty-one years ago, is reprinted and
+republished at the request of many partial friends. One sketch, which
+was simply a love story, has been omitted in this edition, and new
+illustrations have been made for it; but the contents of the book are
+otherwise the same as in the original volume. As most of the sketches
+were written a quarter of a century ago, rents, the salaries of clerks
+and others, and the prices of various kinds of goods do not agree with
+the standards of the present day. The author hopes the book will be as
+kindly received to-day as it was twenty-one years ago.
+
+                                                   WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
+
+DORCHESTER, OCTOBER 26, 1875.
+
+
+  “Mr. Wm. T. Adams, who seems by the dedication to be the _deus ex
+  machina_, has done himself credit. *** It contains twenty or thirty
+  very sprightly and pointed stories, each sharply hitting some
+  social absurdity or social vice. The conversations are remarkably
+  _conversational_; just such questions, answers, and remarks as real
+  people make. This gives a pleasant freshness to the narratives and
+  dialogues, although not calculated to render the book a model of
+  classical English style.”--_Putnam’s Monthly, Feb. 1855._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                   PAGE.
+
+GETTING AN INDORSER,                  11
+
+GOOD FOR NOTHINGS,                    22
+
+TWO DAGUERREOTYPES,                   31
+
+SIX HUNDRED A YEAR,                   41
+
+THE NEW MINISTER,                     50
+
+OUT NIGHTS,                           64
+
+BRING FLOWERS,                        75
+
+THE DOMESTIC ELEMENT,                 86
+
+BANG UP,                              97
+
+THE NEW CLOAK,                       108
+
+EVERY THING COMFORTABLE,             119
+
+FAMILY JARS,                         132
+
+LIFE INSURANCE,                      148
+
+LAST DAY OF GRACE,                   158
+
+MONTAGUE AND LADY,                   169
+
+TAKING THE NEWSPAPERS,               183
+
+CIGARS FOR TWO,                      193
+
+OUT OF BUSINESS,                     203
+
+SIX MONTHS AFTER DATE,               215
+
+WORLD OF TROUBLE,                    226
+
+SEND FOR THE DOCTOR,                 240
+
+FOUR KINDS OF CAKE,                  253
+
+EXTREMES MEET,                       263
+
+THE MERCANTILE ANGEL,                274
+
+CONFESSIONS OF A CONCEITED MAN,      285
+
+THE BACHELOR BEAU,                   295
+
+THE GRAND RECEPTION BALL,            306
+
+MARRYING A BEGGAR,                   321
+
+
+
+
+IN DOORS AND OUT.
+
+
+
+
+GETTING AN INDORSER.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+My friend, Frank Howard, was a dry goods dealer on Washington Street.
+When I made his acquaintance, he was one of the most active and
+successful salesmen in the trade, and being a prudent man, had saved
+a small sum of money, with which and the credit he might be able to
+obtain, he proposed to commence business on his own account.
+
+Among his acquaintances he had the good fortune to include a wealthy
+merchant, whose judgment had led him to form a lofty estimate of the
+business capacity of my friend.
+
+To him the young aspirant for mercantile honors stated his case, and
+the conference ended in a voluntary proposition on the part of the
+merchant to supply the goods necessary to stock his store, taking his
+notes, the first of which would fall due in one year, in payment.
+
+The arrangement was completed, and in a few days Frank found himself
+installed in a convenient store, on the best part of the street, ready
+to strike for his fortune.
+
+The notes had not been signed, and one evening, on some business
+connected with them, Frank called, by appointment, at the princely
+mansion of his worthy benefactor. He was ushered into the sitting room,
+where the merchant was reading the evening paper. By his side sat a
+beautiful young lady, to whom his patron politely introduced him.
+
+My friend belonged to that anomalous class of beings styled “handsome
+men;” at least the ladies all said he was handsome, though for the life
+of me I never could tell wherein his beauty consisted. But as I have no
+particular fancy for masculine beauty, it may have escaped my notice,
+or the natural selfishness of mankind may have prejudiced my judgment.
+
+My friend was acknowledged by all the ladies to be a remarkably
+handsome man; and, probably, this was the secret of his immense success
+as a salesman. Whether he reckoned his beauty as one of the items of
+his stock in trade, when he went into business, I am unable to say; but
+I have not the least doubt he based his hopes of success, to a great
+extent, upon the influence of his prepossessing personal appearance.
+
+Frank fixed his eyes on the young lady, as the merchant, who had, when
+he entered, half read a money article in his paper, turned to finish
+it. Miss Allen--such was the name by which she had been presented to
+him--was busily engaged in crocheting a little silk purse, and as she
+bent over the work, Frank was perfectly satisfied that he had never
+seen so pretty a face in his life.
+
+And then the neatest, most graceful little foot in the world,
+protruded from beneath a light silk dress--a foot which completely
+turned Frank’s head, so that he forgot all about the notes and the
+merchant.
+
+Without the least regard to etiquette, politeness, good breeding, and
+all that sort of thing, he stared mercilessly at her, and never, for
+even the fraction of a moment, removed his gaze, not even allowing
+himself the luxury of winking, lest the time so employed should be lost.
+
+Frank was perfectly sure that he had never before felt exactly as he
+did at that halcyon moment. It seemed as though all the divinities of
+paradise were concentrated in the fair form before him, as though he
+had been transplanted to an Elysium of love.
+
+And the maiden was not altogether unmoved. The embryo merchant several
+times detected her in the act of stealing a glance at him through the
+long, fringing eyelashes that adorned her peerless brow. He plainly saw
+her blush; saw her bosom heave with a flutter as she caught his earnest
+gaze.
+
+Frank Howard was a handsome man; and somehow or other, men and women
+who are favored in this respect always contrive to find it out. Frank
+knew that he was a handsome man, and never in his life did he more
+devoutly thank his stars, which had given him personal beauty, than at
+this particular moment.
+
+The lady had already found out that he was handsome, and if the stupid
+fellow had not stared so furiously at her, she would no doubt have done
+the same thing he was doing.
+
+Mr. Allen finished the money article, and laid down the paper. Frank
+has owned to me that he wished it had been twice, or even four times as
+long.
+
+The details of the business were discussed, and the papers drawn. While
+it was in progress, Frank more than once detected the beautiful fairy
+in the act of looking at him; several times detected her in the very
+act of blushing, when their eyes met.
+
+The business was finished at last, much to the regret of my handsome
+friend, who, when he got into the street, went straightway into a fit
+of abstraction, and had walked half way across Charlestown bridge, on
+his way home, before he happened to think that he lived at the South
+End.
+
+It was all up with poor Frank; he had fallen in love--was stark,
+staring mad in love--with whom he knew not, for it was well known that
+Mr. Allen had no daughter. She was a relative, however, for she bore
+his name.
+
+But if Frank was in love, there was some consolation in the fact, that
+the fair creature who had stolen his heart was in the same predicament.
+
+The next day, she came a shopping at his store, and the next, and the
+next; indeed, almost every day. No conversation had passed between
+them; and, though he had been introduced on the evening of his visit,
+he had been too much overwhelmed to use words.
+
+My friend, however, did not lack that necessary attribute of a
+successful wooer, somewhat vulgarly termed “spunk.” He had no further
+business with the merchant; but then his case was a desperate one, and
+he made an errand.
+
+Miss Allen blushed as he entered, but she was social and agreeable to
+the last degree, so much so that Frank staid till the bells rung for
+nine o’clock before he knew it. The ice was broken, and my friend was
+in for it.
+
+The lady was a niece of the merchant, twenty-one years of age, and an
+heiress. In the course of a few months, Frank’s energy won the victory,
+and it was understood that they were engaged.
+
+The merchant did not like it. Being somewhat exclusive in his ideas of
+social intercourse, the prospective marriage of his wealthy niece to
+a poor retailer was repugnant to the last degree, and he resolved to
+thwart the purpose of the loving couple.
+
+At first, he appealed to the lady; but she only laughed at him; told
+him bluntly that she loved Mr. Howard, and _would_ have him. Then he
+reasoned with Frank, on his ingratitude to him, his benefactor. The
+young man was touched, and promised to consider it.
+
+He did consider it, and his loving _inamorata_ helped him consider it.
+After a hasty deliberation, it was unanimously agreed to lay the whole
+matter “on the table.”
+
+Mr. Allen was informed of the decision, and as old fogies always do
+when they cannot do any thing else, bit his lip and swallowed his
+words, fully resolved to do something dreadful, whenever an opportunity
+occurred.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+A year after my friend went into business, as I passed his store one
+morning, I was not a little surprised to find it closed. Before the
+window was that ominous white cloth, denoting that the occupant had
+failed.
+
+I entered the store. Frank stood at his desk, glancing with a most
+woe-begone aspect at the pages of his ledger.
+
+“How’s this, Frank?” I asked; and I never was more surprised in my life.
+
+“Bu’st up! don’t you see?” replied he, rather petulantly.
+
+“But what does it mean?”
+
+“Mean! Why, that I had a note of a thousand dollars, due yesterday,
+which I could not pay; and this morning early, my amiable friend, Mr.
+Allen, put in a keeper--that’s all.”
+
+“How does it happen? I thought you were doing a rushing business.”
+
+“So I was. I had the money to pay this note six weeks ago, and let
+Smith have it at two per cent. a month,” replied he, with a ghastly
+smile.
+
+“And Smith has failed?”
+
+“Not exactly. He has stopped; but every body says he is good, if he has
+time to turn himself.”
+
+“And you must make a fail of it in the mean time?”
+
+“If I could only stave off Mr. Allen a couple of months, I could get
+out of the scrape with flying colors.”
+
+“Won’t he wait?”
+
+Frank shook his head; he had mortally offended the proud merchant, and
+there was no prospect that he would be lenient in the slightest degree.
+
+“Can’t you raise the money?”
+
+“No; times haven’t been so hard for four years. Every body is failing,
+and the money men won’t trust their own fathers.”
+
+At this moment Mr. Allen entered the store. He looked stern and severe,
+like one who has the power in his own hands, and is disposed to use it.
+I seated myself near the desk, as he approached.
+
+The merchant politely saluted the unfortunate dealer, smiling as
+blandly as though nothing had happened; as though he had no niece, and
+Frank were a Stoic.
+
+“Mr. Howard, this is unfortunate; but in the midst of so much
+commercial disaster, you perceive that it was my only course,” said the
+merchant, soothingly.
+
+“I suppose it was; but you know the cause of my inability to pay the
+note,” returned Frank, with a doleful expression.
+
+“Ah, young man, you ought not to have lent the money to Smith; if you
+had asked my advice, I could have told you better.”
+
+“Smith was always supposed to be good.”
+
+The merchant shook his head.
+
+“But, Mr. Allen, give me a short time, and I can pay the note. Smith
+assures me he shall recover himself.”
+
+“Mr. Howard, I certainly wish you well; I have done all I could to give
+you a fair start.”
+
+“So you have, sir, and I am very grateful to you.”
+
+“Are you?” and the merchant fixed a keen glance upon the young man.
+
+“I assure you that I am.”
+
+“How have you manifested it?” continued the merchant, sternly. “But no
+matter; we meet now as business men.”
+
+“Well, what shall be done? You have stopped me; I can do no more.”
+
+“I don’t wish to be hard. I would wait if prudence would justify it,”
+said Mr. Allen, who was keenly sensitive in regard to his reputation
+for generosity and fairness.
+
+In fact, he was a man of good feelings, and only that he meant to
+punish Frank for falling in love with his wealthy niece, would not have
+disturbed him.
+
+“You will be just as secure two months hence as now,” pleaded Frank.
+
+“I have not that confidence in you, Mr. Howard,--I say it
+frankly,--which I had once. You have lost a thousand dollars. I doubt
+if your stock, under the hammer, would pay my notes.”
+
+Frank looked savage, for though he was crestfallen, he was Frank Howard
+yet, and felt keenly the unjust imputation of the merchant.
+
+“I wish to be fair, and even indulgent,” continued Mr. Allen, before
+Frank had time to utter the ungracious sentiment that rose to his lips.
+“Here is the note; give me one good indorser, and I will wait two
+months.”
+
+Frank looked up, and smiled in contempt at the miserable subterfuge of
+the merchant, who meant to crush him, and still preserve an appearance
+of fairness. He knew it would be impossible for the young man, with his
+stock encumbered, to procure the security.
+
+“Will you take Smith?” asked Frank, hurriedly.
+
+“Of course not,” replied Mr. Allen, with a bland smile.
+
+“I will see what can be done; but I think the case is hopeless.”
+
+The merchant withdrew, assured in his own mind that his revenge was
+sure, and his reputation safe, at the same time.
+
+Frank and myself canvassed the matter, but we could think of no person
+whose milk of human kindness was sufficiently abundant to prompt him to
+do such an insane act. While we were debating the matter, Frank was
+struck up by the entrance of Miss Allen.
+
+“How gloomy you look here to-day, Frank,” said she, laughing, and
+showing in the act the prettiest row of pearly teeth I ever saw.
+
+“We are gloomy, indeed,” replied Frank, mustering a sickly smile. “But
+you know the reason?”
+
+“Why, what reason?” asked she, her merry expression relapsing into a
+serious one.
+
+“You see that man?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“He is a keeper!” replied Frank, with tragic effect.
+
+“A keeper! of what? Are you insane?” responded the lady, playfully; for
+it must be confessed she was not acquainted with the technicalities of
+business.
+
+Frank laughed, and explained the disaster which had overtaken him.
+
+“Poh!” exclaimed she, with an appearance of relief; and I really
+believe, if the keeper and myself had not been in the way, she would
+have thrown her arms around his neck, and kissed away his mortification.
+
+I had before been introduced to the lady, and at this moment advanced
+to join in the conversation.
+
+“And my uncle is the wretch?” continued she, merrily. “But what can you
+do? How can you get out of it?”
+
+Frank explained the proposition to procure an indorser for the note.
+The light-hearted maiden appeared to have but little sympathy for
+the misfortunes of her lover, and asked all sorts of questions about
+indorsers, notes, and business forms.
+
+“Where is the note you are to have indorsed?” asked she.
+
+“Mr. Allen has it.”
+
+“How can you have it indorsed, then?”
+
+“I can write another,” replied Frank, smiling at the innocence of his
+betrothed.
+
+“Then write one,” said she, promptly.
+
+[Illustration: GETTING AN ENDORSER. Page 20.]
+
+Frank looked at her a moment, to ascertain what mischief was lurking in
+her mind. She smiled, apparently without the power to prevent it.
+
+The lover, impelled by curiosity as much as any other motive, wrote the
+note and signed it.
+
+“Now how do you indorse it?” asked she.
+
+“By writing the name across the back.”
+
+The lady approached the desk, and turning the note, wrote, with two
+dashes of the pen, “Isabel Allen,” across it.
+
+“It is indorsed,” said she, with a smile, which told Frank all she
+meant.
+
+“But, Isabel----”
+
+“Good morning, Frank,” interrupted she, and hastened out of the store.
+
+“Bravo, Frank!” exclaimed I.
+
+He smiled doubtfully. His pride was a little touched.
+
+“Would you use it?” said he, after a long pause.
+
+“Use it? to be sure!” and he did use it.
+
+In the afternoon Mr. Allen called, satisfied in his own mind that he
+should witness the complete humiliation of the young man, who had had
+the audacity to fall in love with an heiress. Knowing at what hour he
+would call, I was careful to be present.
+
+“Well, Mr. Howard, how have you succeeded? I have really been in hopes
+you will be able to secure the paper,” said the merchant; and I could
+plainly discern the malicious chuckle on his face as he spoke.
+
+“I _have_ succeeded, Mr. Allen; and I am infinitely obliged to you for
+your good will.”
+
+The merchant was completely staggered at the reply. It was wholly
+unexpected, and wholly unwelcome also.
+
+“I trust you have procured a good one,” said he, painfully.
+
+“A wealthy one, but a name unknown on State Street.”
+
+“Can’t take it, then,” answered the merchant, promptly, and with
+renewed hope.
+
+“But a name well known to you!” and Frank handed him the note.
+
+Mr. Allen started back in surprise and anger, as he read the name of
+the fair indorser.
+
+“Very well, sir; when a man of any delicacy can resort to such a trick
+as this, I have nothing more to do with him.” And the crestfallen
+merchant, after throwing the old note on the counter, hastened
+indignantly from the store.
+
+The keeper was withdrawn, and Frank heard no more from Mr. Allen. A
+week after, Smith paid the money, and Frank took up his note.
+
+Before another of the notes came due, Isabel Allen had become Mrs.
+Frank Howard. The stock and stand were sold out, the debts paid, and my
+handsome friend is as happy as a beautiful wife, with a heart full of
+love, can make him.
+
+
+
+
+“GOOD FOR NOTHINGS.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Your girl is a prize, Mrs. Bagley,” said Mrs. Veazie, a lady whose
+physiognomy was rather indicative of a sour temper.
+
+“Bridget is a good girl,” responded the lady addressed; “and she has
+been with me over a year now.”
+
+“Indeed! Over a year! Well, I am astonished! For my part, if I _get_ a
+good girl, I can’t keep her.”
+
+“I have been very fortunate in that respect.”
+
+“You have indeed. O dear! it is really terrible to think how much
+one is dependent upon these Irish servant girls. They are such lazy,
+impudent, good-for-nothing creatures, that it is enough to weary out
+one’s life.”
+
+“Some of them are. If I had been so unfortunate as to get such a one
+as you describe, I should instantly discharge her. But very few are of
+that description.”
+
+“Very few! Let me tell you that your girl is one in a thousand, Mrs.
+Bagley. Where you find one who is honest, faithful, and respectful, you
+will find nine hundred and ninety-nine who are just the reverse.”
+
+“I can hardly believe it,” replied the good-natured Mrs. Bagley, with a
+smile of incredulity upon her pleasant features.
+
+“It is as true as the gospel! Why, I have had no less than ten
+different girls within a year.”
+
+“Ten! Is it possible?”
+
+“And my family is no larger and the work is no harder than yours. Isn’t
+it singular?”
+
+Politeness compelled Mrs. Bagley to answer that it was singular; but,
+at the same time, she knew that it was not so very singular, after all.
+If she had felt at liberty to do so, she could have given her friend a
+solution of the mystery.
+
+“And the girl I have now I shall be compelled to discharge. She is
+discontented, impudent, and overbearing.”
+
+“I am sorry for you.”
+
+“She is a capital girl in every other respect, and I am sorry to
+part with her. She is a good cook, and--what you don’t find in many
+girls--understands pastry, cake, and puddings.”
+
+“Too bad to lose her, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Bagley, with a greater
+appearance of sympathy in her speech than found a place in her heart.
+
+“It is; but one cannot put up with impudence, you know. I would send
+off the best girl in the world, before I would submit to it.”
+
+“Certainly; impudence cannot be tolerated. Can’t you teach her better?”
+
+“No; she won’t hear to any thing. It was only the other day, when I saw
+her washing the potatoes in the wash-hands basin, that I merely called
+her a nasty, good-for-nothing hussy; and, don’t you think, the impudent
+jade told me to mind my own business, and not to be sticking my nose
+into her affairs! Did any one ever hear the like?”
+
+Mrs. Bagley only smiled. If she had lived in a less civilized era,
+perhaps she would have been blunt enough to say that the fault was
+partly with the mistress, and not wholly with the servant.
+
+“And then she is so ugly,” continued Mrs. Veazie, “that I dare not
+trust my children with her.”
+
+“I leave the baby with Bridget for half a day sometimes, and feel
+perfectly safe.”
+
+“My girl don’t like children; I know she hates them. Why, only
+yesterday I told her she might leave the washing for an hour or so, and
+take Charley out in the little wagon; and, don’t you think, she had the
+impudence to tell me that, if I wanted Charley taken out, I might take
+him out myself! I never was so provoked in my life.”
+
+Mrs. Bagley’s good nature was all exhausted; and, at the risk of being
+deemed uncivil, she had the hardihood to say she never took Bridget
+away from her washing, unless in a case of absolute necessity.
+
+“Wasn’t this a case of absolute necessity?” asked Mrs. Veazie, with a
+rather uncompromising look upon her sharp features.
+
+Poor Mrs. Bagley! She was in for it, and must needs defend the policy
+at which she had incautiously hinted.
+
+“I should say not,” replied she, not a little fearful that she was
+about to “stir up strife.”
+
+“What would you do? Charley ought to have the fresh air every day.”
+
+“I should have taken him out myself; for it is very annoying for a girl
+to be called away from the wash tub. She has to change her dress, which
+is a great deal of trouble, and leave her clothes in the water or on
+the fire.”
+
+“Yes, girls are desperate ’fraid of a little trouble.”
+
+“If they feel any pride about their work, they like to have it done up
+in good season, you know.”
+
+“And she insists upon being absent every fourth Sunday.”
+
+“I let Bridget go every third Sunday.”
+
+“You do?”
+
+“I think it very reasonable.”
+
+“Who gets your dinner Sundays?”
+
+“What little we get I attend to myself. But we always have baked beans
+Sunday, so that I don’t have to stay at home from meeting.”
+
+“And you wash the dishes yourself!” exclaimed Mrs. Veazie, in utter
+astonishment.
+
+“Certainly. The fact is, these Irish girls are human beings, after all,
+and need a little recreation as well as the rest of us.”
+
+“But they take advantage.”
+
+“If you give them no advantages, they will take them. I have found
+out that, the better you use _good_ girls, the more faithfully they
+will serve you. I make it a point to treat my girl well; and, having
+secured her good will, I feel a reasonable assurance that she will do
+the best she can for me.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say that _I_ don’t treat my girl well?” said Mrs.
+Veazie, her features coloring under the insinuation she believed was
+aimed at her.
+
+“Certainly not. My remark was intended to be very general.”
+
+Mrs. Veazie went home; and, though she was a little angry with her
+neighbor, she “set to thinking” upon what she had heard.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Bagley’s girl, Bridget, had a beau, and, in the course of events,
+was married. Her mistress, though exceedingly sorry to part with her,
+could of course make no objections to her working out her woman’s
+destiny. She was a good-hearted person, and did all she could to see
+the faithful girl, who had been almost a mother to her children,
+comfortably situated in her new relation.
+
+Her first attempt to procure another good girl proved to be
+unsuccessful; for the new servant was, beyond the hope of remedy,
+slovenly and dirty. She was compelled to discharge her.
+
+About this time Mrs. Veazie’s girl was discharged. The lady, profiting
+by the lesson she had received of her neighbor, had for a few months
+treated Margaret with kindness and consideration. The change was
+appreciated by the girl. She was ignorant and headstrong; but neither
+so ignorant nor headstrong as not to be able to understand the meaning
+of kind words and considerate actions.
+
+Mrs. Veazie was astonished at the change in the temper of the girl;
+and, for a time, she persevered in maintaining the new order of things.
+But it is useless for any one to attempt to be gentle and kind in their
+speech and action, when there is neither gentleness nor kindness in the
+heart. A “change of heart,” in the language of the Scriptures, is as
+necessary to make an ill-tempered person amiable towards others, as it
+is in the working out of the more technical “profession” of religion. A
+“profession” of good nature is the first step towards piety.
+
+When Mrs. Veazie relapsed, Margaret relapsed, and there was strife
+again. No sooner did the servant observe the unreasonableness of the
+mistress, than she was in open rebellion again, as saucy as ever.
+
+“I am determined to send her off, Mrs. Bagley,” said she, as she was
+seated with her neighbor one afternoon.
+
+“Send her off! Why, I thought she was doing nicely now.”
+
+“So she was; but this morning a couple of tons of coal came, and, as
+I had no one to get it in, I told her she might do it. I am sure I
+spoke very pleasantly to her,” said Mrs. Veazie, with an abundance of
+self-complacency.
+
+Mrs. Bagley held up both hands in astonishment.
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+“She told me very coolly that she had rather not do it. But I was
+angry then; I thought it was about time to be angry, too, when
+a girl answered me in that way; so I told her she was a lazy,
+good-for-nothing minx.”
+
+“Did you?”
+
+“Indeed I did.”
+
+“Well, what did she say then?”
+
+“‘The same to yourself, ma’am,’ says she. She has not been saucy before
+for a good while.”
+
+“Didn’t it occur to you that your request was slightly unreasonable?”
+
+“I’m sure it didn’t. Why, these girls are used to working in the fields
+in Ireland, digging turf and pounding stones. I don’t see why they
+should be so stuck up, when they come to America.”
+
+“Well, I suppose, when they come to a country where even the rights of
+the poor are respected, they think better of themselves--very naturally
+too, I think. But, Mrs. Veazie, if you are going to discharge Margaret,
+I should like to take her.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“If you have no objection.”
+
+“Of course not; but she never will suit you, I know.”
+
+And Margaret went to live with Mrs. Bagley. She was an able, capable,
+and industrious girl, and her mistress immediately took a great liking
+to her. Margaret had her faults, the most prominent of which was a
+quick temper, that often prompted her to give a saucy or a spiteful
+answer before she was aware.
+
+She had not been a week with Mrs. Bagley, before, without a reasonable
+provocation, she gave her mistress a short and crusty answer. No notice
+was taken of it, though the point was insisted upon and carried. A few
+days after, when she got a little perplexed, she was saucy; but Mrs.
+Bagley was as firm as she was even in her temper, and calmly rebuked
+the uncivil words. Margaret was abashed by the gentleness and decision
+of the rebuke, and readily understood with what manner of person she
+had to deal. She was conquered, and made as good a girl as the most
+obdurate of servant hunters could possibly desire.
+
+In the course of the year Bridget’s husband was killed on the railroad,
+and the poor girl found herself again compelled to go out to service.
+Mrs. Bagley was well suited with Margaret, and did not feel at liberty
+to discharge her, especially as both parties were satisfied.
+
+Mrs. Veazie had tried half a dozen girls since Margaret had left her,
+and, as usual, had been unable to retain them. It was with a thrill of
+satisfaction she heard that Bridget, “the prize of a girl,” wanted a
+place again, and she lost not a moment in making an engagement with her.
+
+About a week after this important event, Mrs. Veazie came in hot haste
+over to Mrs. Bagley’s.
+
+“Don’t you think,” exclaimed she, out of breath, “that Bridget has
+given me notice of her intention to leave.”
+
+“To leave?”
+
+“Yes; I don’t believe she meant to stay when she came.”
+
+“I think she did. Bridget wouldn’t do a mean action, if she is an Irish
+girl.”
+
+“I don’t know about that.”
+
+“But how did it happen?”
+
+“Why, she was as saucy as ever Margaret was in the world.”
+
+“Bridget? Impossible!”
+
+“I asked her as politely as though she had been a lady, if she wouldn’t
+be so kind as to black Mr. Veazie’s boots.”
+
+“And she refused?”
+
+“No; she did it. She said she would do it this time, but she had rather
+not have it as part of her work.”
+
+“You couldn’t blame her, could you?”
+
+“Of course I could; and I told her she was a lazy, good-for-nothing
+vixen, and that she’d have to do it every day, if she staid with me.
+Why, Irish girls at home have to black their masters’ boots.”
+
+“But it is not the custom here.”
+
+“It ought to be; and I told her, up and down, that she was not what she
+used to be when she lived with you. Upon that she told me she would
+leave. Did you ever see such luck as I have?” and Mrs. Veazie puffed
+with excitement. She really believed she was the most unfortunate woman
+in the world.
+
+“To be plain with you, Mrs. Veazie, I don’t think Bridget was in the
+least to blame.”
+
+“Not to blame?”
+
+“No. When you set your girls to getting in coal and cleaning boots, you
+must expect them to be rebellious, especially when you follow it up
+with such hard words.”
+
+Mrs. Veazie went out, and slammed the door after her. She has never
+crossed the threshold of her friend’s door since; but it was a small
+loss.
+
+The moral of our sketch is sufficiently apparent. When we hear ladies
+complaining that they can’t keep a servant, we are a little disposed to
+doubt whether the fault is not in part upon their side.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO DAGUERREOTYPES.
+
+A TEMPERANCE TALE.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+Jim Scroggins, though in the main an honest, peaceable, quiet,
+harmless, fellow, had a beastly habit of getting drunk whenever a fit
+opportunity presented itself; and, unfortunately, because “where there
+is a will there is a way,” the opportunities were both fit and frequent.
+
+Jim owned a little farm in the country, which, by his own industry and
+economy, he had almost paid for. Mrs. Scroggins was a “real worker,”
+and, no doubt, did her full part in buying the homestead. She was
+endowed with a great deal of energy and good judgment, and people were
+so malicious as to say that she was the smartest man of the twain.
+Be this as it may, Mrs. Scroggins was an industrious woman, and took
+a great deal of pride in the little place, which had been bought
+by their united industry and economy, and the thought of having it
+wrested from them by a cold-hearted creditor, was in the highest degree
+disagreeable; but to such a calamity her husband’s infirmity, as the
+good minister of the village called it, seemed to point.
+
+The habit grew upon him, as it almost always does upon those who once
+get into the way of imbibing too freely. The miseries of the drunkard’s
+wife had been too often presented to the good woman’s understanding,
+to be regarded as simply creations of the imagination, and she looked
+forward with alarm to the prospect of enduring them and losing the
+little place.
+
+But what could be done? She had exhausted all her eloquence upon the
+infatuated man, without producing any thing more than a temporary
+effect. She pointed out to him, kindly, the inevitable consequences of
+his indulgence, and Jim promised to amend; but--alas, for the vanity of
+human expectations!--he got tipsy the very next day.
+
+Then she appealed to his love of money--to his sense of satisfaction
+in being the owner of a cottage and ten acres of land. She assured him
+that he would certainly lose it all, and warming up with the importance
+of the subject, declared that she would not slave herself any longer to
+buy the place, and then have it taken from them to pay a rum bill.
+
+Jim listened patiently and without speaking a word to the indignant
+dame’s eloquence, and, as usual, promised to do better; but, also, as
+usual, he came into the house the next day tight as a fiddlestring.
+
+Mrs. Scroggins was in despair; “what to do she didn’t know,” as she
+expressed it to Parson Allwise, who was a sincere sympathizer with
+her in her distress. She had entreated, she had scolded, she had
+threatened, and all to no purpose. “What could a body do?”
+
+Parson Allwise himself, though he made it a point never to interfere in
+the domestic affairs of his parishioners, was at last moved to try his
+powers of persuasion on the poor fellow. But Jim, unfortunately for the
+success of the appeal, had but a poor opinion of ministers in general,
+and of Parson Allwise in particular, and as good as told the worthy
+pastor that he had better mind his own business.
+
+Mrs. Scroggins was shocked at the boldness of her spouse in answering a
+minister of the gospel in such a pointed manner, and was led to believe
+that the case was now hopeless, indeed.
+
+But woman’s wits are equal to almost any emergency; and, though she
+had professedly given Jim over to the tender mercies of the devil, she
+could not help thinking it would be a good thing if he could only be
+saved from himself.
+
+One day circumstances seemed to conspire in favor of an experiment,
+which had suggested itself to her fertile brain, and she immediately
+carried it into effect with the most happy success, as the sequel will
+show.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Jim had been cleaning out the pig pen, and as the operation was a
+rather disagreeable one, he had fortified his olfactories by drinking
+an inordinate quantity of vile New England rum.
+
+The filthy stuff happily did not take effect on his brains till the job
+was done. The pig pen was cleaned out, but Jim was in a condition which
+better fitted him to occupy it, than the neat white-floored kitchen of
+his cottage. But Jim did not realize this unpleasant truth, and leaving
+his shovel and hoe in the sty, staggered into the house.
+
+“He was a sight to behold,” as Mrs. Scroggins told the minister. The
+job he had just completed was eminently a nasty one, and Jim, as we
+have before remarked, being a prudent man, had prepared himself to
+perform it, without any detriment to the neat garments he ordinarily
+wore.
+
+He was dressed in a suit of ragged clothes, and on his head rested a
+“shocking bad hat,” with the crown stove in, and the brim half torn
+off. As the liquor began to fuddle him, he had moved it over from its
+perpendicular position, so that it rested jauntily on one side of his
+head.
+
+Jim settled himself heavily in a chair by the cooking stove, looked
+silly, and seemed disposed to address himself to slumber, his usual
+resort when inebriated.
+
+Mrs. Scroggins was mad at first; for it was only the day before that
+Jim, for the hundred and first time, had promised never to drink
+another drop, not even in case of sickness.
+
+But what was the use of being mad with such a poor, silly, imbecile
+being as he was at that moment? He was not in a condition to appreciate
+a regular matrimonial “blow up,” and she wisely resolved to reserve the
+vials of her wrath to be poured out at a more convenient season.
+
+She looked at him, and thought of losing the little place, of penury,
+degradation, misery, and the poorhouse. A lucky thought rose, like the
+phœnix from the flames, out of the contemplation of the dark picture;
+and after a few minutes deliberation, she put on her bonnet and cloak,
+and hurried over to the village, not half a mile distant.
+
+During the previous week, a young daguerreotypist, with a portable
+saloon--a kind of overgrown omnibus--had been delighting the villagers
+by giving them the semblance of their faces at prices varying from nine
+shillings to three dollars a head, depending upon the value of the case.
+
+All the people in town had been daguerreotyped, and the omnibus man
+was the most popular person in the village. All the dames and maidens
+were taken, and every Jonathan and Jehiel who could boast of a Susan,
+a Ruth, or a Sally, was taken, with her by his side in the picture,
+his arm thrown lovingly round her neck, and both looking unutterably
+affectionate.
+
+But Mrs. Scroggins was not sentimental; she had gotten over all that,
+long before Jim took to drinking. She proposed to put the skill of the
+daguerreotypist to a more practical use than that of propitiating a
+lover.
+
+She entered the saloon, and though her heart did beat a little at the
+degradation of exposing her domestic matters to an entire stranger,
+she demeaned herself with all the firmness necessary for the trying
+occasion.
+
+Fortunately for her, all the people in town “had been taken,” and it
+was a dry time with the artist. In as few words as possible, she stated
+the case to him, and the young man readily promised his coöperation.
+
+Taking his apparatus under his arm, he accompanied Mrs. Scroggins to
+the cottage, where Jim was sleeping off the effects of the villainous
+“New England.”
+
+The inebriate sat in precisely the same position in which his wife had
+left him. He was asleep in a high back chair, which kept his head up so
+that every thing was favorable for the sitting.
+
+In a trice Jim Scroggins, old hat, ragged clothes, long beard, dozy,
+drunken expression and all, were transferred to the plate.
+
+But the picture did not suit the artist; he thought one taken when the
+sitter was awake would be a more correct representation. Mrs. Scroggins
+thought so too, and after the daguerreotypist had put in a new plate,
+she waked him up.
+
+“What d’ye want?” growled Jim.
+
+“Wake up!” and the lady gave him a smart pinch, which opened his eyes,
+thus completing the expression of the drunkard.
+
+The artist was prompt, and in an instant the second edition of Jim
+Scroggins was on the plate.
+
+The original, not being required for further use, was suffered to sink
+away and complete his nap.
+
+The pictures were put in a frame, and Mrs. Scroggins produced her money.
+
+“Nothing, ma’am; I shall not charge you any thing.”
+
+“But, sir, I am able to pay.”
+
+The artist shook his head, and resolutely refused to touch her money.
+
+Of course Mrs. Scroggins was grateful, and gave the young artist an
+invitation to take tea with her, which he accepted. In the course
+of the meal--the table being laid in the little front room--the
+daguerreotypist told the story of his own life; how he had been brought
+up in the midst of intemperance, and knew all about it. His father
+had died a drunkard, leaving his mother penniless, and he supported
+her by the profits of his portable saloon. Mrs. Scroggins, of course,
+sympathized with the young man, and readily understood why he would
+not take pay for the pictures, but what was better than all, the young
+artist took quite a fancy to Jim’s only daughter, a pretty little girl
+of eighteen, and after tea insisted upon taking her daguerreotype.
+And the sly rogue pretended that the first was not a good one, and
+took another, which he carried away with him, professedly for a show
+specimen, though, to my certain knowledge, he never exhibited it.
+
+The tea things were cleared away, and still the young gentleman
+lingered, and talked a great deal with the pretty little Susan. But
+when he did go, the poor girl’s heart followed him, and half the night
+she lay awake to think of him.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Jim Scroggins recovered from his debauch; but the first thing he saw
+when he came into the kitchen, in the morning, was the case containing
+the two daguerreotypes, which lay open on the table.
+
+He picked it up, and started back in confusion, when he recognized his
+own distorted features in one of the pictures.
+
+He examined the other. It was the counterpart of the first, with the
+eyes open, and looking ten times more hideous than the sleeping picture.
+
+“Good gracious!” exclaimed he; “did I ever look so infarnal homely as
+that?” and he proceeded to scrutinize the pictures a second time.
+
+“Hang me! if I thought I ever looked so cussed mean as that, I’d go
+down and jump into the river.”
+
+“I’ve seen men though, that looked just like that ’ere,” continued he;
+“but them was drunkards. Now, I an’t a drunkard, though I sometimes git
+a little sizzled. I never lit my pipe at the pump, though. Howsomever,
+them was took for me, though when or where I’ve no kind o’ notion.
+There’s the old hat, and that’s the old coat--no mistake.”
+
+The footsteps of his wife caused him to drop the pictures, and he
+hastened out of the house to avoid the tempest which he thought his
+wickedness would call down upon his head.
+
+It is a notable fact that he omitted his morning dram on this occasion,
+and his wife took courage. Like a prudent woman, as she was, she did
+not say a word about the occurrences of yesterday, and permitted him to
+eat his breakfast in peace.
+
+He got through that day without drinking a drop; but on the following
+day the old appetite clamored for the usual dram, and in the afternoon,
+while his wife was in the sitting room, he went to the closet where he
+kept the bottle.
+
+But the first thing that met his gaze was the two daguerreotypes
+resting against the black bottle. There was Jim Scroggins drunk asleep,
+and Jim Scroggins drunk awake.
+
+“Them cussed dogerytypes!” muttered he, starting back in confusion, at
+the miserable-looking object they so faithfully shadowed to him.
+
+Jim stopped to think. He fully resolved never again to be the loathsome
+being they represented him to be. Taking the black bottle, he went to
+the door with it, and with right good will hurled it on the door stone,
+where it was smashed into a thousand fragments, and the delectable
+stuff irretrievably lost.
+
+“Halloo! what are you about?” said a young man, entering the yard.
+
+“Smashing my rum bottle,” replied Jim, with admirable coolness.
+
+“Bravo! I commend your resolution,” replied the young man.
+
+“You are the dogerytype man, an’t you?” said Jim.
+
+“I am.”
+
+“Walk in, if you please;” and Jim ushered Mr. Shadow into the sitting
+room, where his wife and daughter were.
+
+“Wife,” said he, “you had them picters taken?”
+
+“I did, James.”
+
+“I’ve broke the bottle; and as to looking like them creturs, I never
+will again.”
+
+“Thank God, James; I hope you never will.”
+
+“Here is the pledge,” said Mr. Shadow, who was a temperance man in
+theory as well as practice.
+
+“I’ll sign it, by mighty!” and Jim did sign it.
+
+“Now, wife, will you rub them things out?”
+
+“Certainly, James,” and Mrs. Scroggins went for the pictures.
+
+“And now, Mr. Scroggins, if you will walk over to my saloon, I shall be
+happy to take the real man as God made him.”
+
+“I’ll do it; and, Betsey, you shall come, too; and Susey.”
+
+Susey went with her father and mother, though her picture had been
+taken. On the way Mr. Shadow walked by her side, and said a great many
+silly things, with which I will not trouble the reader.
+
+The daguerreotypes were taken, and Jim was surprised at the difference
+between the picture of a drunken man and that of a sober man.
+
+He drank no more liquor; and though this incident happened three years
+ago, he is still a sober and reputable man in the village. The little
+place is all paid for, and Mrs. Scroggins is superlatively happy.
+
+Susan, in less than a year, became the wife of Mr. Shadow, who,
+notwithstanding his name, is a man of substance, and loves his wife all
+the more because he was instrumental in saving her from the degradation
+of being a drunkard’s daughter.
+
+
+
+
+SIX HUNDRED A YEAR.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Well, Dixon, what is it?” asked Mr. Phogie of his assistant
+bookkeeper, who had been patiently waiting for half an hour in the
+private counting room of the merchant for an opportunity to speak with
+his employer.
+
+“My second year in your service will begin to-morrow, sir; and I have
+taken the liberty to request your attention to a matter which, though
+of little consequence to you, perhaps, is of considerable moment to me.”
+
+The young man paused as if to note the effect of his words upon his
+employer.
+
+“Indeed!” ejaculated the merchant, not half liking the cool and
+dignified way the young gentleman had of introducing himself.
+
+To his mind there was a lack of that cringing, subservient tone and
+manner which his old-fashioned notions had taught him to believe was a
+dangerous deficiency in a clerk.
+
+“I refer to my salary, sir.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+There was a gathering frown upon the brow of the merchant.
+
+“I have endeavored to serve you faithfully,” continued the clerk,
+rather discouraged by the coldness with which he was received.
+
+There was an awkward pause. Mr. Phogie’s philosophy did not permit him
+to speak; and the young man was too much embarrassed to proceed with
+his application.
+
+“My salary for the past year has been five hundred dollars,” stammered
+Dixon, when he found his employer was bent on holding his peace.
+
+“Well?” said Mr. Phogie, who still provokingly refused to take a hint.
+
+“The object of my present visit is respectfully to request you to
+raise it to six hundred,” continued Dixon, more boldly, as he began to
+appreciate the humor of his employer.
+
+Mr. Phogie stared, aghast with astonishment and horror, at the
+supplicant. Cruikshank or Johnston would have accounted the scene quite
+equal to that in the workhouse, where Oliver Twist, in a less important
+matter, had the unheard-of presumption and impudence to “ask for more.”
+
+Dixon lost all hope.
+
+“I trust, sir, I am not unreasonable,” said he, excusing his boldness.
+
+“Forty years ago, Dixon, when I was of your age,” began Mr. Phogie,
+with solemn deliberateness, “I should have been glad to have received
+one half of your present salary.”
+
+The merchant looked complacently at the clerk, to note the effect of
+this astounding declaration.
+
+Dixon ventured to suggest that the times had changed.
+
+Mr. Phogie admitted it, but was quite sure the change had been for the
+worse.
+
+“That is a matter of opinion, sir.”
+
+“Humph!”
+
+“It costs much more to live now than it did then.”
+
+“Young men didn’t drive fast horses then, nor go to the opera, nor
+board at fashionable hotels,” sneered Mr. Phogie.
+
+“I am guilty of none of these follies, sir,” replied Dixon, a little
+indignant at the coarseness of the implication.
+
+“Perhaps not; but five hundred dollars a year is a good salary for a
+prudent, careful young man.”
+
+“For one who can do no better, it is very well.”
+
+“Clerks are vain nowadays, and over-estimate themselves,” said Mr.
+Phogie, rebuking the complacence of his servant.
+
+“I do not ask an increase of salary, sir, because I cannot _live_ on
+five hundred dollars, but because I wish to advance myself, and, if you
+will pardon my vanity, because I think my services are worth more.”
+
+“Very well, sir; when young men get above their business, there is no
+knowing where they will stop. I cannot accede to your demand;” and Mr.
+Phogie, to show his indifference, busied himself in arranging some
+papers on the desk before him.
+
+“Then, sir, I shall be obliged to give you notice of my intention to
+leave your service,” returned Dixon, evidently relieved by the fact
+that the interview was concluded, even in this unsatisfactory manner.
+
+Mr. Phogie paused in his occupation and looked with surprise upon the
+clerk. It was doubtful whether Dixon meant so.
+
+“Got another situation?” asked he.
+
+“No, sir.”
+
+“Nothing in view?”
+
+“Nothing, sir. Of course I could not make an arrangement till I had
+consulted you.”
+
+Mr. Phogie was not pleased with the result of the interview. Dixon
+was an honest, faithful, and devoted clerk, and the idea of parting
+with him was not agreeable. But to retract what he had hastily said,
+would be an indication of weakness; besides, he knew that any quantity
+of clerks could be obtained for four, or even three hundred dollars
+a year; and he reasoned with himself that he should be a fool to pay
+Dixon six when he could get one for three.
+
+Accordingly Dixon gave formal notice of his intention to “quit;” but,
+having already earned a reputation for integrity and fidelity, he could
+easily obtain a situation at the salary he had demanded of Mr. Phogie.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+“Good morning, Mr. Phogie,” said Mr. Wyman, a liberal-minded merchant,
+as he entered the counting room of the former.
+
+“Good morning, sir. Any thing new stirring?”
+
+“No; I called to see you about a young man who has been in your employ;
+I mean Dixon.”
+
+Phogie was all attention.
+
+“I want a bookkeeper, and he has applied for the situation. How is he?”
+
+Phogie did not very well like to say he was a competent man, honest,
+faithful, and zealous; he did not dare say he was any thing else; so he
+was compelled to compromise the matter for the moment by saying nothing.
+
+“I was very much surprised to hear from him that he had left your
+service. Any thing unpleasant?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Blot the books?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Inaccurate?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Off too much?”
+
+“No; nothing of the kind.”
+
+“But he was always considered one of the most promising young men on
+the street.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Wyman was perplexed by the taciturnity of the other.
+
+“I don’t ask from idle curiosity; I want a bookkeeper.”
+
+Phogie was dumb.
+
+“Has the young man any fault?” and there were visible evidences of
+impatience in the tones and manner of the matter-of-fact merchant.
+
+“Not that I know of.”
+
+“O, you didn’t want him?”
+
+“No--that is--yes--but----”
+
+“Exactly so!” exclaimed Wyman, laughing.
+
+Phogie laughed too; he could not help laughing when he saw what a
+figure he was making; besides, a laugh is sometimes a great relief to a
+man in a quandary.
+
+“If you must know, Wyman, I’ll tell you. I gave him five hundred for
+the last year; he wants six for the next. I won’t give it.”
+
+“No?”
+
+“Yes; that is the whole story.”
+
+“Wait a minute till I have secured him, and then I will talk with you;”
+and Wyman moved towards the door.
+
+“Give him six hundred?” asked Phogie, not a little astonished to find
+his neighbor so eager to complete the engagement.
+
+“Yes; seven if he demands it.”
+
+“I can send you half a dozen in an hour who will engage for three.”
+
+“Will you give bonds for their integrity and fidelity?” asked Wyman
+with a sneer.
+
+“Pooh!”
+
+“Pooh? The fact is, I have suffered enough from cheap clerks. Assure me
+that a young man is honest and true to my interest, and I never will
+let him leave me on account of any reasonable difference about salary.
+All that Solomon said about a virtuous woman I believe in, with regard
+to an honest and faithful clerk.”
+
+“I can’t afford to pay these big salaries; and a young man gets above
+his business when you pay him too much.”
+
+“Nonsense! He will respect himself, which every man must do in order to
+keep himself honest.”
+
+“You are a transcendentalist.”
+
+“I’m common sense. You say you cannot afford to pay high salaries. Can
+you afford to have a semi-annual deficit in your cash account of three
+hundred dollars, botched up with false entries, lying balances, and
+the like?”
+
+Mr. Phogie had never been troubled in this way, and there was no
+probability that he ever should be; he looked out for his business
+himself, and he should like to see the clerk that could “bamboozle” him.
+
+Mr. Wyman thought otherwise, and took his leave, wondering at the
+stupidity of his friend. It occurred to him, as he left the counting
+room, that it was not so very strange, after all, that clerks on three
+hundred a year can drive 2:40 horses and go to the opera three nights
+in a week; not very strange, either, that petty defalcations were
+discovered occasionally, and that young men on small salaries got ahead
+amazingly fast.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Wyman engaged Dixon, and Phogie procured the services of an ill-looking
+fellow for three hundred dollars. The next time he saw Wyman, he
+indulged in a little innocent raillery over the fact that he paid his
+new clerk but just half the salary Dixon received; and Phogie thought
+he was even a better bookkeeper than Dixon, wrote a plainer hand, and
+could run up a column of figures rather quicker. As to the new clerk’s
+honesty, he had a bundle of testimonials as big as the invoice book;
+and his maternal uncle was president of the Soap and Candle Makers’
+Bank. Of course he was honest!
+
+Things went on swimmingly for six months. The new assistant was a
+jewel; and when Mr. Quilldriver, the head bookkeeper, was taken down
+with rheumatism, which proved to be chronic, Mr. Phogie had so much
+confidence in this notable nephew of a notable uncle, that he gave
+him the entire charge of the books, and, in the liberality of his big
+heart, advanced his salary voluntarily to four hundred dollars a year.
+
+On the first of January, however, when Mr. Phogie called for the
+balance sheet, it was not ready. The trial balance didn’t come out
+right, and the profit and loss account looked “thundering strange,” as
+Mr. Phogie classically expressed it. Three days were hopelessly used up
+in “taking stock;” but the thing couldn’t be figured out.
+
+Mr. Phogie began to be alarmed. The general--a noted expert in
+unsnarling complicated and difficult accounts--was called in to examine
+into affairs; but no sooner did the smart nephew of the president of
+the Soap and Candle Makers’ Bank, see the well-known gray locks of the
+expert bent over the obstinate folios, than he stepped out to lunch,
+and, by some singular oversight, forgot to return.
+
+The upshot of the whole matter was, that the general discovered an
+“absquatulation” of some fifteen hundred dollars--just enough to keep
+the dapper little bookkeeper in opera tickets and 2:40’s during the
+past season.
+
+Of course the thing went up and down the street; and the little ragged
+news boys in State Street bellowed it at the top of their lungs into
+the ears of the passer by.
+
+“Why, Phogie, how’s this?” said Mr. Wyman, meeting the supporter of the
+cheap clerk system.
+
+Mr. Phogie used a very hard word, which only the ministers are
+permitted to use in stirring sermons.
+
+“Pay ’em well, Phogie, and they won’t steal; and when you get a
+faithful servant, don’t part with him.”
+
+Phogie scowled and edged off.
+
+“By the way, Dixon has brought every thing out as square as a
+brick. Trial balance, balance sheet, every thing foots up without
+the variation of a penny,” continued Wyman, maliciously, as Phogie
+increased his speed.
+
+Poor penny-wise, pound-foolish merchant! He learned better after that.
+
+For the satisfaction of the reader, I may as well add, that Dixon got a
+thousand for his next year’s service, and that he is now engaged to his
+employer’s pretty daughter, with the prospect of immediately becoming a
+partner in the concern.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW MINISTER;
+
+OR,
+
+“CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“It is abominable hypocrisy for you to talk so, Susan; you don’t care
+any more about the missionaries than you do about the fifth wheel of
+a coach,” exclaimed Louise Percy, the village schoolmistress, to her
+friend, Susan Maylie, at whose father’s house she boarded.
+
+“Why, Louise, how rude you are! You wouldn’t like it if I should talk
+so about you,” replied Susan, an angry flush gathering upon her cheek.
+
+“Perhaps I shouldn’t; but if it were true, I don’t know that I could
+blame you for it.”
+
+“It is not true, Louise.”
+
+“Why, it is only two months since you refused to put any thing
+into the contribution box for the missions. You said you thought
+the missionaries were a set of lazy vagabonds, who had a good deal
+rather preach than work for a living. Now, since the new minister
+has come, all of a sudden you are a strenuous friend of missions and
+missionaries.”
+
+“Can’t a body change her opinions, when they are found to be wrong?”
+replied Susan, petulantly.
+
+“Certainly you can; but is your opinion really changed?”
+
+“How strange you talk, Louise!”
+
+“May be I do; truth is stranger than fiction.”
+
+“You must confess that our new minister’s eloquence has been quite
+enough to convince any reasonable person that the propagation of the
+gospel among the heathen is a holy and beautiful work.”
+
+“Undoubtedly, it is a good work; and if you really feel called upon to
+labor so earnestly in the cause, I am sure I should be the last one to
+reprove you for it.”
+
+“You don’t believe I am sincere, then?”
+
+“I think you are very fond of the new minister. If an old man, with a
+wife and half a dozen children, had preached those missionary sermons,
+I hardly believe you would have felt so much interest in the work.”
+
+“Why, Louise, you astonish me! I really believe you hate the
+missionaries.”
+
+“On the contrary, I have the highest respect for them. I have always
+contributed my mite to sustain them. I think I was quite as strongly
+attached to the cause before this young and handsome Mr. Rogers made
+his appearance among us, as I am now;” and Louise laughed merrily.
+
+“He _is_ handsome, isn’t he,” said Susan, catching the playful spirit
+of her companion and confidant.
+
+“I grant that with the greatest pleasure: but if you expect to catch
+him, you had better moderate your missionary ardor, and act yourself.”
+
+“Nay, Louise, I really feel an interest in the cause;” and Susan looked
+as sober as though she had been a missionary herself, just on the point
+of starting for the interior of Africa.
+
+Louise laughed merrily again, as she looked doubtfully into the face of
+her friend.
+
+A knock at the door started them from the revery into which both had
+fallen.
+
+“Mr. Rogers, as I live!” exclaimed Louise, catching a glance at the new
+minister as he stood on the door stone.
+
+“Pray, don’t be rude, Louise,” said Susan, as she adjusted her dress
+before the glass.
+
+“Be rude! of course not; but I shall say just what I think.”
+
+“Don’t Louise. Be a friend of missions, for my sake.”
+
+Susan opened the door, and Mr. Rogers entered the house.
+
+“I have called, Miss Maylie, to propose a plan for a tea party in aid
+of the missions,” said he, after the common place introductories had
+been disposed of. “I look to you, who have been first and foremost in
+this good cause, for sympathy and coöperation.”
+
+“I shall be very glad, indeed, to do all I can to forward the good
+work,” said Susan, demurely, “and so will Miss Percy.”
+
+“You must excuse me; my time is so much occupied that I do not think I
+shall be able to render any essential aid,” interposed Louise, scarcely
+able to restrain a laugh at the prompt tender Susan had made of her
+services.
+
+“Perhaps you are not interested in the missions,” suggested Mr. Rogers.
+
+“To some extent, I am, sir.”
+
+“I trust, then, we shall be able to enlist your sympathies. Certainly
+the heathen, perishing in their sins, demand a noble effort on the part
+of the Christian world.”
+
+“I do not question the lofty character of the missionary enterprise,
+but I do think charity ought to begin at home.”
+
+“Why, Louise, how strange you talk!” exclaimed Susan.
+
+“True, Miss Percy, but it ought not to end there. I see you favor the
+home missions.”
+
+“I do. I favor a mission nearer home than any society has been formed
+to advance, in our village at least--the mission to the poor and
+destitute.”
+
+“The gospel is preached for all,” said the minister.
+
+“_For_ all, but not _to_ all. There is poor Mrs. Weston, who cannot
+afford to buy clothes to send her children to meeting.”
+
+“Indeed!” ejaculated the minister.
+
+“Her husband is a poor, miserable drunkard,” added Susan. “You don’t
+think her a worthier object of charity than the poor, suffering, dying
+heathen, who are perishing in their ignorance and sin?”
+
+“Indeed, I do!” returned Louise.
+
+“Her case ought to be attended to immediately,” said Mr. Rogers.
+
+“She ought to go to the poorhouse; the overseers offered to take her,”
+continued Susan.
+
+“The poorhouse! Mrs. Weston has seen better days, and, I doubt not,
+would rather die than be subjected to such a bitter humiliation.”
+
+“Her own fault, then; if she won’t let the town help her, what more can
+be done?”
+
+“She went to Deacon Hapgood, who owns the hovel in which she lives, to
+get him to take off ten dollars a year from her rent. But the Deacon
+didn’t see how he could afford it, and the poor woman left him, to
+continue alone her struggle with the demon of poverty as best she
+might. Yet the Deacon can afford to give a hundred dollars a year to
+the missions, and says he never feels the sacrifice.”
+
+“I will see Deacon Hapgood,” said the minister, musingly.
+
+“I hope you will teach him that ‘charity begins at home.’”
+
+“The hungry can be fed, the naked clothed, the houseless sheltered,
+and still there will be means left to carry on the missions. We are
+commanded to ‘preach the gospel to all nations.’”
+
+“And reminded that the poor are always with us. There is Farmer Jones:
+he can’t afford to buy a spelling book for his daughter, but he gives
+large sums of money to the missionary society.”
+
+Mr. Rogers, who was an earnest seeker after truth, and who nobly
+endeavored to do his duty, began to feel that there was a great deal of
+practical wisdom in the remarks of the schoolmistress.
+
+After a little more conversation, in relation to the proposed tea
+party, he took his leave.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Louise Percy, without being very beautiful or very bewitching, was
+a very sensible, earnest, straightforward girl. With a warm heart
+and generous disposition, she was free, open, and sincere in her
+intercourse with the world.
+
+Just the opposite was her friend and confidant, Susan Maylie, though,
+as the world goes, she passed for a good-hearted person. She lacked
+that transparency of motive which was so eminently the characteristic
+of Louise’s temperament. Where no strong prejudice actuated her, she
+was generally prompt in her choice of the good from the evil, though
+sometimes the most intimate friend was involuntarily led to suspect her
+motive.
+
+Six months before we introduce them to the reader, the village in
+which they resided was thrown into commotion by the arrival of the new
+minister, who had been called to officiate in the parish church.
+
+He was young, handsome, and, more than all, unmarried. Straightway,
+one half of the eligible maidens in town became interested in “serious
+things.” The prayer meetings and the conference meetings were all
+at once found to be seasons of special interest. All the charitable
+societies connected with the church suddenly become prosperous. The
+missionary society, which was composed of ladies, who met once a month
+at the sewing circle, received a new impetus from the arrival of Mr.
+Rogers.
+
+The young clergyman made it a point to attend these meetings, for he
+was particularly interested in the enterprise of sending the gospel to
+the heathen. He had preached several sermons on his favorite topic, and
+his exertions were rewarded by the creation of a strong and unusual
+feeling on the subject.
+
+Susan, all at once, found her mind intently engaged in the engrossing
+subject. It is true she had learned from her father to ridicule
+and despise the missions; but then her heart was hard, and the
+ministrations of the handsome young clergyman had turned her mind
+from the vanities and vexations of life, to the lofty and substantial
+realities of “serious things.”
+
+Louise could not help noticing the sudden and remarkable change; but
+then Susan so constantly spoke of the minister’s handsome face; so
+often sneered at the thought of sundry village belles, whom she was
+malicious enough to accuse of attempting to “catch” him, that she
+readily fathomed the occasion of the singular transformation.
+
+Louise got out of patience with her friend’s duplicity, but suspecting
+that it might be involuntary, or the consequence of a want of
+consideration, she had plainly pointed out the inconsistency. Susan
+could hardly deny the fact, and feeling that Louise was a true friend,
+one who would not proclaim her infirmity to the world, she suffered the
+charge to pass unrefuted.
+
+“I am going to set up an opposition to the missionary society,” said
+Louise, after Mr. Rogers had gone.
+
+“Pray, what mad scheme have you got in your brain now?” asked Susan.
+
+“I am going to do something for the relief of Mrs. Weston.”
+
+“How foolish you are!”
+
+“Am I?”
+
+“You are, very foolish. It is the town’s business to look out for
+paupers.”
+
+“It is my business, too, and yours, Susan.”
+
+“I am sure _I_ shall not meddle with it.”
+
+“We have each of us reserved five dollars for charitable purposes, you
+know.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I shall give mine to Mrs. Weston.”
+
+“And I shall give mine to the missions. I thought you were going to do
+the same.”
+
+“I have altered my mind. I cannot send my money across the ocean, when
+there is an abundance of heathen growing up in ignorance around us.
+Now, if you will put your five dollars with mine, it will just make up
+the amount the poor woman asked the deacon to abate her rent.”
+
+“I shall do no such thing, I assure you. I am too much interested in
+the missions to throw my money away upon the town’s paupers.”
+
+“Very well; I will not urge you.”
+
+“What do you suppose Mr. Rogers would say, if I should give nothing to
+the missions?”
+
+“Are you beholden to him to render an account of your stewardship? For
+my part, I shouldn’t care what he thought. Do your duty, Susan, let
+folks think as they may. If I had money enough, I would contribute
+handsomely towards having the gospel preached to such heathen as Deacon
+Hapgood, Farmer Jones, and some others who support missions, while they
+starve their own souls and those of their families.”
+
+Susan, knowing how obstinate Louise was when excited, refrained from
+opposing the purpose she had announced, and Louise retired to her room.
+
+“Five dollars,” said she, musingly; “it is more than a week’s pay; but
+she shall have it; yes, and more too. Since Susan has refused to join
+me in this work of charity, I will give another five dollars; and then
+how happy the poor creature will be!”
+
+The face of the gentle-hearted girl lighted up with an involuntary
+smile, as she opened her drawer and took therefrom the ten dollars. It
+was a large sum for her; but she cheerfully resigned the pleasures it
+would purchase, and looked forward to the joy she was about to carry
+to the cottage of the drunkard’s wife.
+
+With a light heart she tripped down the road to execute her charitable
+mission. As she entered the hovel, she shrank back at the scene of
+wretchedness presented to her view. The poor woman, pale and haggard
+with care, apparently with one foot in the grave, was surrounded by
+half a dozen ragged children, whom her utmost exertions could hardly
+feed with the coarsest fare, and clothe even with the miserable
+garments that only half covered their nakedness.
+
+Stating the object of her visit, Louise handed to her the ten dollars.
+
+Mrs. Weston started back in amazement. Such unheard of liberality
+overwhelmed her with confusion. If Deacon Hapgood could not afford
+to take off ten dollars from her rent, how could a poor girl
+afford to give her that sum outright? Before she could recover her
+self-possession sufficiently to express her gratitude, the young
+minister entered the house.
+
+Mr. Rogers was almost as much astonished at the generosity of Louise as
+Mrs. Weston had been; and when he took his leave, he gladdened the poor
+creature’s heart by adding another ten dollars to the gift.
+
+[Illustration: THE NEW MINISTER. Page 58.]
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+After their departure from Mrs. Weston’s, Mr. Rogers walked by the side
+of Louise towards her residence. The conversation was earnest, and at
+times warm, for Louise had opinions of her own, and was not diffident
+in maintaining them, even against the eloquence of the parson.
+
+Mr. Rogers was not less pleased with the spirit and independence of his
+companion than he was with her warm heart and charitable disposition.
+And when he bade adieu to her at the door of Mr. Maylie’s house, he
+could not banish her from his mind.
+
+The following day was Sunday. Oddly enough for him, the minister had
+not a word to say about missions or the heathen. His text was, “The
+poor ye have always with you.”
+
+It was a noble sermon, showing that the poor, by being continually
+before the eye, came to be regarded with indifference and neglect,
+while objects of charity far removed by distance, excited the liveliest
+sympathy and commiseration. He demonstrated that the first duty of all
+was to relieve distress in their midst; in fine, that “charity begins
+at home.” It was shown, very much to the edification of Deacon Hapgood,
+who sat in the broad aisle, wondering “what the minister was driving
+at,” that a rich man could not blind the eye of his Maker by giving
+large sums to the missions, while he oppressed the poor, and turned a
+deaf ear to their prayer for help.
+
+Louise was deeply interested in the sermon, while a majority of the
+congregation arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Rogers had gone crazy.
+It was a reflection of her views, and a feeling of proud satisfaction
+pervaded her mind, as she reflected that she had been instrumental in
+calling the minister’s attention to the subject.
+
+The effect of the sermon was immediate and substantial. Every one of
+the “eligible young ladies” straightway emptied the contents of their
+purses into Mrs. Weston’s lap. A society was proposed for ameliorating
+the condition of the poor, whom they always had with them. But Mr.
+Rogers cruelly vetoed the measure, not thinking an organized effort
+necessary to complete the work, especially as Mrs. Weston, who was,
+perhaps, the only destitute person in town, had money enough to pay a
+year’s rent and three months’ provision in her cellar.
+
+In the mean time, Mr. Rogers manifested a laudable interest in the
+welfare of the village school, and even preached a sermon on the duty
+of parents to their children. He visited the school three times in one
+week, besides conferring four distinct and separate times with the
+schoolmistress at her boarding place in the evening.
+
+Well, every body--except the eligible young ladies--said it was the
+minister’s duty to look after the school, and see that the mistress did
+her duty; so every body, with the exception mentioned, agreed that Mr.
+Rogers was particularly faithful in the discharge of _his_ duty.
+
+Susan was intensely astonished at the course of events, and more
+especially was she pained at the comparative neglect with which the
+missions had come to be regarded. Other charities, nearer home, shared
+the sympathies of the young and handsome pastor, and she suddenly
+realized that her extraordinary exertions in spreading the gospel among
+the heathen had failed to accomplish the purpose she had in view. But
+hope had not yet deserted her. Her eyes were not as wide open as they
+might have been, and she did not yet fully understand the “signs of the
+times.”
+
+“What a blessed field of usefulness is open to the teacher of the
+district school!” exclaimed she, one day, to her confidant, the
+schoolmistress.
+
+Louise looked up from the book she was reading, astonished at the
+remark--not at the important truth involved in it, but that it should
+proceed from such a source.
+
+“It is, indeed, an interesting field of labor to those who can
+appreciate it,” replied she, a smile of intelligence crossing her
+good-natured countenance.
+
+“I have been thinking, Louise, that _I_ might be useful in that
+capacity.”
+
+“I do not doubt it.”
+
+“And I understand that the school in the south district will be vacant
+in a few weeks; don’t you think I could procure the appointment?”
+
+“Why, Susan, you do not really intend to become a teacher, do you?”
+
+“I certainly do. I feel that I have suffered too many years of my life
+to pass away in idleness. I intend to redeem the time.”
+
+“You cannot mean it.”
+
+“I am in earnest. Do you think I could get the appointment?”
+
+“I can point you to a place nearer home, if you are really desirous of
+becoming a teacher.”
+
+“What place?”
+
+“You may have mine in the course of a month or two.”
+
+“Yours, Louise!”
+
+“I shall send in my resignation next week.”
+
+“Why, Louise, I had no idea that you intended to abandon teaching,”
+said Susan, with undisguised astonishment; and, as she had regarded the
+attentions her friend received from the handsome young minister with
+a jealous eye, perhaps the announcement was received with some small
+degree of satisfaction.
+
+“I had no such intention a few days ago. But if you wish for my place,
+you can have the opportunity of making the first application.”
+
+“I shall be delighted to get it.”
+
+“I will mention the subject when I send in my resignation.”
+
+“But, Louise, you have never told us anything about this. Pray, what is
+going to happen?”
+
+“I suppose I must tell you the secret. Of course you will not betray my
+confidence?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“I am going to be married this fall;” and Louise blushed up to her eyes.
+
+“Going to be married! My goodness! And we never even found out that you
+had a beau.”
+
+“It has been rather sudden.”
+
+“I should think it had. Who is the fortunate gentleman?”
+
+“Mr. Rogers.”
+
+“Mr. Rogers!” exclaimed Susan, starting back in blank amazement, while
+the color deserted her cheeks, and her heart fluttered with emotion.
+
+“Just so. From the time we met at Mrs. Weston’s, when I gave the poor
+woman my money, he has been very attentive--and, in short, the matter
+is now settled.”
+
+“Well, I _am_ astonished!”
+
+Susan _was_ astonished.
+
+“I cannot wonder; I am astonished myself. But, Susan, I think I shall
+carry in my resignation to-morrow, and you had better have a written
+application ready.”
+
+Susan bit her lips with vexation, and even wondered that she had not
+been fool enough to give her money to Mrs. Weston, instead of the
+missionary society.
+
+“I think on the whole, Louise, that I shall not become a teacher at
+present,” said she, as she turned, and abruptly left the room.
+
+In the fall Mr. Rogers and Louise were married. The parsonage is the
+home of peace, love, and charity. Mrs. Rogers is a model minister’s
+wife, and though the missionary cause receives an earnest support, she
+still believes, and acts upon the belief, that “CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME.”
+
+
+
+
+“OUT NIGHTS;”
+
+OR,
+
+BELONGING TO THE “SONS.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Don’t go out to-night, Charles,” said Mrs. Prescott, a pretty,
+sweet-smiling lady, who had been married just six months, to her
+husband.
+
+“Really, Carrie, I am very sorry; but I do not see how I can be absent
+from the meeting to-night,” replied the young husband, as he brought
+his great-coat from the entry.
+
+“You always say so. I wish you did not belong to the ‘Sons.’ Can’t you
+leave them?”
+
+“I could, my dear, if I desired; I have no wish to do so.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you do it to please me?” said the lady smiling so sweetly
+that one could have found it in his heart to do almost any thing for
+her.
+
+“You do not seriously wish me to do so.”
+
+“Nay, I do.”
+
+“Think, Carrie.”
+
+“I am jealous of that society.”
+
+“Fie!”
+
+“You leave me here all alone, and you can’t think how lonesome I am.”
+
+“I am very sorry to leave you; but, really, I feel it to be my duty to
+sustain so good an association as the ‘Sons of Temperance.’”
+
+“There are enough without you.”
+
+“All might, with equal propriety, say so.”
+
+“They do not all leave a wife alone at home.”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“Can’t you belong to them without going to the meetings every night?”
+
+“I should not wish to do that. To be a merely nominal member of the
+Order, is to be nothing at all.”
+
+“You would be giving your name and influence to the cause of temperance
+just as much as you do by attending the meetings.”
+
+“What is the cause of temperance, Carrie? I fear you give it a very
+vague construction, like many others in the community.”
+
+“Why, preventing and curing intemperance.”
+
+“Preventing and curing it in whom?”
+
+“Every body, I suppose--all your friends and neighbors.”
+
+“But not yourself.”
+
+“There is no danger of you, Charles.”
+
+“But I joined the Sons quite as much for my own sake, as for that of
+others.”
+
+“You don’t think you are in any danger of becoming a drunkard, do you?”
+asked Mrs. Prescott, with a smile of incredulity.
+
+“Not while I am as strongly fortified against the vice of drinking as I
+am now.”
+
+“Pooh! I would risk you, even if you did not belong to the Sons.”
+
+“Suppose I should abandon them, and permit myself to be influenced by
+the example of those around me--of your brother Frank, for example?
+Suppose I should shake off my allegiance to the principle of total
+abstinence, how long would it take me to get rid of all my scruples
+against drinking a glass of wine?”
+
+“Can’t you adhere to the principle without belonging to a society?”
+
+“Association strengthens principle.”
+
+“You don’t steal, Charles; but is it necessary that you should belong
+to an anti thieving society?” and the pretty young wife’s features wore
+an expression of triumph.
+
+“Drinking is a fashionable vice; stealing is not. When the community
+regards the fashionable wine bibber as it does the thief, there will be
+no occasion for associated effort to restrain it. Popular opinion will
+do the work which the Sons are now doing.”
+
+“But I don’t think there is any need of going so constantly,” replied
+the wife. “_Do_ stay with me to-night; I feel so lonesome.”
+
+“The Order acts upon some particular business to-night, and----”
+
+“Particular business again!” exclaimed Mrs. Prescott, with a
+good-natured laugh.
+
+“It does indeed.”
+
+“Always so.”
+
+“Besides, I am W. P., you know.”
+
+“W. T., you mean.”
+
+“What’s that?”
+
+“Wife tormentor.”
+
+“Nay, Carrie----”
+
+“Go along; I will excuse you to-night; but don’t stay late.”
+
+“No, dear.”
+
+“It was eleven o’clock before you got home last Saturday night.”
+
+“I will be home by ten to-night;” and Charles Prescott kissed his
+pretty, smiling wife--we beg the reader to remember that they had been
+married but six months--and left the house.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Prescott did not appear to be half so lonesome as she had
+pretended she was; for, as her little white hand delicately and
+daintily grasped the needle, the same involuntary smile played on her
+pretty lips that had been there while her husband was present.
+
+Her thoughts must have been very pleasant, or she could not have worn
+that bewitching smile. Her soft, gazelle-like eye, too, beamed forth
+the language of a pure and beautiful soul--a soul at rest among the
+flowers of its own tender rearing.
+
+She was thinking, and her thoughts were full of joy. What a happy wife
+she was! But perhaps her view of matrimony was mingled with something
+of sentiment--a few grains of that amiable moonshine which strews
+flowers and perfumes in the pathway of the young wife.
+
+Alas that the blight of coldness should ever come to wither those
+flowers which the young and loving wife scatters in her pathway! Alas
+that the cares and trials of life should ever come and cast a great,
+broad shadow over that moon of her dreams.
+
+Mrs. Prescott was happy, and she was _thinking_ how happy she was.
+Charles was all love and devotion. He was industrious, frugal, and
+temperate; and, though they lived in a humble house and in a humble
+street, she sighed not for the fine things her neighbors had.
+
+They lived comfortably; and, while her husband loved her, she cared not
+for tapestry carpets and velvet-covered lounges.
+
+Charles had only one failing; and that was, an earnest devotion to the
+Order of the Sons of Temperance, which drew him away from her side
+every Saturday night. He never left the house any other evening without
+her; and undoubtedly he would have insisted on her joining the order,
+only that it was a _secret_ society; consequently no women could be
+tolerated within its pale.
+
+Mrs. Prescott could not see why her husband should be a “Son;” he was
+strictly temperate in his habits. Poor wife! She neglected to inquire
+into the reason of his being so.
+
+She plied her needle, and smiled forth the joy that was in her heart.
+She was so happy and contented that there was only one thing left her
+to wish for--that her husband was with her.
+
+About half an hour after Charles had gone, her brother Frank, who had
+been married nearly a year, called with his wife.
+
+“I have got to go down to the store and post up the books, Carrie, and
+I have brought Lucy to stay with you; she was afraid to stay alone,”
+said Frank Winslow, after the two wives had kissed each other, and said
+sundry pretty things about the weather and the walking.
+
+“I am glad you did; I am all alone myself.”
+
+“Where’s Charley?”
+
+“Gone to the lodge.”
+
+“What lodge?”
+
+“I don’t mean the lodge--the meeting of the ‘Sons.’”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“He goes every Saturday night.”
+
+“What a pity! Charley is a good fellow, and it is a great shame that he
+should herd with those fanatics,” said Frank Winslow.
+
+“Don’t you talk so about my husband, Frank,” interposed the loving
+wife. “He is not half so much of a fanatic on temperance, as you are on
+cognac and sherry.”
+
+“Fie, sis! I believe in all sorts of good things; and being a Son is,
+in my opinion, the next thing to being a fool.”
+
+“Why don’t you tell him so?”
+
+“I would if he were here. You don’t think I am afraid of him, do you?”
+
+“No; but the last time you argued the question with him----”
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed Frank, impatiently.
+
+Promising to call for his wife by ten o’clock, he left the house.
+
+“I hope our husbands won’t quarrel over this temperance question,” said
+Mrs. Winslow.
+
+“I hope not.”
+
+“But this ‘Sons’ business does seem so silly to me that I cannot wonder
+Frank laughs at him.”
+
+“Well, I don’t care any thing about it, only that Charles is out so
+late every night at the meetings.”
+
+“And leaves you all alone?” asked Mrs. Winslow.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I wouldn’t let him! It is a shame! Why, I should go into fits if
+my husband left me alone till eleven o’clock!” and Mrs. Winslow was
+horrified at the very thought.
+
+“I have said a good deal about it.”
+
+“Said! Why, I would tip the house over before I would submit to it.”
+
+“He is so deeply interested in it.”
+
+“He ought to be deeply interested in his wife, too.”
+
+“Nay, nay, Lucy, you wrong him. He loves me with all his soul.”
+
+“And leaves you alone till eleven o’clock?”
+
+“I’m not afraid to stay alone.”
+
+“Why, it’s almost as bad as having a drunken husband to sit up for.”
+
+“O, no, I’m sure it is not.”
+
+Charles Prescott was warmly condemned by the visitor, and warmly
+defended by the wife, who, poor thing, though she wished he would stay
+at home, could not bear to hear a word said against him.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Before ten o’clock, the two ladies had settled the question of
+Charles’s defection, and passed naturally enough into mousse de laines,
+laces, and the newest fashions. Mrs. Winslow did not like to say that
+he was a monster in the hearing of his wife; but she fully believed it;
+and Mrs. Prescott, moved by the arguments of her friend, concluded that
+she was used much more hardly than she had ever suspected.
+
+Punctual to his appointed hour, Charles came home. Mrs. Winslow
+playfully upbraided him for his want of constancy in leaving his wife
+to spend the evening alone; but the husband made a “moral question” of
+it, and proceeded to discuss the topic at length.
+
+An hour was used up in the unprofitable argument, and the clock struck
+eleven.
+
+Mrs. Winslow yawned, and wondered why Frank did not come--began to
+think the books must have gotten into a snarl to keep him so late.
+
+It was half past eleven before he came.
+
+“How are ye, old boy?” said he, grasping the hand of Prescott. “How are
+the Sons to-night?”
+
+“As usual--thriving.”
+
+“What makes you so late, Frank?” asked Mrs. Winslow. “You promised to
+come at ten o’clock.”
+
+“The books got a little twisted. But sit down, Suke; I want to talk
+with Charley;” and Frank threw himself into a rocking chair before the
+fire.
+
+“No, no, Frank; it is almost twelve o’clock.”
+
+“Never mind; sit down. They say there is more liquor drank since the
+Maine law was made than ever before,” said Frank, turning to Charles
+Prescott.
+
+“And there is more cheating, killing, and stealing since the ten
+commandments were made than ever before. What does that prove?”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“You refer to the golden calf?”
+
+“Seriously, Charley, in my opinion, the fanatics, who made that law
+ought to be held responsible for half the drunkenness in the community.”
+
+“And Paul, Peter, and John for half the sins the gospel was intended to
+prevent.”
+
+“You talk like one of the fanatics,” said Frank, his cheek reddening
+with anger.
+
+“I merely change the application of the principles which your remarks
+cover.”
+
+“You distort them. A fanatic can’t argue the question fairly. Come,
+Suke, let’s go home.”
+
+Frank Winslow rose from his chair, but instantly sank back again.
+
+“What is the matter, Frank?” asked his wife.
+
+“Nothing; don’t you see?” and he attempted to rise again, but without
+success.
+
+“What ails you? How strange you act!”
+
+“Your Sons and your Maine laws are a humbug, Charley; there’s no
+rubbing that out. Tell me about your--hic--Maine law!”
+
+“O Heavens!” groaned the poor wife.
+
+“What the deuse’s the--hic--matter now?”
+
+It was too plain to be longer concealed; Frank Winslow was drunk!
+The heat of the room was revealing the terrible truth to the poor
+wife, to the fond sister, that the husband and brother was helplessly
+intoxicated!
+
+Charles Prescott was shocked; Carrie’s cheek was pale, and her frame
+trembled; that smile was gone, for the loving brother was a drunkard!
+
+It was an agonizing moment to the fond wife. Mountains of sombre clouds
+came rolling down before her bewildered senses, and the future was dark
+with poverty, woe, disgrace, and death. The drunkard’s grave yawned
+like a cavern of hell in the path of her husband.
+
+“O, Frank, Frank!” exclaimed she, throwing herself into his arms, and
+bathing his brow with her woman’s tears.
+
+“What in ---- ails you all?” said Frank, gazing round him with a
+drunken leer.
+
+Charles attempted to get him upon his feet; but he was utterly helpless.
+
+“Let me--hic--alone. I am none of your cussed--hic--fanatics, that
+can’t go alone;” and he fell at full length upon the floor.
+
+Mrs. Winslow threw herself into a chair, and sobbed in bitterness of
+spirit. Carrie wept upon her bosom. It was a sad sight, that group of
+weepers over the drunken body of a noble-hearted, generous young man.
+Angels weep over such pitiable objects.
+
+With much difficulty Charles Prescott succeeded in putting him to bed;
+but, to all save the besotted inebriate, it was a sleepless night.
+Tears stained the pillow of the wife and sister, and silent prayers
+rose to heaven for the preservation of the erring young man.
+
+Morning came, and Frank had slept off his debauch. He was conscious of
+his position, and with shame and humiliation he presented himself in
+the breakfast room of his friend. The pale, anxious faces, the red and
+swollen eyes of his wife and sister, told him what they had suffered.
+
+Like a true man, he acknowledged his fault, and promised to amend.
+Charles pointed out the necessity of making a principle of abstinence,
+to which he assented, and promised to connect himself with the Sons. He
+kept his promise, and in a few weeks was initiated.
+
+Mrs. Prescott, after the impressive lesson she had received from the
+experience of her brother, was convinced that active membership in a
+temperance society, or at least a cherished _principle_ of abstinence,
+was necessary in these degenerate days for the salvation of the young
+man.
+
+Her husband had resisted temptation through the salutary influence of
+the “Sons;” and she could not but reflect how unreasonable she had been
+in attempting to lure him away from the fountain of his principle.
+
+Even Mrs. Winslow has so far overcome her timidity as to be content to
+stay alone every Saturday night, while her husband attends the meetings
+of the Order. It is a blessed thing for the wife to be assured that,
+while he is away from her in those hours which properly belong to her,
+he is fortifying his soul against the temptations that every where
+beset him.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BRING FLOWERS;
+
+OR,
+
+GOING INTO MOURNING.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“I am sure they cannot care much for their sister, for not one of
+them had even a black ribbon on her bonnet,” said Mabel Grant, to her
+invalid sister.
+
+“Nay, Mabel, you must not judge them harshly.”
+
+“But only think of it! Even her mother did not so much as change her
+bonnet.”
+
+“Probably they have views and opinions of their own upon the subject,”
+replied Mary Grant, feebly, for she was in the last stage of
+consumption,--that dreadful scourge of our northern clime,--and even
+the exertion of speaking a few words was exceedingly tiresome.
+
+“And poor Ellen Lawson, our dear friend and schoolmate, one of the
+fairest and truest girls in the village--to think that she should go
+down to her early grave without even a show of mourning in her own
+family. It looks like sacrilege to me.”
+
+“Nay, Mabel, your respect for a mere custom causes you to disregard the
+plainest dictates of charity.”
+
+“I do not mean to be uncharitable.”
+
+“I know it, Mabel; but you must remember that the practice of putting
+on mourning is only a custom; and there is no sacrifice of love or
+principle in disregarding the custom.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know; I cannot think they loved poor Ellen as she
+deserved to be loved.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because, if they had, they would at least have shown a decent respect
+for her while they stood around her bier.”
+
+“Did they seem to be cold, indifferent?” asked the invalid, with a
+great deal of interest.
+
+“No; Mrs. Lawson was very much affected while in the cemetery. She
+sobbed as though her heart would break.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“But it did not seem to be real, her dress was so inappropriate.”
+
+“You wrong her, Mabel.”
+
+“I hope I do.”
+
+“You cannot see into the heart.”
+
+“And her sisters, too, if they had not worn white bonnets, would have
+seemed like real mourners.”
+
+“The heart weeps, Mabel, not the dress, nor even the tearful eye. Many
+a one in sable weeds has felt no sorrow for the loss of a parent or a
+friend.”
+
+“That may be; but don’t you think yourself that white bonnets and blue
+dresses are very improper at the funeral of a near friend?”
+
+“It would not be my taste, Mabel,” replied Mary with a faint smile.
+“But I wish to accord to every one the privilege of doing as they
+please in a matter of this kind.”
+
+“So do I; of course they have the right to wear what they please.”
+
+“You censure them, though.”
+
+“Not censure them, Mary; I only say that it looks as though they did
+not care much for poor Ellen.”
+
+“You impugn their motives; you ought to be charitable to them, however
+strange they may seem to act.”
+
+“I will, sister; but if I had lost a friend, I should feel as though I
+was deficient in respect to the memory of that friend, if I did not put
+on mourning.”
+
+Mary sighed; she knew not how soon that dear sister would be called
+upon to put on mourning for her. Even another day of existence might
+not be permitted her. She was calmly waiting the hour that would bear
+her from the scenes of earth to that brighter realm beyond the dark
+grave. Already she heard the music of the angel’s fluttering wing, and
+was ready to lay her head upon the lap of earth.
+
+Mabel penetrated her sister’s thoughts, and turned away to hide a tear,
+which sprung unbidden to her eye.
+
+“There are many things to be considered, Mabel, in relation to the
+custom of wearing mourning. For my part I think it would be far better
+if the practice was entirely discontinued.”
+
+“Why, Mary! how strange you talk!”
+
+“You can conceive how very disagreeable it must be for those who are
+waiting to consign the remains of a dear friend to the tomb, to be
+compelled to attend upon mantuamakers and milliners.”
+
+Mabel had never thought of that before.
+
+“No sooner has the spirit taken its flight, than the house of death
+is made the scene of commotion and confusion, by the preparations to
+appear in black. That holy sorrow, which craves solitude, is broken in
+upon by the cares of business--by the necessity of conforming to a mere
+fashion which requires the mourner to make a vain show.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right, Mary; pray, do not talk any more. You are quite
+exhausted.”
+
+Mary said no more. A shade of deep thought rested upon her pallid
+features. She was thinking how much more soothing it would be, when her
+redeemed spirit sped its flight, if her friends could only think of her
+while her lifeless clay remained with them, without the intrusion of
+milliners and dressmakers.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+It was spring time, and the joyous birds sung their cheerful notes upon
+the blossoming trees. The flowers were blooming upon the hill side, and
+Nature was assuming her verdant robes.
+
+Under the influence of the mild, balmy air of the spring, Mary Grant
+seemed to revive. Her strength appeared to return with the opening
+buds, and her friends dared to hope that she might be spared to behold
+the profusion of another summer, the glories of another autumn. But the
+disease was deceptive. While hope smiles, the destroyer comes.
+
+The physician, after giving the parents of Mary all the encouragement
+he could, directed his patient to ride out as often as the weather
+would permit.
+
+The invalid was happy in the privilege of once more inhaling the balmy
+breezes, of once again visiting the cherished scenes, where, in the
+full vigor of health and joy, she had gayly and thoughtlessly roamed.
+
+The village cemetery had always been a hallowed and beautiful spot to
+her, and she expressed a desire to visit it again, ere her inanimate
+form should be laid away to slumber beneath its peaceful bosom.
+
+With Mabel for her companion, the carriage was slowly driven through
+the garden of graves. Mary was silent and thoughtful; and more than
+once a tear rose to the eye of Mabel, when she thought how soon she
+might be called upon to follow the cold form of the loved one to her
+resting-place.
+
+The invalid was thoughtful, but not gloomy. Already the spirit had
+reached forward to the glories of that better world where there is no
+death, no sorrow. The grave had no terrors to her; it was a place of
+rest. Death was not a hideous, quaking skeleton to her imagination, but
+a white-winged angel, who would fold her upon his bosom, and bear her
+across the dark valley to the “house with many mansions, eternal in the
+heavens.”
+
+With introverted thoughts she gazed upon the memorials of the
+slumbering dead. The funereal fir, the pendent willow that swept over
+the green graves, diffused a heavenly calm in her heart, and she felt
+ready to join the great company that slept beneath them.
+
+“There is a new-made grave,” said she, as the carriage turned the angle
+of one of the avenues.
+
+“It is the grave of poor Ellen Lawson,” replied Mabel.
+
+Mary requested the driver to stop.
+
+On the grave, over which no marble had yet been reared, were several
+bouquets of fresh flowers. Some little white blossoms, which had been
+transplanted near the head, were opening their tiny buds.
+
+“Still remembered, Mabel,” said Mary, as she pointed to the flowers.
+
+“They place fresh flowers upon her grave every day.”
+
+“And do you think they did not love her, Mabel?”
+
+“O, sister, I know they did.”
+
+“And wore no black at her funeral?”
+
+“I was wrong, Mary.”
+
+“These are meet emblems of the heart’s remembrance. When I go hence,
+may the flowers of spring blossom upon my grave. May some loving hand
+place flowers upon the sod that hides me from those I loved on earth.”
+
+“You are sad, sister; do not speak so gloomily.”
+
+“Nay, Mabel, I am not sad; I am happy.”
+
+Mabel shed a flood of tears upon the bosom of her sister.
+
+“Do not weep, Mabel; we shall meet in heaven, and be happy there
+forever.”
+
+“You are better, dear sister; do not speak so hopelessly.”
+
+“Only a little while longer, and I shall rest beneath this sod. But do
+not be sad; I am happy: I am not afraid to die. I feel as though the
+angels were with me now, waiting to bear me to my home in the skies.”
+
+Mabel cast another glance at the flower-decked grave of Ellen Lawson,
+as the carriage drove on, and she felt that the heart could more
+eloquently express its remembrance of the loved and lost, than by a
+display of the sable weeds of the mourner.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Mary Grant went out of the house no more. In another week her waiting
+spirit bade farewell to earth, and winged its way to its native
+skies. Calmly and trustingly, while a heavenly smile played upon her
+irradiated features, she breathed her last in the arms of Mabel.
+
+She was gone! Her wasted form, from which the undying soul had just
+taken its flight, lay in rigid silence before her. She was beautiful
+in death--so beautiful that Mabel could hardly believe she was dead;
+that those lips, parted in a placid smile, could no more speak gentle
+counsel to her; that those eyes, now motionless and sealed, could no
+more reflect the love of that affectionate heart upon her.
+
+But a moment before, she had bidden her farewell. Could she be dead?
+Was it indeed true that those smiling lips were forever sealed; that
+another note of sisterly love could not proceed from them?
+
+Kind friends were waiting to prepare the body for the sepulchre, and
+a gentle hand led her away from the inanimate form. Then, then she
+realized that her sister was indeed dead, and a torrent of woe swept
+wildly into her heart.
+
+Flying to her chamber, she gave free vent to her grief.
+
+“She is gone! She is gone!” sobbed she, as she buried her face beneath
+her hands, and trembled in the agony of her emotion.
+
+Mary died as the sun was sinking behind the western hills. Her pure
+spirit had fled with the day; but the change bore her to an endless
+day, where there is no night and the sun never sets.
+
+Mabel passed a sleepless night. Her pillow was wet with her tears. She
+rose in the morning, and hastened to gaze again upon the form of Mary.
+She was arrayed for the grave, and as Mabel bent over her, and printed
+a kiss upon the pallid, cold lips, the memories of the past rushed
+vividly into her heart. Her eyes rained tears upon the marble beauty of
+the corpse.
+
+And there she stood for an hour, communing with the days which were now
+no more; which could never be again, because the heart that made them
+glad was now still in death.
+
+The formality of the morning meal was disposed of,--it was nothing
+more than a form to the weeping household,--and Mabel returned to the
+side of her departed sister. She kissed the cold lips again, and gave
+herself up to the flood of irresistible grief which faithful memory
+forced upon her.
+
+“Excuse me, Miss Grant,” said one of the neighbors, who had come in to
+assist the family, “but Miss Barnes, the dressmaker, is waiting to fit
+your dress.”
+
+Her dress! There was something heartless, cruelly repulsive in the
+word. Her dress at such a time as that! Must she leave the bier of her
+dead sister to converse upon the details of a garment? Must her mind
+abandon the thought of the dead to dwell upon the fashion of a dress?
+
+Without a word she went to the sitting room. It was a busy scene for
+the house of mourning, and she learned that the mantuamaker had been
+there all night, for the weather was warm, and the funeral must take
+place on the following day.
+
+The conversation of the apartment sounded loathsome to her. It was not
+of her dead sister, it was of the latest fashions, of the propriety of
+this and that; the fitness of one article and the unfitness of another.
+
+They asked her how she would have her dress cut; but her thoughts were
+with Mary, and she answered not. As soon as she could be spared, she
+left the dressmakers, and returned to the chamber of the dead.
+
+Again she wandered back with Mary to the scenes of their happy
+childhood. Again the tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and the
+spirit of the loved one seemed to speak to her from the heaven to which
+she had ascended.
+
+“The milliner has come, and wants to try on your bonnet,” said the
+servant girl.
+
+Mabel attended the summons and returned. Her grief was too deep to
+permit her to participate in the occupations of the sitting room,
+though her mother was compelled to be there, and had been there all
+night.
+
+“Please ma’am, the shopkeeper has come over with some gloves, and they
+want you to pick out a pair,” said the girl again.
+
+She had scarcely disposed of this matter before another demanded her
+attention; and thus it was all day long. The house was full of bustle
+and confusion. The tailor, the hatter, the hosier, and a score of
+female artisans were constantly coming and going.
+
+The solitude which her weeping heart craved was denied her. On the
+morrow that loved form was to be borne away and placed in the ground.
+They could never behold it again; but from the hour that Mary had
+breathed her last, to the arrival of the funeral guests, she heard more
+of business, of the repulsive details of dress and fashion, than of
+those more appropriate words which solace the mourner in the hour of
+trial.
+
+The mourning garments were completed; but when Mabel was arrayed in
+them, they carried no comfort to the heart. She could not even feel
+that the wearing of them was a token of respect to her dead sister; for
+they had robbed her of the blessed privilege of weeping over her bier.
+
+More than once she recalled the uncharitable judgment she had
+passed upon the Lawsons; but they had been privileged to mourn
+without interruption over their dead. The course they had chosen was
+reasonable; and she could not but feel that if the heart alone were
+consulted, it would not weep in nodding plumes and sable weeds.
+
+Around the grave of Mary the devoted sister planted the flowers she had
+loved so well, and every evening, as the sun sank away, she placed a
+fresh bouquet upon the green sod above her.
+
+And close by, the hand of affection strewed flowers upon the grave of
+Ellen Lawson; and all summer long, and when the chill winds of autumn
+swept the cemetery, these floral offerings told the passer by that the
+dead were remembered every day.
+
+Bring flowers! Scatter them upon the graves of the dead; for they are a
+far more grateful tribute to the memory of the departed, than all the
+trappings of fashionable woe!
+
+
+
+
+THE DOMESTIC ELEMENT.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Julia has been to the public schools long enough,” said Mrs. Mason to
+her husband. “She is fifteen years old, and I am sure she can learn
+nothing more till she is sent to a boarding school.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Nonsense!”
+
+“Besides, Mrs. Benson’s daughter has left, and Julia don’t want to go
+any longer.”
+
+“Let her stay at home then.”
+
+“Stay at home! Don’t you mean she shall have any polish?”
+
+“Can’t you polish her, my dear?” asked the easy husband, with a
+good-natured smile.
+
+“How absurdly you talk!”
+
+“Why, my dear, you have got quite polish enough for the wife of a small
+merchant. I would not give a copper to have you any more of a lady than
+you are.”
+
+“But Julia may be the wife of a rich man; what would she be then
+without music, French, and painting?”
+
+“And she may be the wife of a poor mechanic, and these accomplishments
+be useless and burdensome.”
+
+“She never shall be the wife of a mechanic if I can help it,” retorted
+Mrs. Mason, smartly.
+
+“Fie, Mary; you are unreasonable. Why should she look higher than a
+mechanic, especially as some of our best and most reputable men are
+mechanics?”
+
+“She shall not be the wife of a mechanic if I can help it,” repeated
+the lady.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“She shall do better, and that is the reason why I want her better
+educated.”
+
+“She may do worse. What are we, my dear, that we need look among the
+nabobs for a husband for our daughter?”
+
+“Are you not a merchant?”
+
+“Only a small shopkeeper.”
+
+“Well, that’s a merchant; and I mean Julia shall marry a merchant.”
+
+Mr. Mason yielded the point, and agreed that Julia should marry
+whomsoever she and her mother might choose.
+
+“But she must be educated for her future station.”
+
+“True, she must.”
+
+“She must go to a boarding school, and learn French, music, painting
+and German.”
+
+“And Chinese,” interposed Mr. Mason.
+
+“She must learn all the fashionable things.”
+
+“I believe English grammar, writing, and arithmetic are not in fashion.”
+
+“Pooh! she knows all about these things.”
+
+“I asked her to tell me how many bushels of potatoes a wagon seven feet
+long by four wide and three high would contain, and she could not make
+the first figure towards it.”
+
+“I suppose there was no such question in her book.”
+
+“Perhaps not; and she could not tell me where Sevastopol was--whether
+it was in China or the Sandwich Islands.”
+
+“How foolish you are! I think likely she never happened to see the
+place on the map.”
+
+“And that letter she wrote to her uncle was such horrible grammar that
+I was ashamed to send it.”
+
+“No matter for that; she understands grammar very well.”
+
+“May be she does; but she has an awkward way of showing it. I suppose
+washing, cooking, and baking are not fashionable either.”
+
+“There it is again.”
+
+“I think you would do better by her if you took her into the kitchen,
+and taught her these things. If she happens to marry a poor man, they
+will be of some service to her.”
+
+“Time enough for these things.”
+
+“Well, well, do as you please; but I am opposed to boarding schools; I
+think they do more harm than good.”
+
+“That’s just like you! Opposed to boarding schools! Who ever heard of
+such a thing?”
+
+“They spoil more young ladies than they ever benefit.”
+
+“How in the world can it spoil them?”
+
+“Home is the place for girls. The first thing they should be taught to
+love is the fireside; they ought never to be weaned from it by sending
+them away to undergo monastic discipline in a boarding school.”
+
+“How foolish!”
+
+“It gives them bad habits--makes them romantic--fills their silly heads
+with moonshine; and if you send Julia, ten to one she will run away
+with some bearded puppy.”
+
+But it was no kind of use for Mr. Mason to argue with his wife on such
+a topic as this; she was bent on sending Julia to the boarding school.
+He was a man of peace, and, rather than make a tempest, he withdrew
+from the combat.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Julia Mason did not possess a very brilliant intellect. Nature had
+never intended her for a “blue stocking,” and, live as long as she
+might, there was no probability that she would ever become even a
+“strong minded woman.” She had for many years attended one of the
+public schools, but had never risen above the second class, and the
+master did not believe she ever would.
+
+Yet, for all this, Julia was a good-hearted, generous, whole souled
+girl. What Nature had neglected to place in her head, she had
+beneficently put in her heart. She had a nice, womanly, domestic
+temperament, was quiet and unobtrusive in her manners, and, without
+doubt, if no pains had been taken to spoil her, would have made
+somebody a very loving, if not a very brilliant wife.
+
+She was a little disposed to be romantic and sentimental--would have
+fed well and thriven on moonshine--a temperament which requires a great
+deal of prudent management on the part of the parent or guardian.
+
+Julia went to the boarding school; but she had not been there three
+weeks before she wrote to her mother, begging her to take her away, or
+she declared she should certainly die.
+
+The poor girl was homesick. Monastic discipline was an outrage upon her
+affectionate, domestic nature. She had been accustomed to spend her
+evenings by the fireside at home, with her parents and younger brother
+and sisters; and it was a sad deprivation to her to be driven, at the
+stroke of a bell, into her chamber at seven o’clock, there to sit in
+painful silence with her roommate, and study her lesson. She was not a
+genius, and she hated study; it was uncongenial in the highest degree.
+
+At nine o’clock, at the stroke of the bell, she must retire, and in
+fifteen minutes her light must be put out, or a black mark was made
+against her name on the following day; and so it was all day long, week
+in and week out. Her existence was odiously mechanical. Her life was
+regulated by that everlasting stroke of the bell. She was obliged to
+do every thing by rule--eat, drink, sleep, study, play, walk, by rule.
+
+It was unnatural, and her soul cried out within her against such
+monstrous formality. She could not learn, her heart grieved so under
+the repulsive mechanism of her existence. Even the music lesson,
+which she had anticipated with the liveliest pleasure, was gloomy and
+distasteful. She was conscientious, and, though her companions laughed
+at her for it, she at first paid the most implicit obedience to the
+rules of the institution. Her roommate devised various happy expedients
+for relieving the tedium of their lives; but she refused to avail
+herself of them.
+
+Her mother begged her to persevere for a time, assuring her that she
+was only homesick--a disease which a few weeks would effectually cure.
+She did persevere; but her “chum” finally succeeded in overcoming her
+conscientious scruples, and the evenings, instead of being passed in
+study, were devoted to a “good time generally.” It is true, Julia
+got innumerable black marks for failures in her recitations; but the
+horrible bugbears soon became so familiar that they ceased to have
+any terrors. Before the first term had expired, she had so completely
+weaned herself from her domestic memories that home had lost all its
+charms.
+
+She had learned a great many “new tricks.” Indeed, the preceptor, in
+his report to her parents at the close of her first term, felt it his
+duty to say that her conduct had not been altogether satisfactory. She
+had gone to the boarding school the quietest person in the world; she
+returned a romp, her head full of strange notions about lovers, and her
+heart as washy as the moonshine in her head.
+
+On the first evening after her return home she insisted on going to the
+opera; the second to a concert; the third to the theatre; the fourth to
+a lecture; the fifth to a party; the sixth to a conference meeting; and
+so on every evening.
+
+“What in the world has got into you, Julia? You did not use to be fond
+of ‘kiting’ round in this manner,” said the astonished Mrs. Mason.
+
+“O mother, it is so insufferably dull at home! Besides, it is not
+fashionable to stay at home in the evening,” drawled Julia.
+
+“What _has_ got into you?”
+
+“Boarding schools,” said Mr. Mason.
+
+“I should die of _ennui_ to stay at home an evening,” continued the
+daughter, with a languishing sigh.
+
+“You had better give her a lesson on the pots and kettles now,”
+interrupted Mr. Mason.
+
+“O papa, how cruel you are! Pray go to the opera with me.”
+
+Mr. Mason was an indulgent papa, and he was obliged to go; but he
+could not help wondering what Julia would finally come to, if she was
+permitted to go on in this manner.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Julia returned to the boarding school, and in spite of the weak efforts
+of her father to avert the fashionable fate that awaited her, she
+continued there for nearly two years. In music and painting she made
+rapid progress; but in literature and science she failed to make even a
+decent proficiency.
+
+She was an altered creature. She was vain, affected, romantic, and
+transcendental, cherishing all sorts of visionary notions about life,
+and especially about lovers and husbands, who filled a long space in
+her daily meditations. She had lost her domestic nature, and that was
+the saddest loss of all. Her heart was not actually corrupted; but it
+was so buried up in the weeds of vanity and folly, that its gentle
+influence was almost entirely lost upon her life and character. If not
+unsexed, she had lost that hold upon woman’s sphere which confers her
+chief charm in society. She was a creature for the ball room and the
+opera, and not for the quiet shades of home.
+
+Perhaps a boarding school does not always make such sad havoc in the
+mind and heart of the young female; but such is the tendency of its
+artificial manner of existence. Monastic discipline spoils woman; it
+removes her from, and unfits her for, her social, domestic position.
+
+When the two years had nearly expired, Mr. Mason one day received a
+letter from the principal of the seminary, containing the astounding
+intelligence that Julia had eloped with a young gentleman who had come
+from the city on a visit in the neighborhood.
+
+“The grand _finale_ of the drama,” said Mr. Mason, throwing the letter
+to his wife.
+
+“Good Heaven! who is this Mr. Winchel?” exclaimed Mrs. Mason, when she
+had read the letter.
+
+“A son of Winchel, the merchant in ---- Street.”
+
+“Rich?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Thank God it is no worse!” replied Mrs. Mason, so far relieved that a
+pleasant smile played upon her lips.
+
+A few days after, Julia and her husband presented themselves at the
+home of her father. They were received with open arms. Mrs. Mason was
+too much pleased with the match to make a fuss about it, and Mr. Mason
+followed his wife’s “lead.”
+
+A few weeks after, they were comfortably settled in a pleasant house;
+for Mr. Winchel, who had some very clearly defined aspirations for
+the quiet joys of a fireside of his own, insisted upon going to
+housekeeping instead of boarding.
+
+This kind of life was novel to Julia, and for the first six months,
+while her husband consented to take her every evening to the opera, a
+ball, party, or concert, she was tolerably contented.
+
+But Mr. Winchel got sick of such an incessant round of amusement, and
+sighed for that paradise of home which his imagination had years ago
+painted. He reasoned with his giddy wife; but she hated home, and
+reproached him for attempting to imprison her in the house, and thus
+make her life miserable.
+
+Mr. Winchel was firm, and positively refused to go to any more operas,
+balls, parties, or concerts.
+
+Julia was forced to accede to his reasonable desires; but home, even in
+the presence of her husband, had become an intolerable place. Indeed,
+the romance of a husband had worn itself away. He had fallen in love
+with her in the most natural way in the world, and had proposed to wait
+upon her father, and arrange the preliminaries for their marriage; but
+Julia was not content to be united to him in such a tame manner as
+that, and insisted upon an elopement. Her lover gratified her--to his
+sorrow, he now discovered.
+
+Julia was unhappy. Her husband, disgusted at her folly, returned to the
+club he had abandoned when he married her, leaving her to comfort or
+amuse herself as best she might. And she found comfort and amusement
+in the society of a gay and dashing Lothario, who consoled her for her
+husband’s absence by making love to her. It was not long before the
+world was again astonished by the publication of an elopement--not a
+harmless, sentimental affair, but a criminal elopement.
+
+Julia was too romantic to consider the moral turpitude of the act. The
+pious preaching and praying of the boarding school, had been lost upon
+her in the variety of more congenial topics that were there presented
+to her. The elopement was romance; she thought not of the crime.
+
+Mr. Mason and his wife were in the deepest distress. Mr. Winchel called
+at her father’s store, and stated the particulars of their domestic
+experience. It was plain to both that the distaste for home was
+traceable to the loss of the domestic element of the misguided wife.
+
+Julia and her seducer--we wrong him--both were guilty--were heard from
+in New Orleans; but the villain soon became tired of her whims, and
+left her, and she died a few years later, a ruined, abandoned, off-cast
+creature, the victim of a false education.
+
+Mr. Mason’s remaining daughters were not sent to the boarding school.
+They received the best education to be had in the city, and there are
+noted institutions of learning there. They were thus kept constantly
+under the watchful care of their parents, and the domestic element in
+their natures was not unsettled by absence from home, while the plastic
+mind was being moulded into its shape for life.
+
+
+
+
+“BANG UP!”
+
+OR,
+
+THE RESULTS OF ADVERTISING.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Any thing over, Ben?”
+
+“Not a dollar; I just paid the Journal’s bill for advertising, which
+has pretty much cleaned me out.”
+
+“How much?”
+
+“Forty-two dollars and twenty-five cents.”
+
+“Ben, I don’t like to tell you that you are the biggest fool on the
+street; but you are.”
+
+“Wait, Joe, and see,” returned the other, with a confident smile.
+
+“Forty-two dollars for advertising!”
+
+“Just so, and for three months’ advertising.”
+
+The applicant for “any thing over” gave a peculiar whistle to define
+the length, breadth, and depth of his astonishment.
+
+This conversation occurred in the store of Benjamin Weston, a young
+and enterprising merchant, who had just commenced business on his own
+account. The other person, who to use his own classic expression, was
+“bang up,” and wanted to borrow fifty dollars to make up the amount of
+a note due that day, was Joseph Weston, a cousin of the other. They had
+been playmates in youth and stanch friends in maturity. Though there
+was a great diversity of opinion on many topics, a strong sympathy
+existed between them.
+
+They had commenced business at about the same time, and under nearly
+the same circumstances, both being obliged for the want of sufficient
+capital to mortgage the stock in their respective stores.
+
+Thus far they had done well, and the prospect was that both would
+become wealthy and distinguished merchants.
+
+They had married sisters, and occupied tenements in the same block.
+Their houses were furnished in substantially the same style, and with
+no material difference of expenditure. Both had been brought up to
+business habits, and educated into the principles of a rigid economy.
+
+“Forty-two dollars for advertising,” repeated Joe.
+
+“And if I had the money to spare, I would spend double that sum,”
+replied Benjamin.
+
+“What benefit do you expect to realize from it?”
+
+“You are behind the times, Joe. Benefit! What a question! I expect to
+make my fortune by it.”
+
+“Humbug!”
+
+“Look at Brandeth and Swaim.”
+
+“Both humbugs.”
+
+“No matter for that; if these fellows have been able to make princely
+fortunes by advertising humbugs, how much more so will he who deals in
+substantial realities!”
+
+“All gammon!”
+
+“We differ; time will tell who is in the right.”
+
+“Seriously, Ben, you will ruin yourself if you go on in this manner.
+Forty-two dollars a quarter for advertising!”
+
+“I shall spend a hundred the next quarter.”
+
+“Don’t do it, Ben.”
+
+“How does it happen, Joe, that you are in the street borrowing money? I
+never did such a thing since I commenced business.”
+
+“How does it happen, Ben, that you haven’t got any money to lend?”
+asked Joe, with a smile.
+
+“Because I spent it in advertising.”
+
+“Better have spent it for opera and 2:40’s.”
+
+“Wait, Joe, wait.”
+
+“I spent nothing for advertising; but I will bet you the oysters my
+sales for the last quarter are as large as yours.”
+
+“I will take you up on the next quarter.”
+
+“Why not the last.”
+
+“Advertising is somewhat like planting potatoes; you must wait for the
+crops.”
+
+“Don’t believe in it, Ben. When I have a fifty spot that I don’t know
+what to do with, I shall put it into my family. Buy a library, a new
+sofa, or something of that sort. I should rather go to the White
+Mountains with it, than throw it away upon newspapers.”
+
+“You don’t know your own interest, Joe.”
+
+“Don’t I? Some kinds of business might thrive on advertising; but
+ours, never. Do you believe the women look in the newspapers before
+they go shopping?”
+
+“Well, there was a lady in here just now, who said she saw such and
+such goods advertised by me.”
+
+“Pshaw! and on the strength of that you intend to spend fifty dollars
+more in advertising! Ben, you are crazy;” and Joseph Weston turned his
+heel and left the store, assured in his own mind that his friend was
+going to ruin.
+
+In his estimation such loose principles would eventually bring him to
+bankruptcy. But Ben was his friend, and he deeply commiserated him
+because he clung to such weak and pernicious doctrines.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Business prospered with the young men. By prudent and careful
+management, each had not only made a living, but had been able to pay
+a small portion of the mortgage on the stock, at the end of the first
+year.
+
+Joseph had the advantage of his friend in possessing a better location,
+and though his rent was somewhat higher, the difference was more than
+compensated by the increased facilities it afforded him. The prospect
+was decidedly bright to him. If his business increased as it had done,
+he would be enabled to clear himself of debt in another year.
+
+Under this encouraging aspect he ventured to expend a hundred
+dollars in additions to his furniture, which his wife insisted was
+absolutely necessary for their comfort and happiness. The house had
+been furnished altogether too plain for this progressive age in her
+estimation. She was behind some of her friends who, she was sure, were
+doing no better than her husband.
+
+Joseph was a little obstinate at first; but then there was something
+so decidedly comfortable in a set of stuffed chairs and a lounge, that
+he did not hold out in his opposition. He was doing well, and the
+expenditure would not seriously embarrass him.
+
+With a nice new Brussels carpet and the new furniture, Mrs. Weston’s
+little parlor looked exceedingly pleasant and comfortable. Besides, it
+looked as though her husband was prospering in his business.
+
+It was so very nice that the young wife could not bear the idea of
+having the parlor shut up, so that no one should see it till the
+furniture had grown rusty; consequently she made up her mind that they
+must have a party.
+
+Their friends had parties; why shouldn’t they? It looked stingy not to
+have one. Mrs. Weston was an eloquent debater, and she gained the day
+in this matter. It is true the party was not a very extravagant affair;
+but it cost Joe some fifty dollars. In the meantime Benjamin had paid
+quite as much for advertising as his friend had for new furniture and
+the party. Joseph laughed at him, and finally came to believe that he
+was insane, and would certainly come to ruin in another year.
+
+Mrs. Ben Weston, too, felt decidedly unpleasant about the improvements
+which had been going on in her sister’s house.
+
+“Why can’t we have a rosewood table and a set of stuffed chairs,
+Benjamin?” asked she, pouting her pretty lips into a very unamiable
+position.
+
+“Simply, my dear, because I cannot afford it,” replied the
+philosophical merchant.
+
+“How can Joe afford it?”
+
+“I presume he knows his business best.”
+
+“He has put over a hundred dollars into his house.”
+
+Ben whistled “T’other side of Jordan,” and made no reply.
+
+“Do, Ben, buy some new chairs.”
+
+“Can’t afford it.”
+
+“Yes, you can.”
+
+“No, I can’t.”
+
+“_You_ can afford it as well as Joe.”
+
+“Perhaps I can.”
+
+“Do buy some.”
+
+“I should be very glad to gratify you, but I cannot take the money from
+my business. A year hence, if business prospers with me, you shall have
+them.”
+
+“A year hence,” pouted the wife.
+
+“I must spend a hundred dollars in advertising the next quarter.”
+
+“How foolish!”
+
+“Very foolish, my dear; but it must be done.”
+
+“That’s the way you throw your money away. You don’t catch Joe to do
+such a trick as that.”
+
+“True; but though he has the advantage of having a corner store, I paid
+three hundred dollars more on my mortgage note than he did.”
+
+“Then you can afford the table and chairs.”
+
+“Nay, my dear, I will not spend a dollar for superfluities while I am
+in debt.”
+
+Mrs. Ben Weston felt very bad about it, but her husband was firm, and
+she was forced to content herself with the plain furniture.
+
+Mrs. Joe Weston enjoyed her nice parlor till the novelty wore away,
+and then she discovered that there were a great many other articles
+wanted to make things look uniform. The two windows must have drapery
+curtains, a pier glass was needed, and some pictures were wanted to
+relieve the walls. Her husband, who had once exceeded the limits of his
+means, found no great difficulty in doing so again, and the things were
+bought.
+
+But Joe had some scruples about it. His notes began to be troublesome,
+and every day he was in the street borrowing money. His business, too,
+had not met his expectations. Instead of increasing in the ratio of his
+first year’s experience, it hardly held its own, and the poor fellow
+began to have some serious misgivings about the future.
+
+Before the year had half expired, he was obliged to introduce a rigid
+system of retrenchment into his family and business affairs, in order
+to keep his expenses within his means.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Another year had passed away in the business experience of the young
+merchants. The books had been balanced, and the results stood in black
+and white before them.
+
+Ben had followed up his system of advertising through the year. He
+had expended large sums, but had made the outlay with judgment and
+discretion.
+
+The result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. His store was
+crowded with customers; with genuine, _bona fide_ customers, and
+with but a small proportion of gadders and fancy shoppers. The
+newspapers had borne to the best families in the city and country full
+descriptions of his stock. His name was as familiar as “household
+words” in the dwellings of the rich and poor, of the farmer, the
+mechanic, and the laborer.
+
+Truly, the harvest was abundant, and Ben rubbed his hands with delight
+as he cast his eyes over the figures which conveyed to him the pleasing
+results of his year’s operations. He had the means, not only of
+clearing himself of debt, but also of gratifying his wife by giving her
+all the new furniture she required, besides a handsome surplus with
+which to increase his business.
+
+The new furniture was bought and set up; every debt was discharged, and
+the importers and jobbers were eager to give him unlimited credit.
+
+One day, while he was ruminating upon this pleasant state of things,
+Joe Weston entered the store. For some months past, the intercourse
+between the young merchants had not been as cordial as formerly.
+Joe’s nice things had rather “set him up;” some of the upper ten had
+condescended to visit him; and he had attended the “Almack” parties
+with his wife.
+
+He was getting ahead fast in his own estimation, and cherished a
+supreme contempt for the slow motion of his friend. But when, in the
+middle of the year, he found himself running down hill, and discovered
+that Ben’s store was crowded with shoppers, while his own was empty, a
+feeling of envy took possession of him. Ben must be underselling, he
+concluded, and sooner or latter the consequences would appear.
+
+The prosperous merchant could not but notice the sad and dejected mien
+of his friend, as he entered the store.
+
+“How are you, Joe? You are almost a stranger, lately. Where do you keep
+yourself?” said Ben.
+
+“Business, Ben; business!” replied Joe, demurely.
+
+“Good! Business before pleasure.”
+
+“Any thing over to-day?” asked Joe; but the query was not put in that
+buoyant, elastic tone, which had distinguished him in former times.
+
+“A trifle; how much do you want?” returned Ben, promptly.
+
+“To tell the truth, I am ‘bang up.’ I have got a note of four hundred
+to pay, and I have not yet raised the first dollar towards it.”
+
+“You are late; it is half past one now,” replied Ben, consulting his
+watch.
+
+“Ben, I am in a tight place,” said Joe, in a low, solemn tone.
+
+“Indeed! I am sorry to hear it,” and Ben’s face wore an expression of
+sincere sympathy. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
+
+“I am afraid so.”
+
+“What can I do for you?” and the young merchant took down his check
+book, and examined the state of his bank account.
+
+“I can give you a check for three hundred, if that will do you any
+good,” continued he, taking up the pen to fill out the blank.
+
+“Thank you, Ben; you are very kind; but I don’t know as I ought to take
+it.”
+
+“Not take it! Why not?”
+
+“If I should pay this note, there is hardly a possibility that I could
+get through the month.”
+
+“So bad as that? ’Pon my soul, I am sorry to hear it.”
+
+“Smith and Jones advise me to make an assignment.”
+
+“How does it happen? I thought you were doing well?”
+
+“Business has been very dull for the last six months. Haven’t you found
+it so?”
+
+“Well, no; it has been driving with me.”
+
+Joe knew it had; indeed, his present visit was not to borrow money, but
+to prepare his friend for the “smash,” which was now unavoidable.
+
+“My sales have been light,” continued he; “I can’t account for it.”
+
+“I can; look here, Joe.”
+
+Ben took down his ledger, and pointed to the account “Charges,” where
+the sums paid for advertising had been entered. On a slip of paper he
+had footed them up.
+
+“Five hundred and sixty-five dollars for advertising, Joe! That’s what
+did the business.”
+
+Joe was astonished. It was quite as much as he had paid for fine things
+for his house, and for parties, and the opera; but the investment had
+been vastly more profitable, inasmuch as, taken in connection with his
+careful management of his business and his economical manner of living
+it had laid the foundation of his future fortune. It had given him a
+good start in business, and a good beginning is half the battle.
+
+Joe Weston failed, and paid only twenty cents on a dollar. His fine
+furniture was all sold, and he was obliged to board out. But in his
+extremity Ben was his true friend. He received him into his house, and
+when his business was settled up, took him into partnership.
+
+The firm is now one of the most respectable and prosperous in the city.
+Joe, ever since he was “bang up,” believes in advertising, and any one
+who opens the Journal, or, indeed, any of the daily papers, cannot fail
+to notice the conspicuous advertisement of “Weston & Co.”
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW CLOAK;
+
+OR,
+
+“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“There! I declare, if Mrs. Burton hasn’t got a new cloak!” exclaimed
+Mrs. Waxwell to her intimate friend, Miss Viney, as they came out of
+church one Sunday.
+
+“I see she has,” replied Miss Viney, very quietly.
+
+“I know her husband can’t afford it; she will be the ruin of him yet.”
+
+“I suppose they know their own business best. At any rate, it is a
+blessing that you and I are not accountable for her misdeeds,” said
+Miss Viney, who, though what is technically termed an “old maid,”
+was not of that class who have been slanderously styled gossips and
+busybodies; and we have purposely introduced her to refute the foul
+calumny that “old maids” are all meddlers, and we are sure that all
+spinsters will be grateful to us for the service.
+
+“I don’t know about that,” returned Mrs. Waxwell, with a dubious shake
+of the head. “Mr. Burton owes my husband three hundred dollars, and I
+don’t believe he will ever get his pay if things go on in this way.
+That cloak couldn’t have cost less than thirty dollars.”
+
+“I presume they could afford it, or they would not have bought it. At
+any rate, they ought to know best.”
+
+“Mrs. Burton is a vain, conceited, proud woman, and pride will have a
+fall one of these days.”
+
+“I hope not.”
+
+“I hope she will have a fall; she would drop some of those airs then.”
+
+“I never thought she was what might be termed a vain woman.”
+
+“She is; she is an impudent minx, and the sooner she is brought down to
+a level with her circumstances, the better for her and the world.”
+
+“She has the reputation of being a very kind-hearted person and an
+excellent neighbor.”
+
+“I don’t care if she has; she likes to ‘lord’ it through the village,
+and for one I won’t be ruled by her.”
+
+“Really, I do not understand you; she is as amiable and humble as any
+one need be.”
+
+“Amiable and humble indeed! What did she buy that new cloak for except
+to excite the envy of half the town, and make them think she is
+somebody?”
+
+“I hope there is no one so silly as to envy her;” and Miss Viney cast a
+significant glance full into the face of her companion.
+
+“I don’t, for one; but I should like to teach her that she is no better
+than the rest of the world.”
+
+“She don’t profess to be; she visits the neighborhood; and I’m sure
+there is no better person in sickness than she is.”
+
+“All that may be.”
+
+“When you had the erysipelas, you remember she watched with you when no
+one else would.”
+
+“I know it; but is one to be tyrannized over forever because she
+watched a few nights with me?”
+
+“How strange you talk!”
+
+“Do I? Didn’t she buy that cloak on purpose to cut a figure through the
+town, and make every body feel cheap?”
+
+“No, I am sure she did not; she had no such motive,” replied Miss
+Viney, smartly.
+
+“I don’t believe it, there!”
+
+“She is not such a woman as that.”
+
+“Yes, she is, just such a woman as that.”
+
+“I have seen no one but you who feels bad about it.”
+
+“But me! Lor’ sake! I wouldn’t have you think _I_ feel bad about it.
+She can wear what she’s a mind to for all me; only I hope she can
+afford it--that’s all.”
+
+“I think she can; she has the reputation of being a pretty careful
+woman.”
+
+“I don’t care; but I feel it my duty to warn my husband to look out
+about his debt. When folks get to be so awful extravagant, there’s no
+knowing what may happen.”
+
+“Mr. Burton is doing a very good business, people say.”
+
+“Nobody knows any thing about what he is doing. All I know is, that
+when Squire Smith sold him two cords of wood last week, and carried
+in the bill, he couldn’t pay it. He actually put the squire off till
+next week. That looks as though they could afford thirty dollar cloaks,
+don’t it?”
+
+With these sage reflections, Mrs. Waxwell turned down the lane that
+led to her home, leaving Miss Viney to pursue her way and ponder the
+extravagance of “some folks.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Waxwell loved fine clothes quite as much as any other woman of
+the nineteenth century, and this is saying a great deal; but then her
+husband was parsimonious, and she was parsimonious; and, though she
+loved “nice things” very much, she loved money more, which, we take it,
+amounts to nothing more nor less than meanness.
+
+Mr. Waxwell was a farmer, and well off in the world. The advent of the
+railroad into his native town had turned things topsy-turvy in general,
+and “put the devil into the women” in particular, to use Mr. Waxwell’s
+classic language. Time was when they were content to wear a straw
+bonnet and a calico gown to meeting; but now they had to rig out in
+silks and satins, with flounces and furbelows, and all sorts of rigging
+hitched to ’em, for all the world just like a clown in the circus. Such
+were Mr. Waxwell’s views of the social influence of the railroad.
+
+Society began to be a little “select;” folks put on airs, and were so
+“stuck up” that you couldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole.
+
+Farmer Waxwell did not much like this state of things; it cost money
+on the one hand, and he did not like to be thrown into the shade on
+the other. He was about the richest man in the place; but ten dollar
+bonnets and thirty dollar cloaks were abominations that he could not
+tolerate. Mrs. Waxwell didn’t like to be outdone in the matter of
+dress, and when she bought a new merino cloak the previous season, she
+had not a doubt but it would be unsurpassed for two seasons at least.
+When Mrs. Burton came out with the thirty dollar velvet, she found the
+wind was taken entirely out of her sail, and she was as indignant as
+the case demanded.
+
+In the rise and progress of the village since the advent of the
+railroad, two new stores had gone into operation, one of which was
+conducted by Mr. Burton, an enterprising young man from the metropolis,
+who had brought a city wife and a great many city notions into the
+place with him.
+
+As with a great many who go from the city to the country, he was
+exceedingly annoyed by that disinterested, charitable attention to
+other people’s business which so extensively prevails in many rural
+districts. He kept his affairs to himself, and this bothered and
+perplexed the gossips. His wife had a way of attending to her own
+concerns; she had been brought up where people do not even know their
+next door neighbors. If she wanted a new dress or a new bonnet, she
+never deemed it necessary to consult the neighbors in regard to her
+ability to afford it, or about the style and material.
+
+But, in spite of these peculiarities, she was a popular person in the
+village. She was amiable and kind to all, a friend and a comforter to
+the sick, and quite a useful person in the society of the place. She
+understood matters and things, had a larger experience of the world
+than those who had seen nothing of it; and the consequence was, that
+when a party was to be given, a picnic projected, or a ball got up,
+she was consulted, and her advice followed. She understood all these
+things, and was happy to explain the “fashion” in regard to them to all
+who asked her counsel.
+
+Poor Mrs. Waxwell! Her star began to decline when Mrs. Burton came
+to the village. She was no longer the leader of the _ton_, and her
+heart was bursting with envy. Though she had often received the kind
+offices of the storekeeper’s wife, both in sickness and in health, she
+would willingly have crushed her. That new cloak was the capsheaf of
+the indignities which she fancied had been heaped upon her, and she
+determined that her unconscious rival should suffer the consequences of
+her temerity.
+
+Her first demonstration was upon her husband, whom she found no
+difficulty in convincing that Mr. Burton must be ruined by the
+extravagance of his wife, and that, unless he immediately collected his
+debt, he would certainly lose it.
+
+As soon as she had done her washing on Monday, she “made some calls,”
+and embraced the opportunity of commenting freely upon that new cloak.
+The women told their husbands that Mr. Burton would certainly fail; and
+before three days had elapsed there was quite a ferment in the place.
+
+Nobody knew any thing about Mr. Burton’s affairs; he seemed to be
+doing a good business, though no one knew of his having any money.
+He did not even own the house in which he lived; he had no property,
+apparently, but his stock. The careful old farmers, to whom in the
+course of trade he had become indebted for produce which he sent to
+Boston, began to be alarmed by these rumors.
+
+It was in the State of New Hampshire; and at the time of which I write,
+the “grab law” was in force, and is still, for aught I know.
+
+One morning, as Mr. Burton returned from a journey to a neighboring
+town, he found his stock attached on the claim of Farmer Waxwell, and
+all on account of that new cloak which his wife had worn to meeting on
+the preceding Sunday.
+
+He had not the means to pay the note at that moment, and while he was
+considering a plan to extricate himself from the dilemma, the news
+that his goods had been attached spread all over the place. All the
+creditors were in hot haste to follow the track of Farmer Waxwell; for
+it was “first come, first served,” and in less than two hours a dozen
+had fastened upon the stock of his store.
+
+This was a tremendous result to follow in the train of a thirty dollar
+cloak and a gossiping old woman.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+“What do you think now, Miss Viney?” asked Mrs. Waxwell, as they met,
+soon after the storekeeper’s disaster had been made public.
+
+“I hope Mr. Burton will be able to pay his debts.”
+
+“But he won’t--I know he won’t.”
+
+“Probably, if they had given him any notice of their intention to
+demand the payment of their claims, he would have been prepared to meet
+them.”
+
+“I guess Mrs. Burton will not feel quite so stuck up after this.”
+
+“I hope _you_ have done nothing to bring about this sad result.”
+
+“But I have; I made my husband sue his note, and when he put on, the
+others did. Thirty dollar cloak indeed!”
+
+“I am sorry you have done this; you may ruin Mr. Burton by it.”
+
+“That’s just what I mean to do!” and Mrs. Waxwell’s malignant
+expression betrayed the jealousy she had so long harbored.
+
+“You did? It was very unkind and ungrateful in you to do so,” replied
+Miss Viney, indignantly.
+
+“Humph!”
+
+“Any trader would be likely to come out badly to have all his creditors
+pounce upon him without giving him a chance to collect his debts.”
+
+“I don’t believe he has any to collect.”
+
+“Even your husband, as well off as he is, might be embarrassed
+if suddenly called upon to pay his debts;” and Miss Viney looked
+significantly at her angry companion.
+
+“I doubt it.”
+
+“He may have a trial,” said the maiden lady, as she moved towards the
+store.
+
+“What can she mean by that?” thought Mrs. Waxwell.
+
+Miss Viney had some property of her own, and it was all in the hands of
+Farmer Waxwell, who had, on his own account, invested the greater part
+of it in railroad stock.
+
+This is what she meant. She would claim the three thousand dollars
+her husband owed her, and a cold chill passed through her veins as
+the thought struck her. Farmer Waxwell was rich in houses, lands, and
+stocks, all of which yielded him a good income; but he had not three
+thousand dollars in money, and it might cost him some trouble to raise
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Don’t cry, my dear; I have enough due me in Boston to pay these debts
+ten times over,” said Mr. Burton to his wife, who was much alarmed by
+the storm which threatened them.
+
+“What will people think?”
+
+“What will they think when I pay them all? The whole amount is not
+above nine hundred dollars.”
+
+Just then Miss Viney entered the house. In a few words, she explained
+the circumstances which had led to the sudden “strike” among the
+creditors.
+
+Mrs. Burton, kind soul, shed a flood of tears when she heard how cruel
+Mrs. Waxwell had been--she whom she had nursed with all the tenderness
+of a mother, when her frightened neighbors fled from the contagious
+disease.
+
+“Never mind it, my dear. We may expect any thing from a meddler, a
+gossip, a slanderer,” said Mr. Burton. “I must start for Boston in the
+noon train.”
+
+“Allow me, Mr. Burton, to offer you the money to discharge these
+liabilities. I have three thousand dollars in the hands of Mr. Waxwell.”
+
+“You are very kind, and I accept your offer,” replied Mr. Burton, “and
+next week I shall have the means of repaying you. I assure you I am
+worth at least five thousand dollars.”
+
+In proof of his assertion, he showed her various notes, mortgages, and
+certificates of stock.
+
+“I presume, if the people here knew that I was not a bankrupt, they
+would not have molested me. In spite of all my amiable neighbor, Mrs.
+Waxwell, may say, I think I am abundantly able to give my wife a thirty
+dollar cloak.”
+
+“I never doubted it,” replied Miss Viney, as she hastened to the
+village lawyer to put her note in course of collection.
+
+Farmer Waxwell was at dinner when the lawyer, who was a personal
+friend, called upon him.
+
+“Sorry to trouble you, but I am instructed to collect this note,” said
+he.
+
+“The devil!” exclaimed Farmer Waxwell.
+
+“The ugly hussy!” added Mrs. Waxwell, as she perceived that Miss
+Viney’s prophetic words had been burdened with a meaning.
+
+“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the lawyer; “but if I understand it
+rightly, you have publicly boasted that you brought about all this
+difficulty.”
+
+“I?”
+
+“Yes, madam: that new cloak did the business. You set your husband on,
+and all the rest followed him; so Miss Viney tells me.”
+
+“My gracious!”
+
+“And now she wants the money to assist Mr. Burton out of the difficulty
+into which you have plunged him.”
+
+“That’s plain speech, squire,” said the farmer.
+
+“But true.”
+
+“I can’t raise the money.”
+
+“Then I must sue.”
+
+“Can’t we compromise?”
+
+“Burton is worth at least five thousand dollars, and when he gets a
+remittance from Boston, will pay all.”
+
+“I will dissolve my attachment, and be bound for the payment of the
+others. Will that do it?”
+
+“Yes, if Miss Viney will consent.”
+
+Miss Viney did consent,--she was a kind-hearted lady--and the matter
+was compromised.
+
+“Now, wife,” said Farmer Waxwell, on the following week, as he put the
+three hundred dollars in his pocket which Burton had paid, minus thirty
+which he held in his hand, “here’s thirty dollars, and I think you’d
+better go and buy one of them ’ere cloaks. Your foolish envy like to
+have got me into the cu’sedest scrape I ever got into in my life.”
+
+She would not take it; she was too mean to dress well herself, and
+too envious to permit others who were able to do so in peace. But she
+gathered from the events of our story a healthy experience of the
+wisdom of that excellent maxim.--“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”
+
+
+
+
+“EVERY THING COMFORTABLE.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“You have every thing comfortable, Maria,” said Mrs. Belladonna
+Buttercup, to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Sparrow, at whose house she was
+making a visit; “every thing _comfortable_.”
+
+The speaker placed a very significant emphasis upon the last word,
+which, in connection with her peculiar tone of voice, and the half
+apparent sneer on her lips, was equivalent to saying, “You have all
+that is absolutely necessary to make your house habitable; you have
+beds, and chairs, and tables, but your furniture is of the most
+ordinary description--plain, cheap, and old-fashioned. It would not
+suit me.”
+
+Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup was a New York lady; that is to say, she had
+formerly been a shop girl in Boston, and, having considerable talent
+at diplomacy, had captivated the senses of a dry goods clerk on four
+hundred dollars salary, become Mrs. Buttercup, and moved to New York.
+She was an ambitious person, and though she had been brought up in a
+ten footer in an obscure street, she earnestly desired to become what
+is technically called a “lady.” Fashion was her god. To dress well, to
+live in a fine house, furnished _a la mode_, and to move in fashionable
+society constituted her highest ideal of human happiness.
+
+Mr. Buttercup entertained similar views. It is true, he was only a
+poor clerk when he married,--he had married to redeem his wife from
+the drudgery of her occupation,--and when he went to New York he had
+a hard struggle to support her, even in a five dollar boarding house.
+At the end of a year, circumstances so favored him that he was enabled
+to go into business on his own account. In a small shop, which his
+former employer stocked for him, taking a mortgage with interest at the
+rate of twenty per cent. per annum, he rushed boldly into the stream,
+assured it would bear him to opulence and an influential position in
+society.
+
+Fortune favored him, and the first year showed a gain of a thousand
+dollars. The young man was elated, and having lived within his means,
+he had a considerable surplus on his hands. Taking a larger store
+and employing two additional clerks, he commenced his second year.
+He was the biggest man on Broadway; talked magnificently about his
+business operations, and innocently magnified his last year’s profits
+to five thousand dollars. Things looked so promising with him that the
+importers and jobbers gave him all the credit he desired. Mr. Buttercup
+was perfectly satisfied that he was on the high road to fortune. As
+Richelieu says in the play, there was no such word as “fail” in his
+vocabulary.
+
+Of course, a five dollar boarding house could no longer be tolerated,
+and to Mrs. Buttercup’s inexpressible satisfaction, her husband engaged
+a room in a fashionable establishment “up town.” It was only one
+room, and Mr. B. had contracted to pay twenty dollars a week for it,
+washing and “sundries” extra. The ambitious lady went a shopping a
+few days after, and contrived to get rid of a hundred dollars, which
+the complacent shopkeeper in an impulsive moment had placed in her
+hands. Milliners and dressmakers were in demand for a time, and Mrs.
+Buttercup’s present ambition was fully satisfied. It is true, she could
+see in the distance an establishment of her own, with imported carpets
+and mirrors, with a train of liveried servants, a carriage with the
+Buttercup arms blazoned on its panels; and a faint whisper from the
+admiring crowd, “There goes the elegant Mrs. Buttercup!” reached her
+ears. The future was full of glorious visions, full of royal splendors,
+full of every thing that the heart of vanity could conceive. But for
+the present, she was satisfied.
+
+Things went on swimmingly at the new store, and when Mrs. Buttercup
+proposed a tour to the east, her husband readily assented. Our lady
+of magnificent aspirations had considerable difficulty in deciding
+whether she should propose Saratoga or home for the summer excursion.
+On the one hand, Saratoga was fashionable, and she would have abundant
+opportunity to make the acquaintance of the exclusives. But on the
+other hand, if she went home, she could create a tremendous sensation
+among her own and her husband’s friends and relatives. She could carry
+the New York fashions among them; could astonish them with a display of
+her elegant silk, made by Madam Hippolyta Hyfalutin, from Paris, and
+her splendid new bonnet from the celebrated rooms of Madam Hesperiana
+Blomereaux, also from Paris. These things would scarcely be noticed by
+the fashionable of Saratoga--the absence of them alone would make a
+noise there.
+
+And then her husband’s glorious prospects in the dry goods line, as
+well as the immense business he at present transacted--it would be so
+delightful to hear Tim tell them all about it! How his old father’s
+eyes would stick out when he heard his son talk about a hundred
+thousand dollars so beautifully and so indifferently; how he would
+open his mouth with wonder, when Tim should tell him that the firm of
+Funk, Hunk, and Co.--the most extensive dry goods establishment in New
+York--had offered him three thousand dollars salary to superintend
+their retail department, and how indignantly he had rejected the offer.
+Tim had such a graceful way of telling these things; indeed, she knew
+that he could make the most out of a very small matter.
+
+They could create a sensation at home, and the prospect of being the
+“bright particular star” of a circle of admiring and wondering friends,
+enabled her to decide between Saratoga and the east. The preparations
+were completed, and in due time they reached the “village of Boston,”
+as Tim facetiously termed it.
+
+Father and mother were duly astonished when the magnificent Mr.
+Buttercup spread himself. The old gentleman’s eyes stuck out, and his
+mouth was all agape with wonder. He “couldn’t exactly see how Broadway,
+if ’twan’t more’n a hund’ed foot wide, could hold all the carriages Tim
+telled on stoppin’ afore his door.”
+
+In the course of events, Tim and his accomplished lady called on his
+sister, Mrs. Sparrow, whose husband was the secretary of an insurance
+company. Mr. Sparrow lived in his own house--a small, but neat and
+convenient structure. It was plainly furnished; but reasonable people
+said they were prettily situated, while those who knew them best were
+sure they were contented and happy.
+
+Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup looked over the house, and turned up her nose
+at it. Tim’s mother was with them, and the simple-minded old lady was
+so indiscrete as to ask her magnificent daughter-in-law how she would
+like just such an establishment. She should not like it; it would not
+suit her. When she went to housekeeping, not less than six thousand
+dollars would furnish her house. At present, she preferred boarding.
+
+“Then you don’t like my house, Belladonna?” asked Mrs. Swallow, with
+the slightest appearance of disappointment on her smiling face.
+
+“Well, I can’t say that I do, Maria,” replied Mrs. Buttercup, languidly.
+
+“It is as good as any body need have,” added Mrs. Buttercup, Senior.
+“If I ever see Tim as comfortably settled as Charles is, I shall be
+perfectly satisfied.”
+
+“Dear me! Tim wouldn’t look at such an establishment.”
+
+“He may be glad to yet.”
+
+“I am sure I always liked my house very much indeed,” said Mrs. Swallow.
+
+“You have everything comfortable, Maria; every thing _comfortable_.”
+
+“It is as good as my husband can afford; and housekeeping is so much
+preferable to boarding.”
+
+“Do you think so? I would not go to housekeeping for all the world.”
+
+Mrs. Swallow shook her head.
+
+“But then it depends, of course, upon whether you get a good boarding
+house,” continued Mrs. Buttercup. “We are delightfully situated. Some
+of the first families in the city board there. Besides, there is so
+much society in New York, I really don’t think I could find time to
+keep house. Why, there is the Hon. Mr. Flunkey--he is a member of
+Congress, you know--invited us to go out to his country seat on the
+Hudson and spend the summer. Mrs. Flunkey pressed and insisted, and
+would not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
+
+“Did you go?” asked Mrs. Buttercup, Senior.
+
+“Why, no; we couldn’t go. Tim’s business drove him so, that the poor
+fellow couldn’t sleep nights. And there are the Smallheads--they live
+next door to N. P. Willis, out to Lazywild----”
+
+“Idlewild,” suggested Mrs. Swallow.
+
+“So it was; well, they would have us come and spend a month with them.
+They are very fine folks. General Smallhead was an aide-de-camp with
+General Washington at Braddock’s defeat, you remember.”
+
+“Indeed! then he must be a very old man,” added Mrs. Swallow.
+
+“About fifty.”
+
+“Why, Braddock’s defeat occurred a hundred years ago!”
+
+“O, no; you are mistaken,” replied Mrs. Buttercup, blushing a little.
+“But no matter; he insisted on a visit. What could I do with a house?”
+
+“Very true,” answered Mrs. Swallow, politely.
+
+“And then Tim has a season ticket at the opera. He paid two hundred
+dollars for a choice of seats last season.”
+
+“Did he?” said the mother-in-law, with a frown.
+
+“And it is so pleasant when you are away so much, to be rid of the
+responsibility of keeping house.”
+
+Mrs. Swallow did not think so. But Mrs. Buttercup had others in view
+whom it was her purpose to astonish, and she took her leave soon after.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+For the first time in her housekeeping experience, Mrs. Sparrow felt
+a little discontented, after her sister-in-law had gone. Her pleasant
+little house looked smaller than ever before; its plain, substantial
+furniture looked coarse and common. Why couldn’t her husband have some
+of the fine things that other people had? Why couldn’t she have a
+carved rosewood table, antique chairs, a tapestry carpet, and velvet
+draperies at the windows? Her husband owned the house in which they
+lived, and had over a thousand dollars in the bank. Mrs. Walbend, in
+the next house, had all these fine things, and her husband got but a
+thousand dollars a year, while Mr. Swallow got fifteen hundred.
+
+“Charles,” said she, when her husband came home to tea that evening, “I
+have been thinking of something.”
+
+“Have you, indeed! That is rather remarkable,” replied Mr. Swallow,
+with a smile.
+
+“You don’t want to know what, I suppose.”
+
+“I do! I am ‘dying with curiosity,’ as the ladies say.”
+
+“Well, then, I will tell you; but don’t be cross about it.”
+
+Mr. Swallow promised not to be cross about it.
+
+“I have been thinking about having some new furniture.”
+
+The husband stuffed a tea roll into his mouth. Evidently the subject
+was not a very inviting one to him.
+
+“I want you to entirely refurnish the house.”
+
+Mr. Swallow upset his tea.
+
+“You can afford it, can’t you?”
+
+“I think not, my dear.”
+
+“Yes, you can, Charles.”
+
+“What has got into you, Maria?” asked her husband, very seriously.
+
+“You promised not to be cross.”
+
+“I won’t be; but I am very much surprised. I thought you were perfectly
+satisfied with your house and furniture.”
+
+“We have everything comfortable, but----” Mrs. Swallow paused.
+
+“What more do you want?”
+
+“Our furniture is not in fashion.”
+
+“The d--euce it isn’t!”
+
+“No; and I want some antique chairs, a carved centre table, a tapestry
+carpet, and velvet draperies, for the windows----”
+
+“What else?”
+
+“And a mirror seven feet high to go between the windows.”
+
+“Call it twelve, my dear.”
+
+“If you could only hear Belladonna tell of the houses in New York. Why,
+she says the Hon. Mrs. Chopstick has a mirror in her parlor which is
+twenty feet high by fifteen wide.”
+
+“Did she tell you how big the doors of that house were?”
+
+“And the carpet which General Smallhead bought last winter cost
+nineteen dollars and a half a yard.”
+
+“And a half?”
+
+“Yes; they asked twenty, but the General bought so much that they took
+off half a dollar.”
+
+“Our rooms are so small that we should have to pay twenty, then,” added
+Mr. Swallow, with a laugh.
+
+“Other folks live so fine, why can’t we?”
+
+“Other folks have money.”
+
+“So have you.”
+
+“A little; but I mean to keep it in preference to buying this trumpery
+with it.”
+
+“Since Belladonna has been here, I feel quite discontented.”
+
+“Belladonna is a silly creature, and I thank my stars that my wife is
+not like her,” replied Mr. Swallow, chucking the pretty little pouting
+wife under the chin.
+
+“But she knows what the fashions are.”
+
+“And that is all she does know.”
+
+“She says we have ‘everything comfortable.’”
+
+“Which is very true.”
+
+“But we are not in style.”
+
+“Pshaw!”
+
+“Won’t you buy some more stylish furniture, Charles?”
+
+“No, my dear; I cannot afford it.”
+
+“If you could only hear Belladonna talk!”
+
+“Probably she makes things appear full as bright as they are.”
+
+“Tim is doing a great business; making thousands and thousands of
+dollars.”
+
+“I _hope_ he is.”
+
+“Why, Charles! he has taken a great store in Broadway, and keeps, I
+don’t know how many clerks he said--fifty or a hundred.”
+
+Mr. Swallow’s cough troubled him.
+
+“Maria, you used to be very contented and happy. Don’t let this silly
+idea get possession of you. Our house is furnished very well. If I had
+twenty thousand dollars, I would not furnish it any better--that is,
+not to please myself. If Tim can afford to live in better shape than I
+do, let him; it will not disturb me. Don’t think any thing more about
+it.”
+
+“I won’t, Charles; but I felt so cheap when Belladonna talked so
+familiarly of all those fine things, and of her acquaintances among the
+_élite_; I felt as though I was nobody.”
+
+“Wait, my dear, wait a while. Time will show what all these great
+pretensions amount to. I hope Tim will do well; but with such loose
+ideas of economy as he appears to have, and, more than all with such a
+silly, extravagant wife, there is much to fear.”
+
+Mrs. Swallow was satisfied. The words of her more experienced
+husband banished the feelings of chagrin and discontentment she had
+permitted herself to harbor. A careful reconsideration of Belladonna’s
+extravagant stories convinced her that some of them, if not made out of
+“whole cloth,” were greatly exaggerated, and she came to the conclusion
+that her sister-in-law was no more of a lady in reality than she was
+herself.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+About six months after the events we have detailed, as Mr. and Mrs.
+Swallow were sitting down to breakfast, they were surprised by the
+abrupt appearance of Tim and his wife.
+
+“This is unexpected,” said Mr. Swallow.
+
+“Rather sudden,” replied Tim, more seriously than he was wont to speak.
+
+“I am glad to see you. Breakfast is all ready.”
+
+“We have left New York for good,” interposed Belladonna, after she
+had kissed and hugged her sister-in-law twenty times--an exhibition of
+affection which she had not before manifested since she became Mrs.
+Buttercup.
+
+“Indeed!” exclaimed Charles and Maria together.
+
+“Fact!” said Tim, with a melancholy laugh.
+
+“And I am so glad to get away from there! I always hated New York!”
+added Belladonna.
+
+“Why, I thought you liked New York. Pray how are your friends the
+Smallheads, the Flunkeys, and the Chopsticks?”
+
+“I hate them all!”
+
+“Going into business in Boston, Tim?” asked Mr. Swallow.
+
+“Is it possible you have not heard of it?” said Tim, looking his
+brother-in-law hard in the face.
+
+“Heard of what?”
+
+“My misfortunes.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Bu’st up.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear it.”
+
+“Sad, but true;” and Tim essayed a stroke of humor. “Yes, _sir!_ bu’st
+up; not a sixpence left--poor as a church mouse--borrowed the money to
+come on with.”
+
+“Tim makes the best of it, you see,” added Belladonna, with a laugh.
+“For my part, I was almost glad he failed, I was so rejoiced to get
+away from New York. But, Maria, how have you been since I saw you?”
+
+“Very well indeed.”
+
+“And how is little Charley? the dear little fellow!” continued Mr.
+Buttercup, tenderly kissing the little boy, who sat in the high chair
+at the table, and who had contrived to daub his mouth pretty thoroughly
+with the molasses on his buckwheat cakes.
+
+“How long since this affair happened?” asked Mr. Swallow, when the
+party had seated themselves at the table.
+
+“Three weeks,” replied Tim. “Took every thing I had--tried to get a
+situation--couldn’t find one.”
+
+“But where were Funks, Hunks, and Co.? Didn’t they want you?” asked
+Maria.
+
+Tim looked at her--looked queer.
+
+“No; they have a man now,” replied he.
+
+“What are you going to do?” inquired Mr. Swallow.
+
+“I happened to meet White in New York, and told him how I
+was situated--offered me five hundred a year to come on as
+salesman--accepted his offer.”
+
+Maria looked at Belladonna, and thought of furnishing a house at an
+expense of six thousand dollars.
+
+After breakfast, when Tim and Charles had gone out, Mrs. Buttercup
+introduced another topic.
+
+“How pleasant it would be if we could board with you!” said she
+abruptly.
+
+Mrs. Swallow did not think it would be so pleasant; but of course she
+could not say so, and, being too honest to belie her own heart, she
+remarked that they did not live in very good style.
+
+“Good enough for any body, Maria.”
+
+“But if your friends, the Smallheads or the Flunkeys, should happen to
+visit you----”
+
+“O, there is no fear of that; if they did, I should not care.”
+
+“But we live so plainly compared with your fashionable boarding houses.”
+
+“You live well enough; and your house is so nice and convenient.--O, I
+should be so happy!”
+
+“We have every thing comfortable,” added Maria, slyly.
+
+Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup stopped to think. That remark sounded
+familiar to her ears.
+
+“Very comfortable, and nice, and pretty! I wish Tim had just such a
+house!”
+
+“You have altered your mind.”
+
+“And just such furniture--I should be so happy!”
+
+At dinner time the matter was still further discussed. Though Mr.
+Swallow liked Tim very well, he did not like his wife; but in
+consideration of their unfortunate condition, he consented to receive
+them as boarders.
+
+Mrs. Buttercup never says a word now about an establishment, and Tim
+has a more serious and respectful way of speaking of a hundred thousand
+dollars. The Smallheads are never mentioned, and Tim thinks he missed
+it when he moved into a larger store. Belladonna declares she never
+heard of such a thing as a mirror twenty feet long by fifteen high, and
+is quite sure the Smallhead carpet did not cost above three dollars a
+yard.
+
+Mrs. Swallow is satisfied that fine furniture does not make a happy
+wife. She regards the New York experience of her brother and his wife
+as an excellent commentary on the vanity of magnificent pretensions.
+And though her husband has been elected cashier of the Bay State Bank,
+with a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars per annum, she is still
+content with having “EVERY THING COMFORTABLE.”
+
+
+
+
+FAMILY JARS.
+
+A LESSON FOR WIVES.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“He’s real ugly, there! He treats his wife shamefully!” exclaimed Mrs.
+Benson, a pretty little woman, who had been a wife just eleven months
+and twelve days.
+
+“Perhaps not, my dear,” replied the young husband, quietly crossing his
+legs over the top of the fire frame, and puffing out a long wreath of
+smoke from his mouth as he removed the fragrant regalia.
+
+“Perhaps not! Why, haven’t I seen it myself?”
+
+“You are not acquainted with all the circumstances.”
+
+“Pshaw! A man that can treat his wife so rudely is a perfect brute; I
+don’t care what the circumstances are.”
+
+“Brown always was a good-hearted fellow, and if he is changed at all,
+matrimony has done it.”
+
+“Thank you, Charles; you are very complimentary. I wonder if matrimony
+has changed you.”
+
+“Why, Julia, we have not been married quite a year yet,” replied the
+husband, smiling.
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Brown has been married five years,” replied Mr. Benson, with admirable
+self-possession.
+
+“Then you think _I_ have not shown out what I am yet?”
+
+“Bah! My dear, you are making quite a personal matter of it. We were
+speaking of Brown.”
+
+“Brown is a brute--a hog!” said the lady, in a pet.
+
+“What has Brown done?”
+
+“Done? Why, good gracious! He is enough to wear out a woman’s patience.”
+
+“I dare say, my dear; but what has he done?”
+
+“Every thing. He is wearing his poor, patient wife out; she will
+die--poor, weak, sensitive thing--under such treatment.”
+
+“No doubt of it; but you do not tell me what he has done.”
+
+“I don’t mean to say that he beats her.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor starves her.”
+
+“Does he scold at her?”
+
+“No; if he would only scold, it would be a relief to her.”
+
+“Poor Mrs. Brown!”
+
+“He is so cold and distant; I am sure he married her for her money.”
+
+“Quite likely; but how is it with Mrs. Brown? Is _she_ an angel?”
+
+“I don’t know as she is an angel; but she bears her sorrows _like_ an
+angel. The poor thing had been crying, I know, when I called there this
+afternoon.”
+
+“Did she tell you what the matter was?”
+
+“Yes; you know we were children together, and never had any secrets,”
+replied the young wife, with a troubled expression; for she had some
+doubts as to the propriety of what she had done.
+
+“Don’t meddle with a quarrel between man and wife, Julia,” said Mr.
+Benson, shaking his head.
+
+“I could not bear to see her suffering; so I asked her what the matter
+was.”
+
+“I am sorry you did.”
+
+“I could not help it, Charles; I pitied her so, and I was pretty well
+satisfied as to the cause of her grief.”
+
+“And her husband illtreats her?”
+
+“He does not love her. She says he has been two or three days without
+speaking to her.”
+
+“That is bad; but who is to blame?”
+
+“Who is to blame? Why, _he_, of course;” and the pretty little
+Mrs. Benson looked up in astonishment from the little cap she was
+embroidering.
+
+“Why ‘_of course_’?”
+
+“He don’t consult her tastes in regard to his dress. If she asks him to
+bring her home any thing from down town, ten chances to one he forgets
+it. He don’t seem to care for her feelings. The poor thing says she has
+cried for an hour in his presence, and he has sat like a log, perfectly
+unmoved--so different from _you_, Charles.”
+
+“Perhaps Mrs. Brown is not in every respect like _you_, my dear.”
+
+The young wife looked up with a smile of gratified pride. She was yet
+young and beautiful, and, what was far better than youth and beauty,
+she was good tempered, kind, and reasonable. Mrs. Brown’s case excited
+all her sympathies, and she proceeded to detail to her husband a list
+of the poor lady’s trials. But, as the reader will be better able to
+appreciate them by being present during the scene described, we will
+introduce the injured lady and her unfeeling husband.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Brown sat by the fire in the parlor, turning over the pages of the
+last new novel. Occasionally she sighed, as though the world had used
+her badly, and she had not the means of paying off the world for its
+ill treatment.
+
+Mr. Brown kept a dry goods store, and, being a prudent, industrious
+man, he substituted his own services for those of an extra clerk, which
+kept him busily occupied from an early hour in the morning till late in
+the evening.
+
+He had been married five years, and, for some reason unknown beyond
+the pale of his own home, his matrimonial experience, without being
+decidedly stormy, was very far from being pleasant and profitable to
+either party. Brown was a good-hearted fellow, and always looked on the
+bright side of things. If the world would only move along smoothly, he
+was perfectly satisfied, and never felt disposed to quarrel with any
+body.
+
+Mrs. Brown’s disposition was not particularly objectionable; she was
+kind-hearted, clever, and amiable, as the world goes; but somehow
+nothing ever went right with her. It seemed as though every body took a
+malicious pride in tormenting her--Brown in particular. If Brown bought
+sausages for dinner, she was sure to want mutton, and if mutton, she
+was sure to want sausages.
+
+Brown could not understand it. Whatever he did was sure to be exactly
+wrong. But Brown was a philosopher; and, though he sometimes got so
+disgusted that he held his tongue for several days, he maintained a
+very tolerable degree of good nature.
+
+Brown treated himself to a new overcoat. Being reasonably independent
+in such matters, he had assumed the responsibility of purchasing the
+garment without consulting his wife.
+
+Imprudent Brown, thus to expend the sum of eighteen dollars without
+consulting Mrs. B! Reckless Brown, thus to buy that brown coat, when
+all the experience of the past pointed to the appalling consequences!
+Did you not remember the last time you purchased a pair of pants, that
+neither the hue nor the texture suited your amiable partner? Did you
+not call to mind the last curtain lecture on this very topic, when you
+audaciously ordered the tailor to make you a coat off that piece? Knew
+you not that Mrs. B. likes not black, drab, green, brown, olive, blue,
+nor any thing of the fancy order?
+
+But Brown recklessly ordered the coat, and when it was done, he
+recklessly put it on. What made the offence a hundred fold more
+horrible, he coolly marched, with the coat on, into the parlor where
+Mrs. B. sat by the fire, turning over the pages of the last new novel.
+
+The lady was thunderstruck; but she was not one of your spitfires, who
+make a tremendous tempest in your presence when anything does not suit
+them. She was meek, patient, suffering, under any indignity, even one
+so pointed and wicked as in the present case.
+
+The lady looked up from her book, and bestowed a languid smile upon the
+partner of her joys, and, alas! of her sorrows too.
+
+Brown smiled in return; he could not do less than smile. He even looked
+innocent, as though he had done nothing wrong--as though he had not
+aimed a blow at the peace of his amiable lady.
+
+“What have you got on, Jonas?” asked she, mildly.
+
+“An overcoat,” replied Brown, sententiously.
+
+“A new one?” sighed the lady.
+
+“Just from the tailor’s shop,” answered Brown, screwing up his courage
+to meet the onslaught.
+
+“You know I don’t like brown, Jonas.”
+
+“_I_ do,” replied Brown, valorously.
+
+“You know I _never_ like brown.”
+
+Brown had half a mind to construe the remark into a pun; but he was
+forbearing, thought no evil, and so kept silence.
+
+“It’s a sack too; you know I _never_ liked a sack.”
+
+“I always did.”
+
+“A surtout would become you much better.”
+
+“I like a sack.”
+
+“It is a horrid-looking coat,” sighed Mrs. Brown.
+
+“Muddle says it is the best looking coat I ever had on.”
+
+“Muddle! Of course _he_ would say so.”
+
+“Temple said so too.”
+
+“Temple has no taste.”
+
+“I agree with Temple.”
+
+“You never _will_ wear a coat that suits me.”
+
+Brown thought this was strictly true, but, being a prudent man, he held
+his peace.
+
+“You still persist in letting Muddle make your clothes, though he
+charges you more than any one else would.”
+
+“His prices are reasonable.”
+
+“I wish you would let some other tailor make your coat; Muddle’s
+clothes _never_ set well.”
+
+“Fit me to a T.”
+
+“If it had only been black!”
+
+“But, my dear, you forget that my last coat was black, and you did not
+like that.”
+
+“It suits your figure better than brown.”
+
+Just at that moment the door bell rang, and the servant brought in a
+pair of pants.
+
+“What is that?” asked the lady.
+
+“Pants.”
+
+Mrs. B eagerly opened the bundle. The garment was black.
+
+“Black pants!” exclaimed the lady, holding them up before her; “you
+_know_ I don’t like black pants.”
+
+“Indeed, my dear, you just now said you did like black.”
+
+“Not black _pants_; you know I never _did_ like them; besides, they
+won’t wear well.”
+
+“But, Mrs. B., I do not wish _you_ to wear them.”
+
+The lady thought this was exceedingly cruel of Mr. Brown; for she, poor
+woman, had no more idea of “wearing the breeches” than she had of going
+to Congress.
+
+“They suit me, my dear. _I_ never interfere with your taste in regard
+to bonnets and dresses.”
+
+“I wish you would tell me what you like best; I am sure I desire to
+conform to your taste.”
+
+“Don’t wish to. I cannot tell what is good taste in furbelows and
+flounces, any more than a woman can in coats and pants.”
+
+“But you might be a little more attentive to my wishes. You used to
+_once_.”
+
+This was a hard hit, and Mr. Brown was silent.
+
+“You don’t seem to care whether I am suited or not, now.”
+
+Brown still was silent; the story had been repeated so often that he
+knew precisely what to expect.
+
+Mrs. Brown continued to rehearse her grievances, believing herself the
+most miserable woman in the world. Finally, the tears gathered in her
+eyes, and she sobbed bitterly. Brown was a monster; he never tried to
+please her, even in the slightest things; and the thought that her
+husband’s affections were alienated was perfectly overwhelming.
+
+Brown had picked up the last new novel, which had fallen from Mrs.
+B.’s lap, and sat turning over the leaves with the most stoical
+indifference. How could Brown sit and see his beloved wife, the partner
+of his joys and sorrows, weeping as though her heart would break, and
+not offer her a word of consolation? Brown was a philosopher.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+It was after such a scene as we have described that Mrs. Benson called
+upon the friend of her early years, and found her in tears. She
+believed that poor Mrs. Brown was cruelly treated by her hard-hearted
+husband.
+
+Several months elapsed, and the difficulty between Brown and his wife
+increased. The lady was an habitual grumbler; she grumbled for the
+sake of grumbling, because it seemed to be a “fixed fact” with her
+that grumbling was one of the essentials of her existence--one of the
+luxuries of life.
+
+Though Brown _was_ a philosopher, there is a point beyond which even
+philosophy cannot go to defend its votaries. The lady’s unamiable
+peculiarity grew upon her, and Brown’s disgust threatened to produce
+a fatal rupture. Several times after the lady had given him a lesson
+on the duty of consulting a wife’s taste,--after she had cried her
+eyes out with vexation because she could not grumble any more,--her
+unfeeling spouse had deserted the house, remaining out till midnight.
+Some flying rumors were in circulation, too, that he had been seen
+“lingering long at the bowl,” and even that he frequented gambling
+houses.
+
+Then people felt sorry for poor Brown, an honest, hardworking,
+economical man as he was; it was a great pity that he should go to
+destruction.
+
+Mrs. Benson felt keenly for her friend. Brown was a monster; and the
+injured lady told her she should certainly die if a drunken husband
+were added to her other miseries. She even wished Mrs. Benson to
+request her husband to talk to Brown about his vicious propensities.
+
+Mr. Benson had done so. Brown was a little “stuck up” at first, but
+quietly informed the obliging remonstrant that since home had become a
+hell to him, he had been obliged to seek comfort in a grog shop, and
+concluded his cold-blooded remark by suggesting that people had better
+mind their own business.
+
+Benson thought so too, and fully resolved not to meddle with the matter
+again. But, although Brown had resisted his well-meaning neighbor’s
+interference, it was not without its effect, and the injured lady had
+the satisfaction of informing her sympathizing friend that he did much
+better, that his breath did not smell half so strong of rum, and that
+he was at home every evening by nine o’clock.
+
+Mrs. Benson was encouraged, and a few days after accepted an invitation
+to tea at the Browns’.
+
+That day, the reckless, obstinate husband had worn home to dinner a new
+plaid vest--a pattern in fashion at that time.
+
+The lady did not like plaid--she _never_ liked plaid; and poor Brown
+went to the store leaving his wife in tears at his perverse taste. She
+had exhausted all her rhetoric in grumbling at the offending garment,
+and her hard-hearted husband had maintained his usual indifference to
+sighs and tears. Brown was disgusted; and, though we heartily approve
+of husbands pleasing their wives in these matters, some how we cannot
+find it in our heart to blame him. She always grumbled at him, and,
+poor fellow, what could he do?
+
+Mrs. Benson did not arrive in season to hear the lady’s story about
+the vest before Brown himself came. He was in high glee, apparently,
+notwithstanding the recent tempest. The visitor thought him a “very
+nice man,” and she sighed when she thought of his vicious propensities.
+
+Brown was polite, very polite, and the pretty little Mrs. Benson felt
+no reserve in his presence.
+
+“What a pretty vest you have got on, Mr. Brown!” said she, smiling
+sweetly upon the horrible husband.
+
+“Do you think so?” exclaimed Brown, rubbing his hands with excitement.
+
+“Certainly, I do; it’s a perfect love of a vest. I shall persuade
+Charles to have one just like it.”
+
+“How strange you talk, Julia!” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“Strange! why?”
+
+“To call _that_ vest pretty.”
+
+“I’m sure it is.”
+
+“It’s a perfect fright. My husband has no taste in his dress.”
+
+“Why, now, I think he dresses with admirable taste,” replied Mrs.
+Benson, surveying the apparel of Brown, who stood like a show image in
+the middle of the room. “I admire his taste.”
+
+“It is not _my_ taste,” sighed Mrs. Brown.
+
+The pretty little sympathizing woman was seized with a doubt whether
+Brown was such a monster, after all.
+
+Just then Bridget popped her head in at the door to say that the baker
+had not sent the tea cakes.
+
+“The tea cakes, Jonas,” said Mrs. Brown.
+
+“There! by all that is sweet and pleasant to the taste, I forgot all
+about them,” exclaimed Brown, seizing his hat.
+
+“Just the way always,” groaned the suffering wife. “You never will do
+the little errands I ask you to.”
+
+“Why, my dear, I _intended_ to do the errand, but I forgot it,” pleaded
+Brown, with abundant good humor.
+
+“You always forget what _I_ want you to do.”
+
+“But, my love, I did not forget it on purpose.”
+
+“It’s always the way;” and Mrs. Brown threw herself into a chair with
+an exhibition of despondency which would have answered very well for
+the concentrated miseries of a whole lifetime.
+
+“There’s no harm done; it is only half past five, and I will have the
+tea cakes here in ten minutes.”
+
+“You might just as well have brought them before.”
+
+Brown looked cross, threw down his hat in a pet, and settled himself
+upon the sofa.
+
+Mrs. Benson was silent with astonishment. Brown rose fifty degrees in
+her estimation.
+
+“Are you not going to get the tea cakes, Jonas?” asked Mrs. Brown,
+meekly, after the lapse of a few minutes.
+
+Brown was silent.
+
+“You will not get back in season if you don’t go soon.”
+
+Brown picked up the evening paper but said nothing.
+
+“I must go myself then,” said the suffering lady, rising from her chair.
+
+Brown knew this was only a part of his wife’s tactics; but the pretty
+little Mrs. Benson, for whose good opinion he entertained some anxiety,
+was present, and he concluded to go himself.
+
+When he had gone, Mrs. Brown fixed a melancholy gaze upon her visitor.
+
+“Now you have seen just how he behaves,” said she, with a deep sigh.
+
+“I have,” replied Mrs. Benson, who for the first time perceived that
+poor Brown was not the greatest sinner in the world.
+
+“And so he wears my life out.”
+
+“Perhaps your husband is not wholly to blame,” suggested Mrs. Benson.
+
+“Why, Julia!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown, with languid emphasis. “I am sure I
+bear and suffer every thing. I had nearly cried my eyes out once before
+to-day.”
+
+“Mr. Brown seems disposed to be very good natured.”
+
+“Good natured, Julia! Didn’t you see how angry he got? He went out
+without speaking a word.”
+
+“But you do not reflect how cruelly you provoked him by needlessly
+finding fault with him. If I should say half as much to my husband as
+you said to Mr. Brown, he would turn me out of the house,” answered
+Mrs. Benson, who, as she found herself implicated in the quarrel, was
+disposed to be very candid.
+
+“I was not conscious of doing any thing to provoke him.”
+
+“You found fault with his vest.”
+
+“But such a horrid looking vest!”
+
+“There you and he differ; you say he never complains of your dress.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“He respects your tastes, then. You know how bad you feel when any
+person says any thing disparaging of your clothes; everybody does.”
+
+“But he always dresses so shamefully out of taste.”
+
+“Other people do not think so; but even if he did, you should not find
+fault with him.”
+
+“I don’t find fault,” sighed Mrs. Brown; “I only mention what I like
+best.”
+
+“And the tea cakes,--you ought not to have said a word.”
+
+“Why, he is so careless----”
+
+“All men are of things about the house; but you must consider that
+their minds are full of business. My husband is just so; but then
+he has so many things to think of, I wonder that he does not forget
+_every_ little commission I give him.”
+
+“But your husband is different from mine. He _tries_ to remember.”
+
+“Ah, Mary, I see now what has caused the rupture between you and Mr.
+Brown.”
+
+“Then you think _I_ am altogether to blame?”
+
+“Perhaps not entirely; but I am satisfied, from what I know of your
+husband, that, if you cease to find fault with him, he will be all that
+a husband should be.”
+
+Mrs. Brown bit her lip, and was silent. The truth had forced itself
+home to her understanding. She was, as we have before remarked,
+an amiable, good-hearted body; but the fact that she had actually
+_grumbled_ away the peace of her once happy fireside had never before
+occurred to her. Her eyes were opened, and she saw that even so little
+a thing as habitual fault finding can alienate the affections of man
+and wife, and transform home--the temple of love and peace--into a
+hell. Her resolution was formed, and fortified by all the strength of
+her nature.
+
+Brown returned with the tea cakes. He was cold, sullen, and
+reserved; but a smile from his wife--albeit a boon seldom vouchsafed
+him--restored him to his former equanimity.
+
+“Jonas, did you think to order some more coal to-day? Bridget says
+there is not enough to get breakfast with,” observed Mrs. Brown, as she
+handed her husband his second cup of tea.
+
+Brown confessed that he had forgotten it, and braced up his nerves to
+meet the storm.
+
+“Never mind, Jonas; we will contrive to get along with wood.”
+
+Brown dropped his knife and fork in wonder, and looked aghast at his
+wife.
+
+It was no illusion; his wife was as gentle in her thoughts as in her
+actions. She found no fault; and, for the first time in many months,
+Brown felt sorry that he had forgotten to execute her commission.
+
+After tea, Mr. Benson came to spend the evening, and it was one of the
+happiest evenings ever known beneath the roof of the Browns. Nobody
+but the two ladies could tell why, but, some how, every thing went
+different from the ordinary course of events in the family circle.
+Brown was bewildered--didn’t know what to make of it, that his wife
+found no fault.
+
+And she never found fault to any immoderate degree again. Peace was
+restored. Brown went no more to the drinking saloons, never staid out
+late at night, and never let his wife cry without wiping away her tears.
+
+He never knew what had produced the wonderful change in his wife’s
+temperament, but he always laid it to the visit of the pretty little
+woman who admired his plaid vest.
+
+We never see a married man enter a drinking shop to spend an evening
+without thinking that, perhaps he has been driven from his fireside by
+a snarling, petulant, discontented, fault-finding wife.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE INSURANCE;
+
+OR,
+
+THE POOR MAN’S LEGACY.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Got his life insured! Then he will certainly die!” exclaimed Mrs.
+Jones, the mother of a family of three children, to her intimate friend
+Mrs. Brown, also rejoicing in the maternity of a promising brood of
+little ones. “For my part, I would no more let my husband get his life
+insured than I would let him cut his head off. He will certainly die.”
+
+“That is the lot of all mortals, Mrs. Jones, and I presume my husband
+does not consider himself exempt from the common lot,” replied Mrs.
+Brown.
+
+“You know what I mean; he will die before his time comes.”
+
+“His time will have come when he dies.”
+
+“How captious you are!”
+
+“I do not understand you. The good book says that ‘no man knoweth the
+day nor the hour.’”
+
+“But I never knew any man to get his life insured without dying very
+soon after.”
+
+“Do you mean to say that getting a life insured is likely to hasten the
+end of the assured?” asked Mrs. Brown, with a pleasant smile at the
+superstition of her friend.
+
+“Well, no, not exactly that; only it is a bad sign.”
+
+“Pshaw! Do you think your husband’s barn is any more likely to be
+burned down because he has taken the precaution to have it insured?”
+
+“But that is not like getting one’s life insured; it really seems to me
+just like trifling with serious things.”
+
+“How absurd!”
+
+“But it does. Only think of attempting to thwart the will of God.
+Insuring a life!”
+
+“You take the wrong view of it.”
+
+“Our minister takes the same view of it,” returned Mrs. Jones, with
+triumphant assurance.
+
+“He does not understand the subject then.”
+
+“Our minister don’t?”
+
+“I am sure he does not.”
+
+Mrs. Jones permitted a sneer to play upon her lips, as she paused in
+her sewing, and gazed at her friend.
+
+“You don’t mean to say that you know more than the Rev. Mr. Schism,
+a regularly educated minister of the gospel, in good and regular
+standing?” continued she, scarcely able to restrain her indignation
+within a reasonable limit.
+
+“I presume the Rev. Mr. Schism has confined his attention mostly to the
+study of theology, and knows much more about that than he does about
+the practical affairs of every-day life,” rejoined Mrs. Brown, somewhat
+warmly.
+
+“He says that it is trifling with death to get one’s life insured;
+and I am sure, if my husband got his life insured, I should certainly
+expect he would die the very next day after he did the sacrilegious
+thing.”
+
+“I think you told me the other day that Mr. Jones had put some money in
+the Savings Bank.”
+
+“Only twenty dollars--all he could spare.”
+
+“What did he put it there for?”
+
+“What for? Why, to keep, of course.”
+
+“Why does he wish to keep it?”
+
+“What a fool you pretend to be!”
+
+“Pray answer me.”
+
+“Against a rainy day.”
+
+“Has he no definite purpose in laying up money?”
+
+“To be sure he has. He means to have something for his family, in case
+he should be taken away.”
+
+“But isn’t this trifling with serious things? What does your minister
+say about it?”
+
+“How silly you are!”
+
+“But you are providing against such a calamity as the death of your
+husband.”
+
+“It is not like life insurance.”
+
+“Just like it, only less efficient.”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+“Suppose your husband should die this year.”
+
+“Don’t talk so.”
+
+“Nay, Mrs. Jones, it is well to look these things in the face,
+especially when you have used your influence to prevent your husband
+from making a provision for you in the event of his death.”
+
+“He is opposed to the whole thing himself.”
+
+“Only think, if he should die this year, what would become of you and
+your three children?”
+
+“Well, I suppose we should get along just as a thousand others have
+done under the same circumstances.”
+
+“Think what a struggle you would have!”
+
+“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” replied Mrs. Jones,
+coldly. “But here is my husband; he can speak for himself.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+The two ladies, with whose conversation we have prefaced our simple
+story, had been intimate friends for many years. About the same time
+they had married men in humble circumstances, and taken houses near
+each other.
+
+Their husbands were journeymen mechanics, honest, industrious, and
+frugal men, fair specimens of the bone and sinew of New England.
+Their families had increased in about the same ratio, and though they
+received good wages, they found it required the most rigid system of
+domestic economy to enable them to keep along, and save a trifling sum
+against a “rainy day.”
+
+Brown was a thoughtful man, whose domestic and affectional nature was
+fully developed. He loved his wife and children with a devotion worthy
+a reasonable being. His happiest hours were spent by the cheerful
+fireside of home. He was a conscientious parent, and his care for his
+dependent loved ones reached beyond the day of their present prosperity.
+
+In the future might be clouds and storms. The whirlwind of adversity
+might burst upon him, and then what would become of his wife--of
+Charley, and Joey, and Emma?
+
+It was a question with which few would have troubled themselves; but it
+was a question of momentous importance. It was not borrowing trouble;
+it was prudent forethought. But Brown was strong in his bone and
+muscle, and while he had an arm, and there was bread in the land, he
+could procure it. All he could do was to save a scanty pittance from
+his wages to meet the hour of trial, if it should ever come.
+
+Death is no respecter of persons. It takes not only those who leave
+houses, and lands, and money, and stocks behind them, but it snatches
+the poor man away from his dependent family. It robs the toiling wife
+and the helpless little ones of the protecting arm which had been
+bread, raiment, and shelter to them.
+
+Brown hoped to live many years, to bring up his family, and when, by
+and by, business prospered with him, to be enabled to make a decent
+provision for them when he should go hence.
+
+Every man hopes thus much; many more than hope--they feel sure of it.
+
+Brown was reasonable. A falling timber, a fever, a thousand calamities,
+might carry him off before the year expired. And what would become
+of his family then? What more could his wife do, with three helpless
+children, than take care of them? He could leave them no legacy. He was
+a poor man.
+
+The reflection was startling. The fear of death took possession of
+him--not the fear of passing through the dark valley, for Brown was
+an honest man, and trembled not in view of judgment and retribution,
+but the fear of leaving his wife and children to hunger for food, to
+tremble with cold, to starve for intellectual sustenance. For several
+weeks he was gloomy and sad, and more than once he questioned the
+wisdom of his getting married before he had the means to support his
+family in case of his decease.
+
+While thus depressed in spirits, his eye was attracted by the
+advertisement of a Life Insurance Company. His countenance brightened
+up with a smile, as he read the notice. The remedy was before him, and
+it seemed worse than folly not to embrace it.
+
+Before another week had passed away, he had thoroughly investigated
+the whole subject, and insured his life in the sum of three thousand
+dollars.
+
+Like a true apostle of a good cause, he was not content to enjoy
+the blessing alone; and more than once he had called the attention
+of his fellow-workmen to the subject. Many of them had followed his
+example; many of them were obstinate, and among them Jones was the most
+obstinate of all.
+
+Brown was always pleased to discuss his favorite topic. Life insurance
+had been a boon of happiness to him; it had dispelled the dark clouds
+which lowered over the future; it had done more to calm his mind in
+relation to that great change which must come to all, than the sermons
+of a hundred years could have done; and he was eager to confer these
+blessings upon others.
+
+Mrs. Brown was quite as enthusiastic as her husband; and when Jones
+entered the room where we left the ladies, a strong hope that she might
+yet convert him to her faith pervaded her mind.
+
+But Jones was more than usually obstinate.
+
+“It’s all a humbug, Mrs. Brown, you may depend upon it,” said he.
+“These fellows mean to get your money, and keep it. You never will
+catch them paying the policies.”
+
+Mrs. Brown pointed him to the recorded experience of the past.
+
+“I put my money in the bank, and feel that it is safe.”
+
+“How much can you save in a year?”
+
+“Well, about a hundred dollars, as wages are now.”
+
+“Which is just my husband’s estimate.”
+
+“But he pays nearly as much as that to keep insured.”
+
+“Very true. He is insured for three thousand dollars. If he should die
+to-day--which God forbid!--his family would realize that sum.”
+
+“_Perhaps_ they would.”
+
+“But, by putting one hundred dollars a year into the bank, even if you
+got six per cent., compound interest, your money would amount to only
+about six hundred dollars in five years.”
+
+“Call it twenty years--how then?”
+
+“If you could be sure of living twenty years, perhaps the money would
+amount to more than the policy. But only think of your family if you
+should die within one, or even five years!”
+
+“You are a shrewd one!” said Jones, evasively.
+
+“In twenty years your children will be able to take care of themselves.”
+
+“It’s all a humbug, you may depend upon it, Mrs. Brown; got up to
+support lazy fellows in idleness--nothing more, I candidly believe,”
+replied Jones; and there the conversation ended, much to the regret of
+Mrs. Brown, that she had been unable to win a convert to the faith.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Some six months after, while Jones was engaged in raising a house, he
+fell from the plate to the ground, striking upon a rock in his fall. He
+was conveyed to his home, and a council of physicians pronounced it a
+hopeless case. His spine was injured, and there was no possibility of
+recovery.
+
+He lingered along for a month in the most excruciating agony, and then
+died. The expenses of his sickness and of the funeral absorbed all
+his little savings; and when his disconsolate wife, followed by her
+three fatherless children, returned from the grave of her husband, she
+realized that she was not only alone in the world, but that she was
+penniless--literally penniless.
+
+It was a sad thought for the poor woman. Not even a short season of
+mourning, which her widowed heart craved, could be allowed her. Her
+children must not starve, and there was no bread in the house.
+
+Her neighbors, suspecting her situation, were kind to her, and sent
+in provisions in abundance; but instinctively she shrunk from the
+mortifying alternative of accepting charity.
+
+Poor woman! what could she do? How could she support her fatherless
+children? She had no wealthy relatives--she was from the house of
+poverty herself. But she could not live on charity.
+
+The village in which she resided was a large place, and though she was
+too proud to accept a gift, she was not too proud to solicit work. With
+her eyes yet red with weeping over her husband’s bier, she called upon
+several wealthy families to ask for their washing.
+
+It was given her, and she began to feel a certain sense of independence
+again, as she returned with her bundles of clothes to her desolate home.
+
+All she could do was given her; and with a severe struggle, she was
+able to support herself and children, and refused any overtures of aid
+which were made her by her neighbors. Mrs. Brown attempted to assist
+her friend, in a delicate way, but without success. Mrs. Jones toiled
+on with all her strength and energy, preferring independence to every
+other consideration.
+
+But it soon became evident to her neighbors that her health was
+suffering severely from this unremitting toil. Remonstrances were
+in vain; and ere another six months had rolled away, Mrs. Brown was
+watching over the dying bed of her friend. Little children, not old
+enough to understand their lonely condition, were gathered around it to
+receive the parting kiss of a dying mother.
+
+Poor orphans! God will take care of you, though all the world be cold
+and cruel! Ye shall not find another mother, but the Father of the
+fatherless shall watch over and protect you.
+
+She died, and they placed her by the side of her husband, over whose
+grave the grass had not yet grown. The hard lot of poverty had hurried
+her into that early grave. The want of a few of those dollars which
+the gay and heartless thoughtlessly squander by the thousand, had
+carried her down to that bourn where there is no sorrow, and the weary
+are at rest.
+
+The orphans were carried to the poorhouse. Life was a desert to them.
+Home was no more. Love was in the cold grave.
+
+Was Jones right, or was he wrong? Would not that boon of our
+progressive age, life insurance, have averted some part of this long
+list of calamities? Would it not have saved a mother’s life? Would it
+not have redeemed those lonely orphans from the degradation and neglect
+of the poorhouse?
+
+It could not have saved Jones’s life, but it could have been a blessing
+to his family--a blessing that would have reached down to distant
+generations. It might have saved a home, and more, far more than all
+beside, a devoted mother, to those fatherless little ones.
+
+Brown, too, has gone to his rest. But his death entailed none of the
+miseries upon his family, which were the lot of Jones’s. His widow is
+a frugal and industrious woman; but labor is her helpmate--her husband
+now: she is not the slave of toil. Brown left her the POOR MAN’S LEGACY.
+
+
+
+
+LAST DAY OF GRACE;
+
+OR,
+
+MR. LAWTON’S MOTHER-IN-LAW.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“I can’t stand it any longer, Lottie; I won’t have her in the house!”
+exclaimed Samuel Lawton to his wife.
+
+“But what are you going to do about it, Samuel? You surely wouldn’t
+have me turn my own mother into the street.”
+
+“No, no--not exactly that; but can’t you give her a hint that she has
+staid long enough?”
+
+“I’m sure I can’t, Samuel,” replied the young wife, with a sad and
+troubled look on her pretty face. “I don’t see why you should be so
+prejudiced against her.”
+
+“Don’t you, my dear? Do you think it is pleasant for me to have one
+continually telling me I am extravagant, or something of that sort? She
+told me just now that I could not afford to buy turkeys for our Sunday
+dinner, when she saw me bring one home.”
+
+“She meant right, Samuel.”
+
+“But it is none of her business, Lottie.”
+
+“She is older and more experienced in these matters than we are.”
+
+“Fudge! Do you believe, Lottie, that I don’t know my own business
+a great deal better than she or any one else can teach me?” and
+the young husband put on a look of dignity which showed how deeply
+conscious he was of his own ability.
+
+“I hope you do, Samuel,” replied Lottie, who, as can easily be
+supposed, was sorely perplexed by the difficulties of her unfortunate
+position.
+
+Poor thing! She was a gentle-hearted, kind, and tender woman, and loved
+her mother as truly as becomes a married daughter. She was conscious
+that her mother had her peculiarities--as who has not?--and it was
+a source of continued regret to her that her husband could neither
+understand nor bear with them.
+
+They had been married about a year and a half. Samuel Lawton was a
+merchant on a small scale. His employer had set him up in business
+about a year before his marriage, and he had done well; that is, above
+his expenses he had cleared some eight hundred or a thousand dollars,
+which was considered a very fair income for a young man.
+
+The young merchant was elated with his success, and, like very many
+others in his situation, felt that he was an enterprising young man,
+and a thorough financier. The road to wealth was before him, and
+already he had formed a very clear idea of being at the head of a
+large importing house, with clerks and lumpers by the dozen at his
+command. His fancy also gilded the picture with a very costly mansion
+on Pemberton Hill, with a carriage and two sleek horses, a footman, and
+opera, concerts, and great parties to match.
+
+Samuel Lawton formerly belonged to a “debating society,” in which the
+question of “early marriages” had been thoroughly discussed. The
+chairman had appointed him to sustain the affirmative; and either on
+account of the skill and eloquence with which he argued the point, or
+because the members were in favor of matrimony at the earliest possible
+day, it was decided that early marriages _were_ eminently conducive to
+the morality and happiness of mankind in general.
+
+One of the strongest arguments which our hero could offer in support
+of his cause was, that matrimony would save the young man from early
+dissipation. He even went so far in his zeal as to declare that a young
+man, even if he had not a penny in the world, had better be married
+than wait till he had the means. I will not trouble the reader with the
+facts and statistics by which he made it appear that it was cheaper to
+support man and wife than to support man alone. But the best evidence
+he could give of his devotion to his philosophy was to get married
+himself; and accordingly, though he had not the means of furnishing his
+house, and though he was still deeply in debt for his stock, he took
+a wife in the person of the youngest and last remaining daughter of a
+widow lady, possessing a little property in her own right.
+
+Of course the young man had to run in debt for all the appurtenances
+of housekeeping; but this was nothing; he was doing well. It made no
+difference how much a man owed, provided he had the means to pay. He
+was very sanguine of his future success. His profits would be at least
+a thousand dollars a year; but, reckless follow, he had no more idea
+how far a thousand dollars would go than a baby. It seemed to him a
+very large sum, and he gauged his domestic expenditures on a pretty
+high scale.
+
+When he married Mrs. Harding’s last remaining daughter, the widow was
+left alone. Lottie said it would be so nice to have her “dear mother”
+with her, and accordingly Samuel had invited her to make his house her
+home.
+
+The good lady was in the main a very clever sort of person, who
+probably talked quite as bad, possibly a little worse, than she meant.
+She saw that her son-in-law was going too fast, and, in her own
+way, she made such comments as she deemed it the duty of a faithful
+mother-in-law to make.
+
+Mr. Lawton did not relish what he deemed her interference. He was very
+clear in his own way, and to have a woman dictate to him, and croak
+about the possible result of his lavish expenditure, was intolerable;
+and when his patience was thoroughly exhausted, he spoke to his wife
+upon the subject, as we have written.
+
+Truth has been compared to a two-edged sword, though it is generally
+believed that one edge to the sinner is sufficiently uncomfortable.
+Samuel Lawton had listened to his mother-in-law’s good advice, to her
+suggestions on the economy of the household, for more than a year, and
+Mrs. Lawton could not but wonder what it was that made her husband so
+“touchy” about it just now. He had always turned off the point of her
+rebuke with a jest; but now he looked sour, and actually wanted to get
+her mother out of the house.
+
+The fact was, the young merchant had just begun to find out that a
+thousand dollars a year would not “keep house” like a nabob. Certain
+notes were about to fall due, and little debts without number had been
+contracted. The unpleasant truth began to dawn upon him that he was
+going faster than his means would permit.
+
+In view of the consequences, he could already hear Mrs. Harding’s
+triumphant “I told you so.” He had resolved to reduce his expenses,
+to give over roast turkeys for his Sunday dinner, and come down to
+plain, old-fashioned pork and beans; but the idea of giving in that the
+odious mother-in-law was in the right was not to be harbored. He had
+postponed the contemplated retrenchment till those said certain notes
+began to cast ominous shadows in his pathway. It must be done, and Mrs.
+Harding’s presence became doubly troublesome.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+The poor, despised mother-in-law was so unfortunate as to overhear some
+portion of the conversation which so nearly concerned her; and the
+consequence was, that in less than a week after, she left the house,
+bag and baggage, for the home of another daughter, who had repeatedly
+pressed her to come and live with her.
+
+Mrs. Harding might have been provoked with her son-in-law, but she
+prudently held her tongue, and made no mention of the reason for her
+sudden departure.
+
+Samuel felt quite a relief the very hour she left, and in the evening,
+while they were seated in the little parlor, the baby sleeping in
+the crib between them, he was so ungenerous and unkind as to express
+himself to this effect.
+
+“But, Samuel, you can’t think how lonesome I shall be; you are in town
+all day,” said the poor wife.
+
+“Well, perhaps you will be for a few days; but you will get used to it.”
+
+Mrs. Lawton sighed.
+
+“And then,” continued Mr. Lawton, “you have the baby to occupy the
+time.”
+
+Just then there came from the cradle a single rough, ringing
+cough--that peculiar, metallic-sounding cough which is like the knell
+of death to the ear of the loving mother.
+
+“O mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Lawton, in tremulous tones, as she sprang to
+the side of the cradle.
+
+“What’s the matter Lottie?” asked Samuel.
+
+“Didn’t you hear that cough?” and the poor mother’s frame trembled, and
+her teeth chattered with alarm.
+
+“I suppose Sammy has got a little cold.”
+
+“It’s the croup, Samuel! Do run for the doctor as quick as you can.”
+
+“To-night?”
+
+“O Samuel, he may be dead before morning!” and the tears coursed freely
+down the cheek of the anxious mother.
+
+“Nay, Lottie, you are nervous.”
+
+“I know it; but do go for the doctor.”
+
+“I will go if there is any need of it; but, really, I do not see that
+there is;” and Samuel bent over the cradle to discover what had so
+alarmed his wife.
+
+But the child still slept, and apparently breathed as freely as ever.
+
+“Nay, Samuel, go; you know what the croup is.”
+
+“Certainly, I will go if you wish;” and the young husband put on his
+overcoat and left the house.
+
+The residence of the young merchant was in D----, a town adjoining
+Boston, and the physician’s house was full half a mile distant. He
+could hardly restrain a smile at the idea of going for a doctor when
+the baby had only coughed once.
+
+Dr. F---- was fortunately at home, and the two proceeded on their
+return together. The physician considered the case much more serious
+than the inexperienced father had deemed it.
+
+On their arrival, they found the child awake. The little patient was
+breathing laboriously, and occasionally that brazen cough rang from his
+throat.
+
+“Croup!” said the doctor, the moment he entered the room.
+
+“O, doctor, do you think he will die?” exclaimed the agonized mother.
+
+“No, no, no!” replied Dr. F----, confidently.
+
+The physician was a good-natured, good-hearted German, who was
+thoroughly master of his profession. He had been eminently successful
+in his practice, especially with children, and his words were like oil
+upon the troubled waters to the anxious mother.
+
+“I am so frightened, doctor!”
+
+“There is nothing to fear; we have the case in season, and there is no
+danger. Suppose you wait till to-morrow morning before you call me? I
+shrug my shoulders, and tell you the child must die.”
+
+“O Samuel!” exclaimed Lottie, looking at her husband.
+
+Mr. Lawton was appalled by the significant words. His frame shook with
+terror. The child was his idol. He knew nothing of the symptoms of the
+insidious and terrible disease that menaced the life of his darling
+little one; he was nervous and uneasy. Death seemed to cast a broad
+shadow upon his home.
+
+The doctor gave the child a little white powder, and placed some
+bandages wet in cold water upon its throat and chest. The effect
+was instantaneous; the child instantly breathed easier. Leaving the
+necessary medicines, Dr. F---- took his leave, assuring the anxious
+parents that the little one would be nearly well by morning.
+
+But Mr. Lawton was uneasy, and Lottie was uneasy. An undefinable dread
+had taken possession of their hearts. Samuel was troubled. The child
+breathed with a sad, groaning sound, which shook every fibre in the
+nervous system of the father and mother. He was conscious of their
+inexperience; the child might relapse, and symptoms which they did not
+understand might appear.
+
+“How I wish mother was here, Samuel!” said poor Lottie, awed by the
+fearful responsibility that rested upon her.
+
+Mr. Lawton had wished so before, and thought if he once more had her in
+the house, he would give the world to keep her there--mothers-in-law
+are so exceedingly useful at times!
+
+Samuel made no reply. Even in his terrible anxiety for the life of his
+child, pride had not entirely deserted him.
+
+Lottie shed a flood of tears. For the first time in her life, her
+husband seemed cold and unfeeling, and it was cruel in him not to
+second her wish in such an hour of trial.
+
+“If he should grow worse, Samuel!” continued the poor wife. “O, I am so
+fearful!”
+
+“I will go for your mother if you wish,” replied Mr. Lawton, the
+anguish of his wife getting the mastery of his feelings.
+
+“She has got cold; I don’t know as she would dare to come out in the
+night air.”
+
+“I will try, at least.”
+
+Mr. Lawton left the house. Mrs. Harding’s new home was not far off. He
+succeeded in rousing her, and, in spite of her cold, she was ready in
+five minutes to accompany him.
+
+His heart smote him as he thought how hard he had been upon her--how
+he had almost attempted to drive her from his roof; and in his soul he
+thanked God that she did not know how mean he had been.
+
+Her advice had been good. She had spoken to him for his interest, not
+for her own; and if she had not spoken it exactly as he wished, why, it
+was only because she was human, and had infirmities, like all the rest
+of mankind.
+
+In the moment of peril and trial, he felt what a blessing it was to
+have a mother-in-law.
+
+Mrs. Harding soon comforted Lottie. She understood the case, and
+perceived that the danger was past. Her presence was like that of an
+angel. It restored the drooping spirits of the devoted parents, and by
+midnight, worn out with anxiety, they went to sleep by the side of the
+child, whose slumbers, though troubled, were deep and sound.
+
+The next morning, as Dr. F---- had predicted, Sammy was nearly well,
+and Mr. Lawton went to his business as usual; but there was trouble
+brewing around him. He spent nearly all the forenoon in vain attempts
+to raise the money to meet one of his notes which came due that day. He
+was unsuccessful, and, worn out and dispirited by his anxiety on the
+previous night, he gave up in despair, and went home, resolved to let
+the note be protested.
+
+“You come home early, Samuel,” said his wife.
+
+The young merchant made no reply, but threw himself, with a heavy sigh,
+into a chair.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter, Samuel?”
+
+“I am ruined, Lottie!” replied he, gloomily. “I must fail. This is the
+last day of grace, and I have left a note to be protested.”
+
+Lottie was appalled by this intelligence. Mrs. Harding, who sat by the
+fire, holding little Sammy, merely glanced at him. She did not use
+those awful words, “I knew it would be so.”
+
+“Mother, you were right; I have been too fast,” said Mr. Lawton, gazing
+sheepishly at her. “I thought very hard of you for telling me I lived
+better than I could afford; but you were right; I may as well own it.”
+
+“I am sorry for you, Samuel. How much is the note?” said Mrs. Harding,
+with a gentle look--a look so kind and forgiving that it wrung his soul.
+
+“Eight hundred dollars,” replied Lawton.
+
+“Will you take the baby a moment, Lottie?” continued Mrs. Harding, who,
+giving Sammy into the hands of his mother, went to the secretary, and
+wrote a check on her bank for the amount.
+
+“Why, mother, you wrong yourself,” exclaimed the astonished Lawton, as
+she handed him the check.
+
+“Take it, Samuel; pay your note, and live and learn,” replied she, with
+a benignant smile.
+
+Lawton took the money, and hastened back to the city to pay his note.
+His credit was saved, and hope again smiled upon him.
+
+In the course of conversation that evening, Lawton was so far
+humiliated as to make this remark,--
+
+“Mother, you will come and live with us again, won’t you?”
+
+“What! after you have wished me out of the house?” replied Mrs.
+Harding, with a smile. “I heard your conversation the other day.”
+
+“Forgive me, mother.”
+
+“Perhaps, Samuel, I am not always just as I ought to be; but we all
+have our weaknesses. I mean to do right.”
+
+“I know you do; I understand you now. Last night and to-day have taught
+me your value; and if I had heeded your counsel, I need not have been
+pressed for money to-day. Forgive me, mother.”
+
+“Freely, Samuel. I live only to make my children happy.”
+
+Mrs. Harding resumed her residence at Lottie’s, and from that time to
+this she has been appreciated. Mr. Lawton learned a lesson. The long
+proposed retrenchment was executed, and the prospect now is that he
+will die a rich man, if he don’t die too soon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We were provoked to write this sketch by that contemptible squib
+from Punch, to the effect that Adam was a happy man because he had
+no mother-in-law. If Cain or Abel, in their babyhood, had the croup,
+measles, whooping cough, or any thing of that sort, we warrant
+he sighed for that squib-ridden, conundrum-defamed commodity--a
+MOTHER-IN-LAW.
+
+
+
+
+MONTAGUE AND LADY.
+
+A LESSON FOR HUSBANDS.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Another new dress!” exclaimed Mr. Simeon Montague to his wife. “It
+does not seem to be more than three weeks since you had one.”
+
+“Just two months, Simeon.”
+
+“And you need another?”
+
+“I should not ask for the money if I did not. And Franky must have a
+new jacket, and Nellie a new cloak.”
+
+Mr. Montague sighed.
+
+“I gave you fifteen dollars only a week ago.”
+
+“What is fifteen dollars? Do you think it will clothe me and the
+children a year?” replied Mrs. Montague indignantly.
+
+“Money comes hard,” suggested Mr. Montague.
+
+“I suppose it does; but if you wish me and the children to go half
+clothed, why, only say so.”
+
+“Of course, I wish nothing of the kind; I only want you to be as
+prudent as possible.”
+
+“I intend to be so.”
+
+“These are dreadful tight times.”
+
+“I should think they were,” replied the lady, with a palpable sneer
+on her lip. “They have been just so, though, ever since we have been
+married.”
+
+“Won’t next week do?”
+
+“I engaged a dressmaker for next Friday.”
+
+“I don’t see how I can spare fifteen dollars to-day,” said Mr.
+Montague, musing, apparently, upon his financial affairs. “I have a
+note to pay to-day.”
+
+“You have had a note to pay every time I have asked you for money since
+we were married.”
+
+“I will try and have it for you to-morrow.”
+
+“I want to go out shopping to-day; I can’t go to-morrow.”
+
+“I cannot possibly spare it to-day. Won’t ten dollars answer your
+purpose?”
+
+“Perhaps I can make it do.”
+
+“If you can, I wish you would,” replied the husband, as he took out his
+pocket book and handed her that amount.
+
+“I can only get a calico for myself.”
+
+“Well, won’t that answer?”
+
+“Are you willing to go to church with me with a calico dress on?”
+
+“Certainly, my dear. Why not?”
+
+“I thought you had some pride.”
+
+“I have, but no foolish pride.”
+
+“A twenty-five dollar coat is hardly good enough for you to wear to
+church.”
+
+“But I don’t have one every month.”
+
+“You have two every year.”
+
+Mr. Montague did not think it was prudent to say any more; and putting
+on his hat, which he had just been brushing with the most scrupulous
+care, he surveyed his person before the looking glass. His collar
+needed a little elevating, his cravat had to be re-adjusted, and he
+discovered a speck of dirt on his black coat, which was carefully
+removed. His lady looked at him with a smile as he stood before the
+glass.
+
+“Calico dress, indeed,” thought she. “There is not a prouder man walks
+Washington Street, than my husband.”
+
+Mr. Montague smoothed down his whiskers, and was leaving the room, when
+a gentleman wishing to see him was announced.
+
+“Ah, Butler,” said he, as the gentleman entered the room.
+
+“I called at your store yesterday, but did not find you,” said Butler,
+handing him a little paper.
+
+“Just so,” said he, opening it.
+
+Mrs. Montague was impertinent enough to look over his shoulder as he
+read the paper. It ran as follows:--
+
+  “Mr. Simeon Montague
+
+                 To Apollo Club Rooms, Dr.
+
+  To your Quarterly Assessment,       $25,00
+    “1 Basket Heidsick Champagne,      16,00
+    “100 Concha Cigars,                 4,00
+                                      ------
+                                      $45,00
+
+              Received Payment,
+                         B. BUTLER, Steward.”
+
+“Just so,” repeated Mr. Montague, throwing the bill on the table, and
+taking out his pocket book. “Sorry to trouble you; meant to have paid
+it last night.”
+
+“No trouble at all,” replied Butler.
+
+“Forty-five, is it?” continued Montague, as he counted out the money.
+
+“Forty-five.”
+
+The steward of the “Apollo Club Rooms” put the money in his pocket, and
+bade his liberal patron good morning.
+
+“It was too bad to make him call twice for that money, wasn’t it,
+Simeon?” asked Mrs. Montague, when the steward had gone.
+
+“Of course I was sorry to give him any unnecessary trouble,” replied
+Mr. Montague.
+
+“I thought you had a note to pay to-day?”
+
+“So I have.”
+
+“But can’t you spare me the other five dollars for which I asked you?”
+
+“Can’t, possibly.”
+
+“I think your family ought to receive as much consideration as the Club
+House, at least.”
+
+“I must go to the store, my dear; I am in a great hurry.”
+
+“Sixteen dollars for champagne,” said the wife, reading from the bill,
+which she had picked up from the table. “I only asked for fifteen.”
+
+“You would not have me niggardly at the Club Rooms, would you?”
+
+“I would not have you go there at all. I suppose it is nothing to be
+niggardly in your family?”
+
+“Am I niggardly?” asked Mr. Montague, rather sternly.
+
+The lady was silent.
+
+“One would think that I was made of money, by the way you ask me for
+it,” continued Mr. Montague.
+
+“One would think you were, to see you paying forty-five dollars a
+quarter at the Club House,” replied Mrs. Montague, meekly. “A married
+man too.”
+
+“I wasn’t born to be tied to a woman’s apron-string,” added Mr.
+Montague, rushing from the house.
+
+The lady looked at the door which had just closed upon him. Her heart
+was sad, and she burst into tears.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mr. Simeon Montague thought the money he bestowed upon his family was
+as good as wasted. He was not a domestic man. He had married his wife,
+with a reasonable show of affection, because her father was rich, and
+she was an only daughter. Of course, he would not even confess to his
+own heart that he was so selfish and cruel as to marry for sordid
+motives--that he had prostituted the holy altar of Hymen by sacrificing
+to Plutus upon it; but it was none the less true because he denied it
+to himself and every body else.
+
+Mrs. Montague’s father at her marriage was only about forty-five years
+of age; yet his health was so feeble that there was not one chance in
+ten of his living another year. But the old gentleman had revived,
+and now, after twelve years had expired, seemed to be completely
+rejuvenated. He was hale and hearty, and gave the promise of living
+twenty years more. Of course the sordid son-in-law was disappointed. He
+had thrown himself into the sea of matrimony with an unworthy motive,
+and if he had been drowned there it would have served him just right.
+
+Poor Mrs. Montague! Her bright hopes were all wrecked. Instead of the
+world of affection she had anticipated in the connubial relation, she
+found nothing but coldness and sordid selfishness. Her husband still
+frequented the Club House; and when at home, he seemed to have no
+sympathy with her. His business seemed to engross all his attention,
+and he had no time to think of his wife, none to devote to his children.
+
+Yet Mr. Montague was not a morose or an ill-natured man. He loved the
+good opinion of the world, and would have made almost any sacrifice
+rather than have had an imputation cast upon his domestic character. He
+paid the most scrupulous attention to all the forms of life, walked to
+church every Sunday with his wife on his arm, always found the place
+in the hymn book for her, and never failed abroad to manifest the most
+lively interest in his family. He always called his wife “my dear,” and
+spoke affectionately to the children in the presence of company.
+
+The eye of affection could penetrate all this mass of conventionalism,
+and the poor wife, in less than a year after her marriage, realized
+that she had thrown herself away upon a hollow-hearted man--one who,
+without loving her, would keep the peace at almost any sacrifice--one
+who would compel the world to believe that he was the most tender and
+devoted husband, even while his heart was petrified and cold. His
+devotion was mere mechanism; it was a kind of habit, acquired by an
+active desire to secure the good will of all his friends.
+
+Perhaps, even if there had been none to see him, Mr. Montague would
+not have been harsh; it was not his nature. He was a smooth-tongued,
+plausible man under all circumstances. He could appear to love when
+his heart was perfectly indifferent. He could avoid the most palpable
+of his domestic duties even while he professed the most earnest
+devotion to the welfare of his family.
+
+Twelve years had in a measure reconciled the disappointed wife to her
+lot. She was contented with it because her maiden visions of connubial
+bliss had evaporated, and she knew no other existence than that to
+which she had been so long accustomed. Her air castles, reared in the
+sunny years of her girlhood, had long since tumbled to the ground,
+and left her in a world of reality, cold and repulsive at first, but
+rendered tolerable by long endurance.
+
+Her husband was sordid and selfish. He never felt a hundred dollars
+expended in champagne suppers at the Club House; but half that sum
+given to his wife wrung his soul. Though he was in a good business,
+lived in good style, and always had money at his command, his brow
+always darkened when his wife asked him for any sum to be expended upon
+herself or her children. He was absolutely unwilling to give it, though
+he could not possibly have endured the mortification of seeing them
+shabbily dressed.
+
+Mr. Montague is not an anomaly among men. There are thousands as sordid
+and inconsistent as he was--thousands who wish to have their wives and
+children appear well in the world, and at the same time deny them the
+means of doing so.
+
+Mrs. Montague was in tears. She was both grieved and provoked at the
+conduct of her husband. The promptness with which he had paid his Club
+House bill, while he denied her the trifling sum she had asked, was a
+sad commentary on his devotion. For more than an hour she thought the
+matter over, and became fully assured that she was a much injured wife.
+Her spirit was roused, and, putting on her bonnet, she left the house
+to do her shopping.
+
+The calico dress her husband had professed to think was good enough for
+her to wear to church was purchased, and before Sunday was made up.
+
+The second bells were ringing for church. Mr. Montague, elegantly
+dressed, was all ready, and stood before the glass, contemplating his
+prepossessing appearance.
+
+“Are you ready, Ellen?” said he, calling to his wife, who was up stairs.
+
+“I shall be in a moment. Walk along slowly with Franky, and I will
+overtake you,” replied she.
+
+Mr. Montague took his son by the hand, and walked up the street. He
+looked like a model head of the family--so benignant and dignified on
+that Sabbath morning.
+
+His wife did not overtake him till he had got half way to church.
+
+“Why, my dear, what have you got on?” asked Mr. Montague, when, to his
+horror, he saw her clothed in a common calico dress.
+
+“My new calico,” replied she, coolly, as she took his arm.
+
+“Are you mad, Ellen?”
+
+“It was the best I could buy with the money you gave me.”
+
+“But you are not going to church in that shape?”
+
+“Why, Simeon, didn’t you say you were willing to go to church with me
+with a calico dress on?”
+
+“Pshaw! Hadn’t you sense enough to see that I was jesting?”
+
+“Jesting! If you were, it was the first time I ever knew you to jest in
+your own house.”
+
+“Don’t be foolish, Ellen.”
+
+“Come; we shall be late, and all the folks in the street are staring at
+us.”
+
+“Staring at you. What a ridiculous figure you make in that attire! Your
+Irish girl is better dressed than you are.”
+
+“I can’t help it.”
+
+“Pray, go home.”
+
+“I am going to church.”
+
+“Not with me, Ellen, in that plight.”
+
+“Then I leave you,” said she, taking Franky by the hand, and continuing
+her walk.
+
+Mr. Montague was bewildered. It was a very awkward position; but the
+natural duplicity of his character came to his aid, and, placing his
+hand upon his forehead, as though suffering a severe headache, he
+retraced his steps homeward.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Mr. Montague was greatly incensed at the conduct of his wife; but an
+experience of a dozen years had fully convinced her that her husband
+could not be easily reformed. During that long period, while he was
+living in plenty, was throwing away hundreds, and she did not know
+but thousands, on his club, his champagne suppers, and other selfish
+gratifications, she had found it exceedingly difficult to wring from
+his hard grasp the money to clothe herself and children. To ask for it
+was a loathsome task, and nothing but the most urgent necessity could
+induce her to do so.
+
+Much as her husband had resented her conduct on the occasion mentioned,
+he did not offer the means of supplying her wants. The lady had become
+so disgusted with his niggardly conduct, that she had fully determined
+never to ask him for another dollar. Her father was rich, and very
+indulgent to her, his only child. To him she disclosed her grievances;
+and though it was repugnant to her sense of delicacy to speak ill of
+her husband, she gave her father a complete history of her financial
+experience. The old gentleman was exceedingly indignant, as a matter
+of course, and stormed like a madman at the sordid character of his
+son-in-law.
+
+“But don’t you say a word to him, pa, nor to any one else,” pleaded the
+daughter.
+
+“I will blow him sky high! He shall never darken my door again!”
+
+“Nay, nay, pa, for my sake, do not mention it.”
+
+The old man stopped to think.
+
+“You are right, Nellie; not a word,” said he, rubbing his bald head.
+
+“It would sound very bad abroad, pa.”
+
+“So it would; but, Nellie, hand me that book, and the pen and ink.”
+
+The daughter obeyed, and the old gentleman wrote a hasty note.
+
+“Now ring the bell, Nellie.”
+
+Mrs. Montague did as she was requested, and a servant appeared.
+
+“Here, John, take that to No. 10 Court Street,” said the old gentleman,
+as he opened the book and wrote a check for five hundred dollars. “Now,
+Nellie, spend it as fast as you can, and when that is gone, come and
+get some more.”
+
+Mrs. Montague kissed her fond father, and left him to ruminate upon the
+astonishing fact which had been revealed to him.
+
+“Not give her any money!” muttered he. “The scoundrel!”
+
+His lips were frequently compressed, and occasionally he rose and
+strode with hasty step across the room. The arrival of the lawyer for
+whom he had sent, seemed to relieve him.
+
+Mrs. Montague appeared the next Sunday in an elegant brocade silk, a
+new bonnet, and a most magnificent mantilla. Her husband, who was an
+importer and jobber of dry goods, could readily perceive that she wore
+at least two hundred dollars upon her person. He was confounded. She
+had asked him for no money lately. He was uneasy. What could it mean?
+Mrs. Montague refused to answer any questions.
+
+Six months passed by, and the lady still remained independent of her
+husband. She always had money in abundance, but she positively refused
+to converse upon the subject. Of course he could understand that her
+father furnished her with funds. He was perplexed to discover the
+circumstances under which he supplied her. Had his wife told him that
+she was refused by her husband? Had she been to her father with her
+grievances? He would not have had such a thing happen for all the
+world; his reputation, which he valued more highly than his integrity,
+would be sacrificed. He was sorely troubled.
+
+One day, about this time, when he came home to dinner, he found that
+his father-in-law had been prostrated by an apoplectic fit, and that
+his wife had gone to attend him. Before he could finish his dinner, a
+messenger announced his death.
+
+Mr. Montague was very much grieved, of course. He mourned in bitterness
+of spirit for more than a month after the funeral, his father-in-law
+was such a kind-hearted, noble old gentleman; he thought there were few
+men like him in the world.
+
+Every thing went on as usual in the Montague family. Not a word was
+said about the large property of the deceased. Mr. Montague felt
+some delicacy in mentioning the subject to his wife, and no one else
+appeared to know any thing about the business. He wondered that nothing
+had been said to him about being executor or administrator. Of course
+he was the only proper person to execute this trust.
+
+He hinted at the matter as broadly as he dared; but his wife refused to
+take the hint. One morning, however, as he was looking over the paper,
+he noticed an advertisement concerning the probate of the will; he
+pointed it out to his wife.
+
+“Then your father made a will?” said he.
+
+“He did.”
+
+“I was not aware of it; but then I haven’t devoted even a thought to
+his property.”
+
+Mrs. Montague looked at him.
+
+“Your father was one of the best of men,” continued he, seriously.
+
+“He was.”
+
+“Did you learn who had been named as executor?”
+
+“My uncle John.”
+
+“Ah! a capital selection; your father was an excellent business man.”
+
+“And three of his personal friends were appointed trustees.”
+
+“Trustees!” exclaimed Mr. Montague, with a violent start.
+
+“Yes; but you have not seen the will?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I have a copy here,” said the wife, taking the document from a drawer.
+
+With a beating heart, Mr. Montague opened the copy, and proceeded to
+read it.
+
+His cheek blanched and his lip quivered as he read. The property was
+much greater than he had ever suspected, amounting to over a hundred
+thousand dollars. It was all secured to his wife, to the entire
+exclusion of her husband; and the instrument was so adroitly drawn
+up that he could not even touch the income of the estate without her
+permission.
+
+He was thunderstruck; his matrimonial hopes were all blasted, and, what
+added to his chagrin, his own affairs, in the stringency of the time,
+had become hopelessly embarrassed.
+
+“What does this mean, Ellen?” asked he, in a husky voice.
+
+“You just remarked that my father was an excellent business man; don’t
+you understand it?”
+
+“If I had been a drunkard or a gambler, it would have been plain to me.
+As it is, it looks like an entire want of confidence in me, on the part
+of your deceased father; not that I care about the property,” whined
+Mr. Montague.
+
+“Of course you don’t care for _that_.”
+
+“I was not aware before that your father was prejudiced against me. Did
+he ever mention this matter?”
+
+Mrs. Montague was silent, and the husband pressed her for an answer.
+
+“There was something said.”
+
+“What, my dear?”
+
+“When I went to him for money, of course that led to some explanations.”
+
+“You went to him for money?” gasped Mr. Montague.
+
+“I could not get it from you.”
+
+Mr. Montague used an exceedingly hard word, which I dare not transfer
+to my page, and rushed out of the house.
+
+In a month he failed,--made a bad failure,--and it took him a year to
+get out of the difficulty. The assignees had every thing; he could not
+put his hand upon a single dollar. His domestic affairs somehow got
+into the street, and nobody would trust him; every body despised him.
+
+But Mrs. Montague was not so sordid as he had been, and when he had
+received a discharge from his debts, she furnished the means for him to
+commence business again. The club and champagne suppers are abandoned;
+matters are reversed. The lady is always “flush,” the gentleman
+generally short; and, poor fellow, he is sometimes so hard pressed as
+to ask her for a few hundred dollars “to help him out.”
+
+
+
+
+TAKING THE NEWSPAPERS.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Talk to me about your newspapers! I tell you, neighbor Parker, they
+are a consarned humbug!” exclaimed Farmer Cheney.
+
+“That’s a great mistake of yours, neighbor. For my part, I would rather
+live on two meals a day, than be without a good newspaper.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+“Git out! I wonder what the world’s a comin’ to. There’s my gals have
+teased me to take Harper’s Magazine, till I hadn’t any peace o’ my
+life. But I put my foot right down; you can’t humbug me with such
+trash;” and Farmer Cheney complacently wiped away the tobacco juice
+which was streaming down from the corners of his mouth.
+
+“You are in the wrong, neighbor Cheney.”
+
+“No, I ain’t, nuther. Then Tom wan’t satisfied, and nothin’ would do
+but I must take the American Union and the Practical Farmer. But it
+wan’t no use; I wouldn’t have the trash in the house, say nothin’ o’
+wastin’ money on it.”
+
+“Do you ever read the papers?”
+
+“Me! no, not I; I’ve got a better use for my time.”
+
+“But the long winter evenings?”
+
+“Well, we allers have corn to shell.”
+
+“Not all winter?”
+
+“No; but when I can’t find no work to do, I’d a nuff sight rather set
+in the corner, and go to sleep.”
+
+“But your son Reuben takes the papers.”
+
+“Yes; but I never brought him up to do any sich thing. He takes the
+Union and the Farmer both, and stews his brains over ’em half the time.
+That ain’t the wo’st on’t, nuther.”
+
+“No evil effects have followed from it, I trust?”
+
+“Yes, there has; there’s my youngest boy, Tom, read sunthin’ or nuther
+over to Reuben’s t’other day about a ‘chance for young men,’ and
+nothin’ll do but he must go right into it; he’s off to Boston next
+week. So much for havin’ newspapers round.”
+
+“But perhaps he may improve the opportunity, and make money by it.”
+
+“No sich thing. He’s got two hundred dollars, and when that’s all gone,
+he’ll be back again; see if he don’t.”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“Well, my mind’s made up about it; but between you and I and the side
+of that gate post, I wouldn’t mind givin’ Reuben the price of the
+papers if he only wouldn’t take ’em.”
+
+“But Reuben has the reputation of being one of the best farmers in
+town.”
+
+“That’s all true enough; but he didn’t learn how to farm it from his
+newspapers, let me tell you. He was brought up in the good old way,
+when there wan’t no books round but the Bible and the almanac.”
+
+“You will grant that he does not follow all the old-fashioned methods?”
+
+“Well, pooty much all; he’s got some notions of his own, though.”
+
+“How was it about planting corn in rows, neighbor Cheney?”
+
+“That’s one of Reuben’s notions, to plant in rows.”
+
+“And he got seventy bushels to the acre, you know.”
+
+“Yes; but the ashes did the business.”
+
+“The ashes, the rows, and the cultivator, between them.”
+
+“Well, there ain’t no doubt but what that’s the best way to raise corn.
+At any rate, all the neighbors foller it now.”
+
+“It is not the old-fashioned way.”
+
+“No; it’s Reuben’s way.”
+
+“Where do you suppose Reuben got it?”
+
+“I don’t know; not from your darn newspapers, though.”
+
+“But he did.”
+
+“Git out!”
+
+“It is a fact.”
+
+“Now, neighbor Parker, you don’t mean to say that them fellers in
+Boston, that never saw a cornfield in their life, can tell me how to
+raise corn,” said Farmer Cheney, a little warmly.
+
+“They have correspondents all over the country, and the subscribers
+have the benefit of their united experience.”
+
+“Don’t believe a word on’t.”
+
+But it was no use arguing the matter, and the two farmers separated.
+When Farmer Cheney got home, he found a visitor a waiting him.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+“I understood you had a large quantity of corn for sale,” said the
+stranger.
+
+“Well, I’ve got consider’ble, but I don’t care no great about sellin’
+it.”
+
+“I should like to buy.”
+
+“I can spare a couple o’ hund’ed bushels for a fair price.”
+
+“What do you ask for it?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know; how is corn nowadays?”
+
+“Last sales in Boston were sixty-eight to seventy cents.”
+
+“Rather low; I meant to git seventy-one for mine,” returned Farmer
+Cheney, who was disposed to be shrewd.
+
+“What will you take for the lot?”
+
+“Seventy-one.”
+
+“Say seventy, and we won’t stand about trifles.”
+
+“Can’t do it; seventy-one is my lowest price,” replied Farmer Cheney,
+finding that he had got an available customer.
+
+“Split the difference, and it’s a trade,” said the stranger, nervously.
+
+“Couldn’t do it.”
+
+“I’ll take it then. Give me a receipt for this cash to bind the
+bargain.”
+
+Farmer Cheney, congratulating himself on the good trade he had made,
+wrote the receipt after considerable labor, and put the money in his
+pocket book.
+
+“Know of any one else who has got any corn to sell?”
+
+“My neighbor Parker, I rather guess, has got some.”
+
+“You won’t say a word that I paid you seventy-one for yours? It might
+spoil a trade.”
+
+“Not a word,” replied Farmer Cheney.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Towards night our two farmers happened to meet again.
+
+“Sold your corn to-day, neighbor Parker?” inquired Farmer Cheney.
+
+“Every speck of it,” replied Parker.
+
+“Did you? What did you get?”
+
+“Eighty-one.”
+
+“How much?”
+
+“Eighty-one.”
+
+“You didn’t, though, did ye?” exclaimed the man who would not take the
+newspaper.
+
+“That is just what I got, and I think I could have got eighty-two if I
+had stuck a little longer.”
+
+“You don’t, though!”
+
+“The same man bought yours, I believe.”
+
+“Yes,” replied Farmer Cheney, edging off.
+
+“What did you get--eighty-two?”
+
+“Well, I guess I didn’t git quite that.”
+
+“O, eighty-one. Well, after all, that is a good price, and ten cents on
+a bushel more than I had any idea of getting.”
+
+“I did not get eighty-one,” replied Farmer Cheney, rather crestfallen.
+
+He did not like to deceive his neighbor; he had studied the Bible and
+the almanac enough to know better than that; but it came “dreadful
+hard” to own up the truth.
+
+“How much did you get?”
+
+“I dar’sent tell.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“I’ve got took in if the feller gave you eighty-one.”
+
+“What did you get, though, neighbor--seventy-five?”
+
+“Seventy-one.”
+
+“Well, you have been taken in, then; I guess you haven’t heard the
+news.”
+
+“No--what?”
+
+“Crops failed in the west.”
+
+“How you talk!”
+
+“And the prospect of a war in Europe; so that our breadstuffs will be
+extensively exported, which run up the price of flour and grain.”
+
+“What war?”
+
+“Between Russia and Turkey.”
+
+“Turkey! Well, I hope them cu’sed Turks will get licked!” exclaimed
+Farmer Cheney, whose ideas were somewhat antiquated.
+
+“You differ from the world in general. The sympathies of all civilized
+nations go with Turkey in this quarrel.”
+
+“You don’t say so! When I was a boy, the schoolmaster used to teach us
+to hate the Turks. They are a barbarous race.”
+
+“I think, neighbor Cheney, you will confess now that you had better
+take a paper.”
+
+“Confess no sich thing; I wouldn’t have one round the house.”
+
+“If you had taken the papers, you would have known about this rise in
+grain.”
+
+“Perhaps I should; but Reuben generally tells me about these things.”
+
+“It was only in the paper that came to-day; I read it since I saw you
+this morning. But I should no more think of selling any thing of any
+consequence without seeing how the Boston markets were, than I should
+think of cutting my own throat.”
+
+“Kind of a dog’s life to be tied to a newspaper,” sneered Farmer Cheney.
+
+“But if you had taken a newspaper, neighbor, and read it, you would
+have made twenty dollars by it in this one trade; twenty dollars,
+neighbor--enough to pay for the paper ten years.”
+
+“Git out! These things look well enough as you book farmers figger ’em
+up; but, you see, when you come to the scratch, they ain’t nowhere.”
+
+“It looks to me like a plain case.”
+
+“Now, ’spose I could make twenty dollars by takin’ the paper; it would
+do me a darn sight more mischief than that.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Why, the newspaper puts the very devil in the gals’ heads. Now, they
+never use to have their cu’sed picnics round here, till the gals got
+to readin’ on ’em in the papers. And then the buryin’ ground, they
+couldn’t even let that alone. Some feller put a piece in the paper
+about Mount Auburn, Sorrel Hill, Greenbush, and some sich place, and
+the fust thing we know the gravestones are all jumbled up in a heap,
+gravel is carted in, and posies set out all over it. Now they call it a
+‘symmetry,’ I b’leve.”
+
+“A cemetery, neighbor; but we who read the newspapers like these
+things. There is something pleasant in ornamenting with flowers the
+resting place of our dead.”
+
+“It looks to me more like ‘sacrelation.’”
+
+“Sacrilege! O, no; far from it.”
+
+“Well, I think so; and then we’ve got to have new school houses, a new
+town house, and the roads must all be ‘McDonalized.’”
+
+“McAdamized.”
+
+“Well, no matter what it is; it all comes of these cu’sed newspapers.
+My taxes are twenty dollars a year more than they used to be.”
+
+“And you sell the produce of your farm for five hundred dollars more.”
+
+“Well, that’s true; but there’s no kind of need of makin’ the taxes any
+more, all for newspapers.”
+
+“But you must think how much better and wiser your family would be with
+a newspaper to read.”
+
+“By mighty! I should think they would! Only look at Deacon Craig’s
+folks. Them gals cost him a fortin every year in books and new gowns.
+The newspapers won’t do; they must have books, and waste half their
+time readin’ on em.”
+
+“But it is a very worthy and intelligent family, and the deacon’s
+income, owing to his more enlightened method of conducting business, is
+at least ten times as great as it used to be, and he can well afford to
+spend all he does in educating his children.”
+
+“No use o’ talkin’ about it; give me the good old way; and when I’m
+dead, I ain’t at all particular about havin’ buttercups and whiteweed
+growin’ on my grave;” and Farmer Cheney went off, “wondering what the
+world was coming to.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+About a year after their conversations, Tom Cheney came home to visit
+his father. The ambitious youth, who had acquired half his education
+by reading the newspapers, had not written his father concerning his
+business prospects.
+
+“Why, Tom, what have you been about all this time?” asked the old
+gentleman, as he surveyed Tom’s spruce appearance.
+
+“Making money, father,” replied the hopeful son.
+
+“Have you made any, Tom?”
+
+“A little.”
+
+“A little! Guess you’d better staid at home, and worked on the farm.
+You was doin’ well here.”
+
+“Done pretty well as it is.”
+
+“How much you made, Tom?”
+
+“Five thousand.”
+
+“Git out! You are jokin’, Tom.”
+
+“True as preaching.”
+
+“How did you do it?”
+
+“Well, I went into that ‘chance for young men;’ but that wan’t much; so
+I looked into the newspapers for something better.”
+
+“Newspapers again,” sneered Farmer Cheney.
+
+“The first thing I saw was, that peaches were selling down south for
+ten cents a bushel, while they brought two dollars here. You see, the
+risk of transporting them makes the difference. Then I saw in the same
+paper that preserved peaches brought two shillings a pound north; so I
+put that and that together, and hatched out a speculation. I bought the
+sugar, and sent it down to Delaware, where the peaches were cheap, and
+went to making preserves there. In this way I made money.”
+
+“You are a shrewd one, Tom.”
+
+“All owing to the newspapers, father.”
+
+“Git out!”
+
+“I see by the papers that the Chinese empire has been divided, and the
+rebels are in a fair way of making China a Christian country. I have a
+great notion of going out there to establish a line of stages between
+Shanghae and Nankin. What do you think about it?”
+
+“Don’t know what to think. I’m done thinkin’; but, Tom, when you go to
+Boston again, just drop in and tell ’em to send me the American Union
+and the Practical Farmer for one year. Here’s the three dollars.”
+
+“Bravo! you are a brick, after all, pa!”
+
+
+
+
+“CIGARS FOR TWO;”
+
+OR,
+
+CURING A SMOKER.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Smokes, does he? The abominable wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Volant to her
+friend, Mrs. Washburn, a young wife who had just gone to housekeeping.
+
+“He smokes, but he is not an abominable wretch--I am sure he is not,”
+replied Mrs. Washburn, a little startled by the hard name applied to
+her husband, whom she both loved and esteemed.
+
+“Not a wretch?”
+
+“No, I’m sure he is not!”
+
+“Yes, he is; any husband, especially one who has been married only a
+year, and won’t leave off smoking when his wife desires it, must be a
+wretch.”
+
+“No, you overstate the case. He is every thing a husband ought to
+be--so kind, so devoted, so indulgent. But then, I do wish he would not
+smoke.”
+
+“You must break him of it--the cruel monster.”
+
+“Nay, do not call him such hard names; I love him with all my heart,
+though he does smoke.”
+
+“Well, I suppose you do; young wives are apt to be foolish.”
+
+“Foolish!”
+
+“Yes; he sees, I dare say, that you love him, and so he takes the
+advantage of you.”
+
+“Why, Mrs. Volant, don’t you love your husband?”
+
+“Well, suppose I do; there is no need of telling him of it. I make him
+think I don’t care any thing about him. Why, I can manage him as easily
+as I could a kitten.”
+
+“I don’t like that; I think there ought to be love and confidence
+between man and wife.”
+
+“Pooh!”
+
+“You cannot be happy with him.”
+
+“I should not be if I became his slave.”
+
+“Not his slave!”
+
+“Don’t you believe it! When you have been married as long as I have,
+you will get rid of some of these sentimental notions, which answer
+very well for the first year or so, but become very inconvenient after
+that.”
+
+“For my part, I always mean to love my husband as much as I do now,
+even if it is sentimental.”
+
+“See if you do! Husbands must be carefully managed, or they become
+tyrants. Now, my husband smoked the first year after marriage; but then
+he was a little careful about bringing his cigar into the house, for I
+told him, up and down, I wouldn’t have it.”
+
+“I should suppose he would have rebelled.”
+
+“He did, but not at first. One night, nearly a year after we were
+married, he brought home a whole bundle of cigars, and put them on the
+mantel-piece. Taking one, he very coolly lighted it, and proceeded to
+read the evening paper.”
+
+“That’s just the way my husband does.”
+
+“I was downright mad at his impudence; but I did not say a word. The
+next day I bought a monstrous great snuff box, and filled it full of
+rappee. In the evening he lighted his cigar as before; but no sooner
+had he done so, than I seated myself opposite to him, and drawing out
+my snuff box, I took a generous pinch, snuffing the filthy stuff into
+my nostrils, at the risk of sneezing my head off.”
+
+“How funny!”
+
+“My husband did not think so. He looked at me with astonishment. ‘You
+take snuff?’ said he. ‘I do; at least, I mean to learn,’ I replied.
+‘It is a filthy habit,’ says he. ‘No worse than smoking,’ says I. We
+debated the matter for a long time, and at last he gave up the point,
+and promised to throw away his cigars if I would throw away my snuff.
+My point was gained, and of course I gave up my snuff.”
+
+“And he never smoked any more?” asked Mrs. Washburn, laughing.
+
+“Yes, he began once after; but I took to the snuff again, and he gave
+it up.”
+
+“Are you sure he don’t smoke now?”
+
+“If he does, he never lets me see him. My sitting room is not all
+smoked up as yours is.”
+
+“It was a glorious trick!”
+
+“That it was, and I advise you to try it upon Mr. Washburn.”
+
+“I! I couldn’t take a pinch of snuff any more than I could swallow an
+elephant.”
+
+“Smoke, then. There are some nice little cigars sold at the
+apothecaries, made on purpose for ladies. They are so mild that they
+wouldn’t make you sick; though, even if they did, you wouldn’t mind, so
+they cure your husband of smoking.”
+
+“It seems too bad to play such a trick upon him--he is always so kind,
+and permits me to do just as I please,” said the tender-hearted Mrs.
+Washburn.
+
+“What else could he do?”
+
+“It looks kind of mean to me.”
+
+“Not a bit.”
+
+“I don’t know as it would succeed.”
+
+“Nonsense! I am sure it would. He never would let you smoke, for these
+husbands have an awful horror of any impropriety in their wives.”
+
+“Then, he says he has always smoked, and can’t leave it off.”
+
+“Pshaw! The old story!”
+
+“I am almost tempted to try it.”
+
+“I would.”
+
+“It seems so unkind, though, that I have hardly the heart to do it.”
+
+“You are notional, my dear Mrs. Washburn. When you have been married--”
+
+The remark was broken off by the abrupt entrance of the “abominable
+wretch” himself. Mrs. Washburn rose as he entered, and in spite of the
+abominable odor that his breath must have exhaled, printed a kiss upon
+his tobacco-stained lips.
+
+The lady “who had been married several years” was disgusted, and after
+a few words concerning the weather, took her leave.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Washburn was a pretty, affectionate, gentle-hearted wife. Her
+whole existence was bound up in her husband, as well it might be; for
+never was husband more devoted to his wife than he was. To our mind she
+was a model wife; none of your stormy vixens, that set their hearts
+upon attaining a point, and will pull the house down upon your head but
+they _will_ attain it.
+
+In her eye, Mr. Washburn had only one fault; and that was the
+villainous habit of smoking, which all her eloquence had been powerless
+to overcome. She didn’t “put her foot down,” as her friend, Mrs.
+Volant, had done; for--poor, gentle-hearted creature--she couldn’t
+think of provoking a quarrel with him, and had about concluded to make
+the best of it, and let him smoke in peace.
+
+But there was something so irresistibly funny about Mrs. Volant’s plan,
+that she determined to try it, and, accordingly, on the afternoon of
+the next day, she sent the Irish girl to the apothecary’s shop for a
+bunch of “Bagdad cigars.” Disposing a few of them in her work basket,
+ready for the momentous occasion, her mind pictured the scene that
+would ensue when she should light one of them. It was so funny that
+she laughed out loud at the idea. Wouldn’t he be surprised to see her,
+who had teased him so much to leave off smoking, commence the practice
+herself! Wouldn’t his eyes stick out, when he should see her puffing a
+cigar at her sewing, as he did when he read the evening paper!
+
+She was so pleased with the plan, that she would have put it in
+execution, even if it had been only for the sport it promised her,
+independently of any good result which might flow from it. Wouldn’t he
+beg her to smoke no more! Wouldn’t he be mortified, and wouldn’t she
+win the day, and glory over his defeat! Wouldn’t he be glad to promise
+her that he wouldn’t smoke another cigar as long as he lived! She was
+so delighted that she could hardly contain herself.
+
+Mr. Washburn came home to tea, and, as usual when he entered the house,
+he gave her a kiss, and a tender greeting. They were seated at the tea
+table; Mrs. Washburn was so full of mirth, that she came near scalding
+herself with the hot tea when she poured it out. Her merry, mischievous
+laugh rang pleasantly on her husband’s ear, who, poor fellow, could
+have had no idea of the terrible ordeal through which he was doomed to
+pass.
+
+When tea was over, the astral lamp transferred to the lightstand, and
+Mr. Washburn had stretched himself into a comfortable position in the
+large easy rocking chair, with his legs lazily reposing in another
+chair, the everlasting cigar was produced, lighted, and began to
+diffuse its fragrance through the room.
+
+Mrs. Washburn could hardly control her inclination to burst into a
+laugh at the mere thought of what she was about to do. Seating herself
+at the side of the table opposite her husband, she took from the
+work basket, with an air as brave and solemn as a judge, one of the
+“Bagdads.” Placing the filthy roll between her ruby lips, she glanced
+at her husband.
+
+“Now, Mr. Smoker,” thought she,--it would have spoiled the joke to
+have said it,--“we will see whether you don’t abandon that nasty habit.”
+
+Mr. Washburn happened to glance at her; but, contrary to her
+expectation, he manifested no surprise, and went on reading the
+Transcript.
+
+“So, so, Mr. Smoker,” thought she again, “you think I am joking, do
+you? I will soon convince you;” and the lady took a taper, and applied
+a light to the cigar.
+
+But Mrs. Washburn was rather inexperienced in the _modus operandi_
+of lighting a cigar, and she was unable to make it “go.” She lit
+another taper, and puffed away with all her might; but the Bagdad was
+as resolute as the great caliph himself. She persevered, till her
+extraordinary exertions again attracted the attention of Mr. Washburn.
+
+“You are lighting the wrong end, my dear,” said he, with the utmost
+_nonchalance_.
+
+“How provoking he is!” thought Mrs. Washburn. “Why don’t he
+remonstrate?”
+
+“You should bite off the twisted end, and then put it in your mouth,”
+continued the husband, turning to the paper again.
+
+Aided by these directions, the lady took another cigar, which she
+succeeded in lighting. The first taste of the tobacco smoke was
+horrible; but she had determined to be a martyr for her husband’s sake;
+and taking her sewing, she continued to puff away as she plied her
+needle, till a certain nausea compelled her to abandon the experiment
+for that time. Casting the Bagdad into the grate, she began to wish she
+had not listened to Mrs. Volant.
+
+“What is the matter, my dear? Wasn’t it a good cigar? Try mine; they
+are Monte Christos of the first quality,” and the imperturbable Mr.
+Washburn offered her a choice from his case.
+
+“No, I thank you, my dear; I will not smoke any more to-night.”
+
+“But what’s the matter, Mary? You are as pale as a sheet!”
+
+“I feel a little faint; I shall be better in a moment,” and Mrs.
+Washburn was obliged to leave the room.
+
+Poor woman! she was sick all the evening! But the next day, Mrs.
+Volant, who had called to learn the success of the experiment, advised
+her to try again, assuring her it would not make her sick the second
+time.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Mr. Washburn had a couple of his intimate friends at his house to play
+a game of whist the next evening, and the devoted wife resolved to try
+the effect of a smoke in their presence.
+
+When the party were seated, Mr. Washburn passed round his cigar case.
+
+“Won’t you smoke, my dear?” asked he, tendering the cigars to his wife.
+
+“I will; but you know, Joseph, that I never smoke _your_ cigars; they
+do not suit my taste.”
+
+Whew! that was cool!
+
+Mrs. Washburn lit a Bagdad.
+
+“Is it possible you smoke, Mrs. Washburn?” asked Mr. Barnes, astonished
+at the singular spectacle of a woman puffing away at a cigar, for all
+the world, like a loafer in a bar room.
+
+“Occasionally, just to please my husband,” replied Mrs. Washburn, after
+she had blown out a long wreath of blue smoke.
+
+“Yes, Barnes,” interposed Mr. Washburn; “it is more sociable, you know,
+to have company when one smokes. We are generally alone in the evening,
+and she is so kind as to smoke with me. Ah, Barnes, teach _your_ wife
+to smoke, it is so pleasant to smoke with one’s wife.”
+
+The lady was thunderstruck. Was it possible that he had no more respect
+for the proprieties of life than that? She smoke? She had already
+acquired the reputation of being a smoker, without having produced any
+of the anticipated good results.
+
+Mrs. Washburn threw the lighted Bagdad into the stove. She had almost
+cried with vexation.
+
+“Not smoke, my dear?” said her husband.
+
+“I think you can be sociable to-night, if I don’t smoke.”
+
+“_Do_ smoke, my dear; it gives me so much pleasure to see _you_ enjoy a
+good cigar.”
+
+“That’s too bad, Joseph.”
+
+Mr. Washburn laughed outright, and throwing down his cards, explained
+the event of the preceding evening.
+
+“I will own up; I did it to break him of the habit. I give it up!”
+
+When the gentlemen had taken their leave, Mrs. Washburn explained by
+whose advice she had adopted the plan.
+
+“Mrs. Volant has the reputation of being a perfect shrew. Her husband
+is a laughing stock for all State Street. She is a bad adviser.”
+
+“How slick you have turned the joke upon me!” said Mrs. Washburn,
+laughing heartily.
+
+“To tell the truth, I overheard some of your conversation when the plot
+was laid.”
+
+“O, ho! you did? No wonder it failed, then.”
+
+“I did; but, Mary, are you so very much against my smoking? I love the
+weed, but I love you more;” and Mr. Washburn kissed her tenderly.
+
+“Nay, I will say no more about it. Perhaps I was selfish.”
+
+“Not selfish; I will leave it off, my dear, for your sake.”
+
+“No, no; I don’t want you to do so. If you are so very fond of smoking,
+I never will say another word about it.”
+
+And Mr. Washburn has smoked his cigar in peace ever since.
+
+
+
+
+“OUT OF BUSINESS;”
+
+OR,
+
+THE HISTORY OF A SPLENDID “BUST-UP.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“Out of business, are you, Ned? Well, that is bad,” said Mr. Joseph
+Murdock, a stock broker, to his nephew.
+
+“Decidedly bad.”
+
+“But why did you leave Green & Smith? That is a good concern.”
+
+“Salary was too small.”
+
+“Better than you get _now_, at all events,” replied the worthy old
+gentleman, with a look of displeasure.
+
+“Couldn’t pay my way on it.”
+
+“Not on five hundred dollars!” and ‘uncle Joe,’ as he was commonly
+called, held up both hands in astonishment.
+
+“I am in debt at this moment,” returned Ned, with a rueful glance at
+his uncle.
+
+“And likely to be. Of course you don’t expect to pay your debts by
+wandering about the streets.”
+
+“I expect to find business again.”
+
+“You do not expect to get five hundred dollars the first year, do you?”
+
+“I intend to strike for a thousand.”
+
+“Strike! you won’t hit it.”
+
+“Perhaps I shall.”
+
+“Ned, you are going to the deuse as fast as high living and dissipation
+in general will carry you.”
+
+“Why, uncle, I’m sure you don’t know me.”
+
+“Sit down, Ned; let us talk it over. I want a young man in my office,
+and perhaps we can make a trade.”
+
+“Thousand dollars, uncle Joseph;” and Ned Murdock attempted to look sly.
+
+“Not out of me, Ned.”
+
+“Can’t live on less.”
+
+“Better die then. I want a young man to assist my bookkeeper, run of
+errands----”
+
+“An errand boy, you mean;” and Ned felt hurt at the slight put upon his
+dignity.
+
+“An errand boy, then. My clerk intends to go into business for himself
+one of these days, and if you are attentive to business, here is an
+opportunity to advance yourself;” and uncle Joe looked seriously into
+the face of his nephew.
+
+“What is the salary?”
+
+“Four hundred, for the present.”
+
+“I should starve on it.”
+
+“Live within your means. When I was of your age, I lived on two
+hundred.”
+
+“Times have changed since then.”
+
+“What do you pay for board, Ned?”
+
+“Six dollars a week. I board at a hotel.”
+
+“Six dollars a week! Ned, you are crazy;” and uncle Joe’s eyes stuck
+out “like two tallow candles.”
+
+“Two of us room together in the attic, so that they board us low.”
+
+“Should think they did--low for them, but high for you. Costs you a
+hundred for clothes, I suppose, don’t it?”
+
+“About that,” replied Ned, evasively.
+
+“Do you go to the ‘play’ often?”
+
+“Not above once a week, except when there are ‘stars’ on.”
+
+“Not _above_ once a week! Ned, you are an extravagant dog; you will die
+in the poorhouse!”
+
+“Pshaw! Uncle Joseph, _you_ are old-fashioned!”
+
+“If it is old-fashioned to live within one’s means, to pay one’s debts,
+and wear an honest face, then--thank God!--I _am_ old-fashioned,”
+replied the worthy old gentleman, with considerable spirit.
+
+“I mean to be honest, and practise all your old-fashioned virtues.”
+
+“You can’t do it, Ned, on five hundred dollars a year with your habits.”
+
+“Can’t be honest?”
+
+“No; it is not honest to run up a bill at your tailor’s which you have
+not the ability to pay; it is not honest to get in debt to support
+extravagant habits.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say that I am _dis_honest, uncle Joseph?” asked the
+young man, with a blush on his cheek.
+
+“Well, well, we won’t talk about _that_, now. I want a young man, and
+if you have a mind to lay aside your extravagances, and go into my
+office determined to stick to your business, I will see to the rest.”
+
+“What salary shall I have, uncle Joseph?”
+
+“Four hundred the first year,” replied uncle Joseph, firmly.
+
+“But I can’t live on that.”
+
+“Yes, you can. Leave your hotel and board in a private family. Quit the
+theatre and the opera, and pay as you go.”
+
+“But my debts?”
+
+“How much do you owe?”
+
+“About two hundred and fifty dollars.”
+
+Uncle Joe scratched his head, contracted his eyebrows, and looked
+decidedly stormy.
+
+“Bad business, Ned,” said he, after a few moments’ consideration. “I
+could easily get you out of the scrape, provided I saw any hope of
+amendment on your part. You don’t even say that you will reform.”
+
+“To be serious, uncle Joseph, I can’t see how I can reform. I must
+_live_, you know.”
+
+“And you must live within your means.”
+
+At this moment the penny post deposited a letter on the table, by the
+side of the stock broker, the contents of which perfectly amazed him.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+The letter was from the attorney of Miss Mary Marker, a maiden aunt
+of Ned Murdock, formerly residing at the west. It contained the
+intelligence of the spinster’s death. The old lady, happening to have
+a fit of generosity when she made her will, had bequeathed to her
+graceless nephew the sum of ten thousand dollars.
+
+Here was a godsend, and Ned leaped up six feet in the air, with
+astonishment and delight.
+
+But the worthy stock broker was troubled; for although he was a broker,
+he was a good Christian, and had the welfare of his dissolute nephew
+near his heart. There was something about the youth that he liked,
+notwithstanding he went to the play and boarded at a fashionable hotel.
+
+His only object was the reformation of the young man, whose ruin and
+premature decay were foreshadowed in his daily habits. His proposition
+to employ him in his own office was merely a stratagem to obtain a hold
+upon him.
+
+This legacy seemed to step between him and the accomplishment of his
+benevolent purpose.
+
+“What are you going to do with this money, Ned?” asked he with a
+troubled countenance; “I am named, as your guardian, you perceive.”
+
+“Bah, guardian! I am twenty-one next week, uncle Joseph,” replied the
+young man, unable to conceal the elation the astounding intelligence
+had produced in his mind.
+
+“True; but this legacy may be the ruin of you, Ned.”
+
+“You are absurd, uncle.”
+
+“I am sorry your aunt died so soon; I wish she could have been
+prevailed upon to live till you had come to the years of discretion.”
+
+“If I had known she intended to remember me in her will, I should
+certainly have expressed my desire that she might have lived forever,
+or some such hyperbole.”
+
+“What are you going to do, Ned? It is rather a serious question.”
+
+“Time enough to decide it when I get the money.”
+
+“Take my advice Ned; settle yourself down in some quiet position; get
+another clerkship; don’t go into business till you are more experienced
+in the ways of the world. You had better accept my offer, and take your
+first lesson in learning to live within your means.”
+
+“Be an errand boy on four hundred dollars a year, when I have ten
+thousand dollars in my possession? Did they do so in old times?” and
+Ned bestowed a good-natured sneer upon his quiet old uncle.
+
+“They learned to creep before they walked. If it will make any
+difference, I will give you the same salary you received at Green &
+Smith’s.”
+
+“Couldn’t think of it, uncle Joseph. A thousand would not procure my
+services _now_.”
+
+The stock broker sighed. Ned was as good as lost, in his opinion. There
+was no hope for him, and much as it troubled him, he saw no method of
+preventing the catastrophe.
+
+For an hour longer, uncle Joe tried to prevail upon his wilful nephew
+to adopt a system of prudent living, and preserve his capital until a
+favorable opportunity occurred for investing it.
+
+Ned was resolute. Visions of balls, operas, theatres, fast horses,
+and a rich wife, flitted before his excited imagination. The sum of
+ten thousand dollars appeared to be inexhaustible. In vain uncle Joe
+reasoned that its possession was only equivalent to an income of six
+hundred dollars. Ned was sure of being worth twenty thousand in five
+years, and fifty in ten. It never occurred to him that fast horses and
+the opera could not be supported without encroaching upon the principal.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+While they were debating the question, Tom Murdock, a cousin of Ned,
+entered the office.
+
+“Ah, Tom,” said Ned, “here we are; I had quite forgotten to inform our
+good uncle that you too were out of business.”
+
+“Is it possible!” exclaimed uncle Joseph. “Both out of business? I hope
+you have not been foolish, Tom.”
+
+“No, uncle, Tom is never foolish--one of your dignified boys--proper,
+and all that sort of thing,” replied Ned.
+
+“My services were no longer required. You know I only supplied the
+place of another,” added Tom.
+
+“You have been there three months.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“On thirty dollars a month!” added Ned, “and saved money at that. Tom
+will just fit your place, uncle.”
+
+“Do you want a clerk, uncle Joseph?” asked Tom, meekly.
+
+“I thought of having another; but it is very small pay,” answered the
+stock broker, a little nettled; for he had created the want only to
+save the reputation of Ned.
+
+“I should be very glad to enter your service, even at a small salary.
+Anything is better than being out of business.”
+
+“Right, Tom, right!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “The salary is four
+hundred, and you shall have the place.”
+
+And Tom took the place, while Ned, instead of adopting his uncle’s
+excellent advice, moved down two flights at the hotel, rode out to
+Porter’s every day, and went to the opera every night.
+
+In due time the legacy reached uncle Joseph, who placed Ned in full
+possession.
+
+In another month a large gilt sign, bearing the “name and style” of a
+new firm, (E. Murdock & Co.,) astonished the mercantile world, and Ned
+was no longer out of business.
+
+The dignity of the new firm--the “Co.” was merely a flourish of the
+artist’s pencil to give _éclat_ to the thing--demanded that the senior
+partner should have a wife. Fortunately for the felicitous carrying
+out of Ned’s idea on this subject, things had for several months been
+progressing towards this event.
+
+Our young merchant had paid his addresses to the daughter of a
+mercantile man, reputed to be wealthy; and now that he “had come to his
+possessions,” there was no obstacle to an immediate marriage.
+
+A house in a fashionable street was procured; the cage being ready,
+the bird was caught, and Ned found himself in the full enjoyment of
+life. He was no nigger, and things went on swimmingly. Dinner parties,
+and tea parties, and evening parties followed each other in rapid
+succession.
+
+Money flowed like water. Notes on three, six, and nine months were
+given, and Ned said the business was bound to prosper.
+
+One half of his legacy only had been invested in his business at the
+commencement of the operation. Six, nine, and twelve months did the
+rest. But his housekeeping affairs absorbed the other half in less than
+six months. His wife was from a rich family, he reasoned, and must be
+supported in state.
+
+At the end of those six months, when the first of the notes became due,
+Ned was not a little astonished to find that he had nothing to pay them
+with. He looked over his books to see where the ten thousand had gone
+to; it was only dust in the balance when weighed against his business
+and his family expenditures.
+
+Bad debts and unfortunate speculations stared him in the face from
+every page, and Ned began to be a little troubled. A dim consciousness
+that he had been going too fast crept into his mind. It was a
+disagreeable reflection, and when he went home to dinner that day, he
+dodged round a corner to avoid meeting uncle Joe.
+
+In the mean time, Tom had acquitted himself to the entire satisfaction
+of his uncle. The head clerk had left, and he had been installed
+in his place. Living within his means, indulging in no fashionable
+dissipations, the future was bright with hope.
+
+
+_CHAPTER IV._
+
+One morning, while Ned was pondering the unsatisfactory state of his
+affairs, a neighbor brought him the news of the failure of his wife’s
+father.
+
+Ned was horrified, for, it must be confessed, that in his present
+emergency, he had based some rather extravagant hopes on the fact of
+having a rich father-in-law.
+
+It was a heavy stroke to his philosophy. The little financial theory
+based upon his rich wife, which he had matured to meet the approaching
+emergency, suddenly and violently exploded.
+
+A five hundred dollar note came due that day, and he had been thinking
+of dropping into his father-in-law’s counting-room about one o’clock,
+to see if he had “any thing over.”
+
+The thought of applying to uncle Joe occurred to him; but the worthy
+old gentleman was too blunt by half, and would be likely to tell him
+some homely truths.
+
+The day wore away with vain devisings of means to extricate himself
+from his embarrassments. The note was not paid--was protested.
+
+The next day, people, who had long suspected that Ned was travelling
+too fast, began to see with a clear vision the true state of the case.
+Before two o’clock, Ned was in chancery!
+
+“How is this, Ned?” asked uncle Joseph, entering the counting room.
+
+“Don’t mention it, uncle; don’t mention it! Before you say a word, I
+will own that you were all right, and I was all wrong,” replied Ned,
+groaning in spirit.
+
+“I did not come to reproach you, Ned; far from it. I gave the best
+advice I was capable of giving; but as you did not deem it advisable to
+follow it, of course I shall not taunt you in your troubles.”
+
+This was kind of uncle Joseph, and it was spoken in a kindly manner,
+without the slightest appearance of that triumphant “I knew it
+would be so,” which wise old men sometimes assume. It went to Ned’s
+heart, for Ned had a heart, notwithstanding the little foibles of his
+character.
+
+“Why did you not come to me for assistance, Ned? I always meant well by
+you.”
+
+“My case was a hopeless one; and to tell the truth, uncle Joseph, after
+what passed between us, I was ashamed to meet you.”
+
+“Fie, Ned!” and the old gentleman was highly flattered by his nephew’s
+humility.
+
+“I wish I had accepted your offer, even at a salary of four hundred
+dollars a year. I should have been a great deal better off now.”
+
+“Well, well, we will not mind that now. The place is still open.”
+
+“Is it?” asked Ned, eagerly.
+
+“Tom is my head clerk. Of course I could not displace him.”
+
+“No, certainly not.”
+
+“But as you have a wife, I will make the salary six hundred now.”
+
+“Thank you, uncle; I will gladly accept the place.”
+
+Ned did accept it, and though it was a sad fall from his former
+position, he took his place at the desk in his uncle’s office as the
+assistant of Tom, with the best grace in the world.
+
+It is surprising how misfortunes will humble a man; how they will make
+him accept with joy a position at which, in the days of his prosperity,
+he turned up his nose in disgust.
+
+Mrs. Murdock, was, in the main, a sensible person, and made the best
+of her altered circumstances. Three rooms in a retired street were
+obtained, to supply the place of the fashionable residence in Tremont
+street, and the young couple went to housekeeping on a reduced scale.
+
+Ned kept within his means this time. The humiliation of his fall
+gradually wore away, and he was surprised to find himself and his wife
+much happier than when they had been surrounded by all the appliances
+of wealth and luxury.
+
+Ned remained three years with uncle Joseph, who annually increased his
+salary, thus enabling him to add to the comforts of life, and still
+keep within his means.
+
+At the end of this period, the old gentleman, finding himself old
+enough and rich enough to retire, gave up his business to his two
+nephews, who, we are happy to record, are now doing remarkably well.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+MORAL.--When you are out of business, do not be over nice; and when you
+have a legacy left to you, do not be rash.
+
+
+
+
+“SIX MONTHS AFTER DATE.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“You are of course aware of the object of my repeated visits at your
+house, Mr. Miller?” stammered George Harrison to the father of his
+intended.
+
+“O, yes, of course,” replied the father, carelessly.
+
+“And you must be favorably disposed towards the matter, or you would
+not have permitted it to continue as long as it has.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Harrison, those are affairs that I don’t like to meddle
+with, though my opinion is, a great deal of judgment ought to be used
+in relation to them.”
+
+“Certainly, sir; they affect the parties for life,” replied George,
+seriously.
+
+“You do not intend to be married at present, do you?”
+
+“Yes, sir; we have been thinking of it; that is, not under a month.”
+
+“A month! Pray, Mr. Harrison, what have you got to support a wife
+with?” asked the careful father, gazing with considerable astonishment
+into the face of the candidate for matrimony.
+
+“Well, sir, I have not got much now, it is true; but I think I shall be
+able to pay my way.”
+
+“You _think_ so, but you may be laboring under a mistake. Young men are
+apt to be rash.”
+
+“I am going into business, as you are aware, next week. I have hired a
+store, and have no doubt I shall do well.”
+
+“I suppose not. Have you the capital wherewith to stock your store?”
+
+“My capital is small, but I have friends.”
+
+“Every body has friends. Who are they?”
+
+“There is Mr. Redman, who offers to let me have half my stock on six
+months.”
+
+“And the other half?”
+
+“I can obtain it on the same terms from other parties.”
+
+“And you propose to lay in all your stock on six months’ credit?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Rather a dangerous scheme, young man.”
+
+“I think not. I have no doubt that I shall be able to sell goods enough
+to pay most of the notes; if not, I can easily get them renewed.”
+
+“You are confident.”
+
+“Perhaps I am vain; but I trust a great deal to my ability as a
+salesman. Why, Smith, Jones, & Co. offered me a thousand dollars for
+the next year if I would stay with them.”
+
+“You had better accept the offer, young man.”
+
+“I think not; if I am worth a thousand dollars to them, I am worth it
+to myself. No, sir; I mean to have the benefit of my own talents.”
+
+“Bah!” exclaimed the prudent Mr. Miller.
+
+“Perhaps I _am_ vain.”
+
+“You are, Mr. Harrison. You will find that your ability in a concern
+like that of Smith, Jones, & Co. is much more available than it would
+be in your own hands.”
+
+“We differ in that matter,” replied George Harrison, with some display
+of wounded dignity. “If you please, we will turn to the subject to
+which my present visit relates.”
+
+“To be sure, young man, if you wish. I have no desire to force my
+advice upon you, though I cannot help thinking you had better heed the
+counsel of those who are older and more experienced than you are.”
+
+“I am very willing to hear any advice.”
+
+“More willing to hear it than to follow it.”
+
+“I wish to be reasonable. If a young man never attempts to better his
+condition, it is plain that he never will get ahead in the world.”
+
+“Very true; but let him labor as hard as he may, without proper
+discretion, he never will succeed.”
+
+“You question my judgment, do you, sir?” asked George, rather sharply.
+
+“Excuse me, Mr. Harrison, but I do. The relation in which you stand to
+my family prompts me to speak very plain. No man in his senses would
+stock his store on six months’ credit, and expect to succeed. How can
+you pay your notes, coming all together as they do?”
+
+“With your leave, I will take care of that matter,” replied George,
+with dignity.
+
+“Very well,” replied Mr. Miller, smiling at the young man’s warmth.
+“You propose to be married in about a month?”
+
+“We do.”
+
+“Have you got a house?”
+
+“I have looked at one.”
+
+“Have you the means of furnishing it?”
+
+“Rowe & Co. have offered to sell it to me on six months.”
+
+“Then in six months, Mr. Harrison, I will talk with you about marriage.
+In the mean time, I must decline all negotiation.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+George Harrison was a “crack salesman,” and save and excepting that he
+rather over-estimated his talents and business ability, he was a fine
+fellow.
+
+He did not believe in looking on the dark side of things. His heart was
+full of hope, and he confidently expected that whatever he put his hand
+upon would be instantly turned into money.
+
+George was a young man of spirit, and he did not relish the manner in
+which his prospective father-in-law had treated him.
+
+“He used me like a boy,” mumbled George, as he left the counting room
+of Mr. Miller; “just as though he knew every thing, and I didn’t know
+any thing. But I’ll teach him better than that.”
+
+Directing his steps to the house of Mr. Miller, he found Hannah, his
+lady love, arrayed for a walk.
+
+“I have bad news, my dear,” said he.
+
+“Bad news! Why, what, George?”
+
+“Let us walk to the Common, and I will tell you all about it.”
+
+Seated on one of the stone seats by the “Frog Pond,” George narrated
+the substance of his interview with Mr. Miller.
+
+“But he only postponed the matter for six months George,” said Hannah,
+relieved by his statement. “Perhaps it would be better to put it off.”
+
+“You know, dearest, we intended to be married next month.”
+
+“Still, we can wait.”
+
+“There is no need of waiting, Hannah.”
+
+“Perhaps there is not; but if my father thinks so, hadn’t we better
+humor him?”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+“Why, what would you do?”
+
+“Be married;” and George told her how romantic it would be to run away
+to New York, and come home man and wife--how it would surprise their
+friends.
+
+Hannah’s “spirit” was fully equal to that of George; and the moment she
+began to feel that her “cruel father” was persecuting them, she was
+ready for any thing, even for an elopement.
+
+The arrangement was made, and George hired the house he had looked
+at. Rowe & Co. furnished it, and took George’s note on six months in
+payment, with a mortgage for security.
+
+The new store was opened, and things went on “swimmingly.” Business was
+good, and every body said George was making money “hand over fist.”
+
+At the appointed time the elopement took place. The newspapers duly
+chronicled the event, and, for a time, George was a lion. The ladies,
+eager to behold and converse with a gentleman who had the “spunk” to
+tear a persecuted daughter from the grasp of a cruel father, and elope
+with her, flocked to his store. The elopement was a decided hit, and
+George’s gains were largely augmented by it.
+
+The happy couple took up their residence in the new house. It was
+beautifully furnished, and Hannah felt that she was a queen in
+paradise. To her the day was not long enough to hold all the happiness
+that crowded upon her.
+
+And her father, too, instead of treating her harshly after the rash
+step she had taken, came to see her, was as kind to her as though
+nothing had happened, and never said a single word about the elopement.
+Her cup of joy was full.
+
+George was a prince. He was coining money; he snapped his fingers at
+the notes, and wondered what Mr. Miller said now!
+
+Flushed with success, he returned home one night after an unusually
+good day’s sale, and, after kissing his wife--they were just
+married,--and playfully chucking her under the chin, he vented his
+exuberant satisfaction in a rhapsody on the joys of life.
+
+“Happy as princes!” exclaimed he. “The money pours in as fast as I care
+to handle it.”
+
+“How glad I am!” responded Hannah, artlessly.
+
+“We have nothing more to wish for, have we, Hannah?”
+
+“Well, I don’t know.”
+
+“You don’t know! Why, I thought you were perfectly happy.”
+
+“So I am, dear George; but I was thinking, the other day, how pleasant
+it would be to have a piano in the house,” replied she, with some
+little diffidence.
+
+“So it would, Hannah; what a dolt I have been not to think of it! I
+have felt all along as though there was some thing wanting.”
+
+“But I hope, George, you will not buy one if you cannot afford to do
+so.”
+
+“Afford to! Certainly I can; I shall be a rich man in one year. You
+shall have one of Chickering’s best to-morrow.”
+
+On the following day the piano came. George paid cash for it from his
+surplus funds. But no sooner had the piano come than Hannah began to
+feel that the rest of their furniture in the parlor did not correspond
+with it. George agreed with the proposition, and their parlor furniture
+was sent to Leonard’s forthwith. A new and expensive set was furnished,
+and paid for in cash.
+
+Thus things went on for several months. It took all of George’s profits
+to keep house and buy the new things which were every day discovered to
+be wanting.
+
+The dull season had come on, and George suddenly found that there was
+no more business to be done. He had not even money enough at the end
+of six months to pay his second quarter’s rent, to say nothing of the
+notes which came due at that time.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+The six months had fully expired, even down to the last day of grace.
+
+Hannah sat at the piano, playing “Home, sweet home,” anxiously waiting
+the return of George. The hour at which he usually came home had gone
+by, and she occasionally cast an impatient glance at the clock.
+
+She had observed that for several days he had worn a troubled air,
+and had even been so cross as to repulse her when she offered her
+accustomed caress; but the thought that his business matters were in
+an embarrassed condition never occurred to her. He had often boasted
+of his success, and of course she had no reason to dread the calamity
+which her father had pointed out to her before her marriage.
+
+A violent pull at the door bell started her from the piano. A
+rough-looking person was ushered into her presence.
+
+“Very sorry, ma’am,” said he, with an awkward bow; “but I’ve come to
+take possession.”
+
+“What do you mean, sir?” exclaimed Hannah, affrighted by the crowd of
+disagreeable thoughts that rushed to her brain.
+
+“Why, simply, ma’am, that the notes haven’t been paid, and Mr.
+Harrison’s creditors have attached the property. This furniture now
+belongs to Messrs. Rowe & Co.”
+
+The deputy sheriff, having placed a keeper over the goods, politely
+bowed himself out, leaving Hannah a prey to a thousand anxious
+forebodings.
+
+The arrival of George was an intense relief to her.
+
+“Just as I supposed!” exclaimed he. “My creditors have had their heads
+together, and every thing has gone by the board at once.”
+
+“Pray, what does it all mean, George?” asked Hannah.
+
+“I have failed; my creditors have driven me into an assignment. I am a
+beggar.”
+
+“Why, George, I thought you were doing remarkably well.”
+
+“I was; but, with all the business I have done, I doubt if I could ever
+have met these notes.”
+
+“But how much do you owe, George? Can’t you sell the piano, and pay it?”
+
+“It would be only a drop in the bucket. To come right to the fact, I
+suppose my creditors saw that I lived up to my income, and so it was no
+use for them to be gentle. I must find a situation now as a salesman,
+and we must give up this house, and board.”
+
+“You ought not to have bought that piano; you know I didn’t want you to
+if you couldn’t afford it.”
+
+“And a thousand other things ought not to have been bought. If I had
+saved the money, my creditors would probably have given me an extension
+on my paying a part of their demands. But it is too late now; I have
+been a fool. Your father was right after all.”
+
+“I am afraid he was; but here he comes.”
+
+“Six months after date,” said Mr. Miller, entering the room.
+
+“You were right, sir; I have been a fool,” replied George, with due
+humility.
+
+“Well, the victory is half won when you see the error. But I have not
+come to reproach you for your folly, George. How much do you owe?”
+
+George stated the amount.
+
+“Very well,” continued Mr. Miller. “I have already seen your creditors,
+and with my name on your paper, they have agreed to give you an
+extension.”
+
+“Sir!” exclaimed George, starting back in amazement.
+
+“But you must let Messrs. Rowe & Co. take these useless traps; your
+house is furnished well enough for a prince.”
+
+“George is fully sensible where the error lies, father; we are ready to
+profit by the lesson.”
+
+“All right. Young folks _think_ that old folks are fools, and old folks
+_know_ that young ones are. Well, well; we must live and learn.”
+
+“I am _very_ grateful to you, sir,” began George.
+
+“There, there! that will do. All I desire is, your prosperity. When I
+objected to your marriage, I foresaw the event which has now happened.
+You have done remarkably well in your business; but the best business
+in the world wouldn’t pay for a stock of goods in six months, to say
+nothing about a thousand dollars in furniture and knick-knacks.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+George went to work again on a better principle. When he entered a note
+on his “Bills Payable,” it was not until after he had made a close
+calculation upon the means of meeting it. He was successful at last,
+though, like a majority of young men on the same street, he won his way
+to success through failure and disaster, over the rough road of bitter
+experience.
+
+A smaller house was procured, and furnished in a neat and plain style,
+and Hannah is quite as happy as she was during the honeymoon in her
+more ample establishment, especially as George--who is now never
+embarrassed by money matters--is always cheerful, contented, and withal
+a loving and devoted husband; and the prospect now is, that he will be
+so “_Six Months after Date_.”
+
+
+
+
+A WORLD OF TROUBLES.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“I am so glad you have come, Thomas!” exclaimed Mrs. Butler, a pale,
+care-worn young wife, as her husband entered the room in which she had
+prepared the evening meal.
+
+“Why, what is the matter _now_?” returned the husband, laying a wicked
+emphasis upon the word “now,” as though he meant to imply that there
+always was something the matter.
+
+“Nothing; only I wanted you to bring in a pail of water, for I am _so_
+tired, that I declare I can hardly keep upon my feet.”
+
+“Is that all? I did not know but what the baby had had a fit, or got
+scalded, or something of that sort.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind; I have trouble enough to get along with, without
+sickness in the family. I feel just as though I should die every night
+when I get my work done;” and Mrs. Butler sighed, as she placed the
+smoking tea upon the table, and threw herself into a chair, apparently
+so exhausted that she could not have stood another moment.
+
+“You must have a girl, Mary; you know I don’t want you to work so hard.
+I have often told you so before,” said Mr. Butler.
+
+“A girl, indeed! Can you afford to keep a girl, Thomas?”
+
+“Certainly, I can. I am earning twelve dollars a week now, and I am
+sure our expenses are not above eight. A dollar and a half a week added
+to this sum would leave me a handsome surplus.”
+
+“Just like you, Thomas; that is one of your calculations.”
+
+“Certainly, that is one of _my_ calculations,” replied Mr. Butler, a
+little tartly.
+
+“I suppose you wouldn’t reckon any thing for a girl’s board,” sneered
+the wife.
+
+“A mere trifle.”
+
+“Every thing is a mere trifle with you.”
+
+Thomas stuffed half a hot biscuit into his mouth to help him keep his
+temper.
+
+“And then she would waste double her wages,” continued the lady.
+
+“Pshaw! that is an old woman’s bugbear,” replied Butler, impatiently.
+
+“Yes; that’s just the way you always talk.”
+
+“It is correct talk, though.”
+
+“Girls don’t waste, I suppose?”
+
+“I presume they do, many of them; but you abominably exaggerate the
+amount.”
+
+“No, I don’t; I say they waste double their wages.”
+
+“No such thing.”
+
+“Ask any one who has kept them.”
+
+“What articles do they waste to such an enormous extent?”
+
+“Every thing--provisions, groceries; and they burn up twice as much
+fuel as there is any kind of need of.”
+
+“Twice as much?”
+
+“Yes; _twice_ as much.”
+
+“Let me see;” and Thomas pulled out a bit of paper and a pencil, and
+went to figuring with all his might. “We use three tons of coal in six
+months. Twice as much would be six tons, which would come to forty-two
+dollars, or twenty-one dollars waste. That is eighty cents a week.”
+
+“Clear waste!” exclaimed Mrs. Butler, with palpable horror depicted on
+her countenance.
+
+“Now, allow that she wastes one-half the provisions and one-half the
+groceries, which is absurd, and she would just double my bills. They
+were fifty-two dollars for the last six months, which makes a waste
+of two dollars per week. Why, Mary, we have only made the waste to be
+two dollars and eighty cents even with these figures. Double her wages
+would be three dollars.”
+
+“She would waste enough, as you would find out to your sorrow, if you
+kept one,” added Mrs. Butler, not pleased with the state of her side of
+the argument.
+
+“You don’t believe she _could_ waste half the fuel and stores?”
+
+Mrs. Butler did not believe it, but she did not like to say so.
+
+“Probably, my dear, under your excellent supervision, she could not
+possibly waste more than fifty cents a week.”
+
+“Well, that is twenty-six dollars a year.”
+
+“But I can afford to lose that, rather than that you should make a
+slave of yourself.”
+
+“I don’t want a girl; it would be more work to look after her than it
+would be to do the work myself.”
+
+“As you please, my dear.”
+
+“I don’t want your friends to think, you have got an extravagant wife.”
+
+“Fudge on my friends!”
+
+“Yes, it is easy enough for _you_ to say so.”
+
+“And for you, too, if you choose.”
+
+“I don’t want to spend all we get.”
+
+“Nor I, my dear; but, to be very plain with you, I had much rather do
+it, than hear you everlastingly complain how hard you have to work.”
+
+“Don’t I work hard?”
+
+“I don’t know but you do.”
+
+“Just think what I have to do.”
+
+“Well, I have to work hard, too; but I am sure it does not make one
+feel any better to be continually grumbling about it.”
+
+“Who’s grumbling? Can’t a body speak without being accused of
+grumbling?” said Mrs. Butler, rather pettishly.
+
+“I only mean to say, that you work twice as hard with your imagination
+as you do with your hands; your thoughts make the work hard.”
+
+“Yes, it is easy for you to say so,” said the wife, wiping away the
+tears from her wan cheeks.
+
+“When have I come into the house, Mary, for the last six months, and
+you have not told me a heap of troubles as big as a mountain? I can’t
+stand it.”
+
+“I never thought you _could_ be so harsh to _me_. You did not use to
+speak to me in that way,” sobbed Mary, feeling that she was the most
+cruelly used wife in the world.
+
+“You irritate me with your troubles.”
+
+“I can’t help my troubles; I do the best I can to keep your house in
+order, and take good care of the baby.”
+
+“I never found any fault with your management. I am abundantly pleased
+with all you do, save and except your croaking and grumbling.”
+
+“What can I do?”
+
+“Go about your work cheerfully, and with a disposition to make the best
+of every thing. By a cheerful and contented disposition, you will make
+even the hardest day of toil a day of satisfaction. You look darkly
+upon your lot, and that makes it black.”
+
+“I can’t help my feelings.”
+
+“Yes, you can, Mary. At any rate, you ought not to imbitter my
+existence with your incessant complainings.”
+
+“I have tried to make you happy.”
+
+“If you have, you have signally failed; for it has come to that, I
+almost hate to come into the house, so much do I dread to hear your
+tale of woe.”
+
+“I will try to do better.”
+
+“Do, Mary; home will become a curse to me instead of the brightest spot
+upon earth, as it ought to be, if you do not.”
+
+The baby cried at this point of the conversation, and Mrs. Butler wiped
+away her tears, and took the little cherub from the cradle where he had
+been sleeping, all unconscious of the matrimonial squall which had been
+blowing around him.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+When Mrs. Butler was married, she was a bright, cheerful, and happy
+maiden. For more than a year she and her devoted husband had not known
+the meaning of matrimonial strife. It was a new state of existence to
+her, and while the novelty of the thing lasted, she was as happy as the
+day was long.
+
+But in the course of events, she was deprived of the pleasure of going
+abroad much, and the pretty home in which she had spent a year of
+joy, began to rust on her imagination. Not that her husband was less
+devoted; though he might not have been quite so dreamy and sentimental
+as he was in the days of their courtship, yet he was all that a
+reasonable wife could expect. He was indulgent, kind, and sympathized
+deeply with her in all those matters wherein a young wife needs
+tenderness and care.
+
+Little Bobby was born; but the little stranger made such a heap of
+work for the fond mother, that she declared she should die under the
+infliction. She would not listen to her husband’s suggestion to keep a
+girl. She had a kind of vanity in her composition, which led her to
+endure rather than subject her husband’s purse to such an expenditure.
+She feared folks would say she was not as “smart” as she wished to be
+considered, or that Thomas’s relations would deem her extravagant and
+lazy.
+
+She continued to do her work, though each day was a day of misery.
+Before she got breakfast, dinner, or tea, she sat and moped over it,
+thinking what a terrible hard job it was for her to perform. She
+dreaded washing day from about Friday morning; and over the washtub she
+was as miserable as soapsuds and a rubbing-board could possibly make
+her.
+
+The reader may imagine that she was lazy; but I do not think so. She
+lived in a “world of trouble;” she looked upon the dark side of every
+thing. Of course, there were many hardships she was called upon to
+endure--as who is not? She was obliged to keep occupied most of the
+time in the duties of the household and the care of the baby. Her
+position was undoubtedly one of trial and vexation, as those who are
+experienced in these matters will readily understand.
+
+But the principal difficulty was to be found in Mrs. Butler’s unhappy
+disposition. She was not cheerful and contented with her lot. Her
+morbid imagination magnified the little trials of every-day life into
+monstrous woes, and she suffered intolerably in her mind, which was
+communicated to the body. She was the most miserable of women--the most
+unreasonably miserable.
+
+Of course, her husband, who was of a directly opposite temperament,
+was rendered miserable, also. Mrs. Butler seemed so wedded to her woe,
+that every effort on his part to alleviate it was promptly repulsed.
+He had grown disgusted. His wife was always complaining. He never came
+into the house without being assailed by a relation of her woes. He
+cursed his stars--blamed himself for ever becoming a husband.
+
+But, then, poor fellow, what could he do? Mary was as gentle and
+pleasant a maiden before her marriage as one often finds. She had never
+been placed in a position to try her character. He might have heard her
+fret over a new dress that did not fit, or something of that sort; but
+he never dreamed that a tempest could ever blow out of such a little
+cloud. It was only when she felt the cold touch of life’s realities,
+that she showed out exactly what she was.
+
+It was too late now; the mischief had been done. She was his wife;
+she was the mother of little Bobby. He loved her still, though his
+affections had been terribly shocked by her thoughtless grumbling.
+
+Mary had promised to do better; but, alas for the vanity of human
+promises, they were words written in sand. The habit had become
+deep, rooted. Thomas was in despair. He had tried by threats and by
+persuasions to make her reasonable, but all in vain. His house was a
+hell to him. If she had scolded him, been negligent of her household
+duties, a gadder in the street, a gossip--anything but a grumbler, he
+felt that he could have endured it, loved her, and continued to be
+happy.
+
+But it was an ever present leaf of woe her countenance presented to
+him, and when home had ceased to be a pleasant place, he gradually
+absented himself, and the still loving but incorrigible wife smelt the
+rum in his breath when he returned from his evening amusements.
+
+[Illustration: A WORLD OF TROUBLE. Page 234.]
+
+One night, about two months after the conversation we have narrated,
+as the clock was striking the midnight hour, he was brought home,
+helplessly drunk, in the arms of two watchmen, who had picked him up in
+the street.
+
+What a sight for a young and loving wife, to behold the father of her
+child drunk! They placed him in bed, and she spent a sleepless night in
+weeping over his senseless, imbruted form. O, the agony of that bitter
+time! Her husband a drunkard! she a drunkard’s wife! Earth has its
+miseries, but none like those of the inebriate’s wife.
+
+Want, shame, the poorhouse, the court, and the prison rose before her
+with terrible vividness. A train of woes--real woes,--so long she could
+not see the end of it, marched in solemn procession before her. There
+was her child in rags, her husband a homeless, idle, degraded sot.
+There was the gaunt form of Hunger, the glaring eyes of the demons of
+crime--there was every thing there, from which the heart of woman would
+instinctively shrink.
+
+Thomas rose next morning and ate his breakfast in silence--the silence
+which shame seemed to impose upon him. He was about to leave his house
+for his workshop, when Mary spoke.
+
+“Thomas,” said she, in the subdued tones of anguish, while a flood of
+tears rained down her wan cheek.
+
+He looked at her, as though he had already divined what she meant to
+say.
+
+“Thomas, you can’t think how unhappy I was last night, when you
+were--when you came home.”
+
+“Well, what’s the matter now?” answered Thomas, sullenly.
+
+“O, Thomas, last night!”
+
+“Well, what of it?”
+
+Mary was amazed that no appearance of contrition mitigated his flagrant
+error.
+
+“You don’t come home in the evening now.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But you will come to-night, Thomas?”
+
+“Perhaps I will.”
+
+“Nay, you _will_?”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“Come for my sake, Thomas.”
+
+“Your sake! Well, that _is_ a good one,” replied he, coarsely.
+
+Mary was shocked.
+
+“Last night, you were--were----” she could say no more.
+
+“Yes, I _was_.”
+
+“You were----”
+
+“Drunk! Out with it.”
+
+“O, Thomas!”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“What misery is in store for us!”
+
+“Can’t help it.”
+
+“Nay, Thomas, promise that you will not----”
+
+“Get drunk,” laughed Thomas.
+
+“Do not again.”
+
+“Can’t promise.”
+
+“O God! has it come to this!”
+
+“Fact!”
+
+Mary threw herself into a chair, and wept as though her heart would
+break. The sight seemed to move the husband, who was not yet lost in
+transgression. A tear stole into his eye and he bent over her and took
+her hand.
+
+“Mary, I have sinned.”
+
+“You will not again?” said she, eagerly.
+
+“But, Mary, is there no fault on your part?”
+
+“My part?”
+
+“My home is hateful to me. Even the presence of that sleeping, innocent
+child removes not the curse which seems to hang over it.”
+
+“Why, Thomas, what do you mean?”
+
+“You know what I mean. Have I not often reasoned with you?”
+
+“O God!” exclaimed Mary, burying her face between her hands, conscious
+that the misery which menaced her was of her own seeking.
+
+“I never will complain of anything again as long as I live!” she
+continued.
+
+“Ah, Mary, I have often heard you say so before.”
+
+“Trust me, this time, Thomas.”
+
+“I will, Mary.”
+
+“Come home to-night; you shall find me all that you could wish.”
+
+“Bless you, Mary. I trust for your sake as well as my own, and for the
+sake of our own dear boy, that you may be true to your resolution.”
+
+“I will, Thomas,” replied she, with a gathering smile, as her husband
+kissed her.
+
+“And I promise never again to taste the fatal cup. You shall be
+the guardian of this my solemn pledge; for in no way can you more
+effectually secure the keeping of my promise, than by observing your
+own--in short, by making home happy.”
+
+Again the husband kissed her, and then went to his work.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+A drunkard’s wife! This was a real woe. What were all her little
+vexations compared with it? Mary’s resolution was a firm one, and in
+her earnestness to observe it, she knelt and prayed for strength from
+above to enable her to be equal to the duty before her.
+
+Last night a terrible fate had menaced her. The lot of a drunkard’s
+wife--the most appalling woe that can overtake a woman--had threatened
+to be her portion. The sombre cloud had risen, and her destiny was in
+her own hands.
+
+She knew her husband well enough to be satisfied that his pledge would
+be held sacred--that, till she drove him from his home by her unamiable
+peculiarity, he would be true to the words he had spoken.
+
+Grumbling is only a habit. It may even have a root in the natural
+temperament of the individual; but it is not an incurable disease. Mary
+felt that happiness here and hereafter depended upon her fidelity to
+the promise she had made--that a single complaining word would be like
+a match placed near the magazine--and another word would involve her in
+hopeless ruin.
+
+But she had sense enough to know, and she strove to feel that it were
+useless to avoid the word, while the disposition existed. It were
+useless to whitewash a sepulchre--it is still “full of dead men’s
+bones.” She determined to perform a radical cure. She resolved to _be_
+contented, and then the hasty word would not be spoken.
+
+She went about her daily duties with a feeling that a mountain had been
+removed from her heart. She was cheerful--happy--happy to feel that it
+was in her power to avert the terrible catastrophe which had menaced
+her--that she could avoid the yawning abyss that was before her.
+
+All her trials and vexations dwindled into trifles compared with the
+fate which last night had been so vividly presented to her imagination,
+and the comparison made her happy.
+
+Punctual to his accustomed hour, Thomas came home. He had not drank any
+thing, and he appeared cheerful and happy. She met him with a smiling
+face, and never mentioned a word of the difficulty that had beset her.
+She had even been so far as to draw a pail of water herself, and bring
+up a hod of coal; but she said nothing about it.
+
+They were happy again; but perhaps it was as much the effect in the
+contrast as the actual change in the circumstances. Thomas fondled
+little Bobby on his knees, and undressed and put him to bed himself.
+Mary was delighted, and from her soul she prayed that her own weakness
+might not dissolve the blissful picture of domestic happiness their
+home at that moment presented.
+
+A year passed by. Thomas was true to his vow, and Mary to hers.
+Whenever things went wrong with her, and the old spirit rose in her
+heart, her husband had only to say--
+
+“You absolve me from my oath, Mary?” and she became gentle and cheerful
+in an instant.
+
+Those words were a charm. That solemn promise broken, and again the
+poorhouse, the penitentiary, the bloated father, the ragged child, the
+long procession of woes rose in her mind, and she was true to herself.
+
+But she really improved her disposition. The habit was radically cured.
+The home of Thomas Butler is no more a “world of trouble;” it is “home,
+sweet home”--the abode of the angel of contentment, the dwelling-place
+of truth and love, and the most effectual preventive of the curse of
+drunkenness.
+
+Our story is not all a story--it is true to the letter. We beg the
+complaining wife to ask herself if she is not making for her husband
+a path to the drunkard’s grave--for herself and her children a bed of
+thorns.
+
+
+
+
+“SEND FOR THE DOCTOR.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+My excellent old uncle Jesse--peace to his ashes!--used to tell me that
+every thing depended on the “bringing up;” and a little experience in
+this world of strange men and things--but a very good world, for all
+that--has convinced me that he was considerably more than half right.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Some people have learned to depend upon themselves in the hour of
+peril. The energy, firmness, and decision of their own characters are
+their sword, shield, and steed when
+
+    “Giant danger threatening stands.”
+
+Their fortress is within themselves. They have been taught by their
+instructors or by their circumstances to rely upon their own strength.
+
+Others are weak, nervous and vacillating in the presence of danger,
+throwing the burden of their salvation on the shoulders of the first
+“Good Samaritan” who approaches them. Their tower of strength is
+the doctor, the minister, the lawyer, or some sympathizing friend.
+They have never been taught, either by their instructors or their
+circumstances, to depend upon their own resources, moral, mental, and
+physical, for guidance and support.
+
+If the house takes fire, one puts it out; but another runs to the
+church and rings the bell for his neighbors. If Tommy wheezes, papa,
+who has no confidence in himself, sends for the doctor; while mamma,
+who has been taught from childhood to think and act for herself, is in
+favor of giving the little fellow “an onion and a little goose oil.”
+
+But extremes are always silly or dangerous, as the case may be. People
+laugh at papa, because he is so ridiculously timid; and mamma delays
+sending for the physician till Tommy is almost dead with the croup.
+One lets his house burn down while he is summoning his friends to help
+him put it out; and another’s is destroyed because he attempted to put
+it out alone, when he actually needed the assistance of his neighbors.
+After all, it requires considerable judgment to get along in the world.
+
+We have no intention of writing a homily on the proper conduct of men
+and women in connection with the casualties of life. Whether or not it
+be expedient to send for the doctor when the baby sneezes, we leave
+to the judgment of the parties immediately interested. We have a story
+to tell, which illustrates both sides of the question; and either
+disputant in the important controversy is at liberty to appropriate the
+moral to sustain his or her cherished theory.
+
+Millbrook is a manufacturing village, and the most important person
+there, at the time of which we write, was Mr. Milton Barrington, who,
+to use the metaphorical language of the villagers, “run” the principal
+mill. Though quite a young man, he had amassed a handsome fortune, and
+by his enterprise, public spirit, and general character as a person of
+integrity and fairness, had attained the most influential position in
+the village. People looked to him for advice and assistance in their
+extremity, and no one ever thought of making a motion in town meeting
+to build a new school house, lay out a road, or of making any important
+movement, until he had been consulted. The people were mainly on his
+side in politics, religion, and philosophy. Whatever he did, he was
+pretty sure to have plenty of imitators.
+
+Mr. Barrington had spent the flower of his manhood in the pursuit of
+wealth; and the idea of getting married did not occur to him till he
+had reached his thirtieth year. Probably he would not have thought of
+such a thing then, if a pretty and otherwise eligible young lady had
+not at that time crossed his path, reminding him of his duty in the
+premises.
+
+Three years after, we find him in the full enjoyment of all the
+blessings of the connubial state, and the father of a pretty little boy
+just eighteen months old. Mr. Barrington was the happiest of fathers,
+and to use grandma’s enthusiastic expression, “he set his life by that
+boy.”
+
+It was a cold night in December. Mr. Barrington was reading Mrs. Stowe’s
+Sunny Memories to his wife, while little Charley lay asleep in his crib
+beside them.
+
+The clock struck ten, and as the father laid aside the book, Charley
+coughed rather hoarsely, and waking up, began to scream most lustily.
+Mrs. Barrington took him up and tried to quiet him; but he obstinately
+refused to be quieted.
+
+Mr. Barrington was alarmed. Charley was not accustomed to have such
+freaks.
+
+“What do you think ails him?” asked he of his wife.
+
+“He has got a little cold, probably.”
+
+“Don’t you think I had better send for the doctor?” continued Mr.
+Barrington, nervously.
+
+“Not the least need of it.”
+
+“But the croup, my dear?”
+
+“That cough was nothing like the croup.”
+
+Mr. Barrington was comforted by this assurance, and in a little while,
+Charley got tired of crying, and went to sleep again.
+
+The child was carried up stairs, and they retired. But Mr. Barrington
+was not wholly satisfied. The croup was so sudden and so fatal that the
+cough he had heard seemed to haunt his imagination. He could not go
+to sleep for thinking of it. He trembled at the thought of losing the
+darling little one. He had passed almost into a confirmed old bachelor
+before his marriage, and the diseases of children had never received
+much consideration from him. He had heard people tell how dreadful
+the croup was, and only a week before the only child of one of his
+overseers had died with it, after an illness of scarcely twelve hours.
+
+The clock on the village church struck one, and he was still awake. His
+wife slept soundly. She was better acquainted with the nature of the
+dreadful disease, and had felt no alarm when the child coughed.
+
+While he was thus thinking of what might possibly happen, Charley
+coughed again, and jumping up in the bed, began to scream as he had in
+the evening.
+
+Mrs. Barrington took him in her arms.
+
+“Did you hear him cough?” asked the trembling father.
+
+“I did not. His screams awoke me.”
+
+“Don’t he breathe hard? Are you sure he has not got the croup?”
+
+“I do not think he has. He seems to breathe freely,” replied Mrs.
+Barrington. “He is a little hoarse, but I do not think it is any thing
+serious.”
+
+“I am afraid it is. Don’t you think I had better send for the doctor?”
+
+“There is no occasion to do so.”
+
+“I am really alarmed about him.”
+
+“Do as you wish; though I think it is only a little cold.”
+
+Mr. Barrington was satisfied it was the croup, and the consent of his
+wife, thus doubtfully given, was all he required. The “man of all work”
+was called up and despatched for Dr. Broadbeam, with a request that the
+physician would come with all possible haste.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Mrs. Barrington used all her maternal arts to quiet the little
+patient. He did not appear to suffer any pain, and his respiration
+was apparently as free as ever. In a short time, her efforts were
+successful, and Charley sunk away into a peaceful slumber.
+
+It was half an hour before Dr. Broadbeam arrived. It was possible
+he had used all convenient despatch in waiting upon his influential
+patron; but being a man of two hundred pounds, his swiftest movements
+were necessarily slow.
+
+Dr. Broadbeam had the reputation of being a very skilful physician; but
+unfortunately he had such a “grouty” way of dealing with his patients
+and patrons, that his popularity in Millbrook was on the decline.
+People did not like to be “snapped up” when they were sick; and the
+only circumstance that enabled Dr. Broadbeam to retain even a moiety
+of the practice of the village, was the fact that Mr. Barrington still
+employed him.
+
+At the suggestion of a small portion of the population, who had the
+hardihood to break away from Mr. Barrington’s lead, a young physician
+of good parts, and with an easy and pleasing address, had been induced
+to locate himself in the village. Dr. Broadbeam raved like a madman
+at the advent of the interloper, stigmatized him as a quack, and
+obstinately refused even to be civil to him. But when a year in the
+young doctor’s professional experience had passed away without sensibly
+augmenting his practice, he condescended to laugh at him, and call him
+a fool. The crusty old leech felt that he could have every thing his
+own way; that his skill and experience were amply sufficient to offset
+his morose address and sour temper.
+
+To get out of a warm bed in the middle of a cold December night, is
+never agreeable to any body, unless perchance the house be on fire; and
+young gentlemen who aspire to the honors of the medical craft ought to
+think of this before they choose the profession.
+
+To Dr. Broadbeam night duty was especially unpleasant. He was rather
+indolent and luxurious in his habits, and always made it a rule to
+believe that poor folks could wait till morning before they had the
+doctor. But when Mr. Barrington summoned him, why, it was quite another
+affair.
+
+“What’s the matter with the child?” growled Dr. Broadbeam, as he
+entered the apartment.
+
+“I don’t know, doctor, but I am very much afraid of the croup,” replied
+Mr. Barrington, handing the physician a chair.
+
+“Humph!”
+
+“The croup prevails to some extent in the village, you are aware,”
+added the nervous father.
+
+“Always does at this season of the year,” replied the doctor, bending
+over the child to listen to his respiration.
+
+“Does he breathe naturally, doctor?” asked Mrs. Barrington, to whom her
+husband’s alarm had to some extent communicated itself.
+
+“Naturally?” sneered the physician. “Nothing under the sun ails the
+child.”
+
+“What made him cry so, doctor?” inquired Mrs. Barrington.
+
+“Cry so, madam? cry so! You gave him too much supper, madam; and I
+am tumbled out of my bed to see a child that has the stomach ache!”
+growled the doctor, enraged when he thought of the comfortable bed
+which he had been so unceremoniously compelled to leave.
+
+“But his cough, doctor?” said Mr. Barrington, controlling his
+indignation at the rudeness of the physician.
+
+“Mr. Barrington, you are a fool!” exclaimed Dr. Broadbeam, as he
+violently jammed his hat upon his head. “Do you think I am to leave my
+bed on a cold night like this, whenever your baby sneezes? Humph!”
+
+“You are a physician, are you not?” asked Mr. Barrington.
+
+He was angry; but keeping down his indignation, he put the question
+with tolerable calmness.
+
+“A physician! Of course I am; but is that any reason why I should be
+turned out in the dead of the night for nothing at all?” replied the
+enraged leech.
+
+“You chose your own profession.”
+
+“What if I did?”
+
+“What is your charge for a night visit?”
+
+“Five dollars, sir! Five dollars!” answered the doctor, maliciously.
+
+“And you believe that I am able to pay it?”
+
+“I do, or I would not have come.”
+
+“That is enough, sir; if I am content to pay five dollars for the
+assurance of a physician that nothing ails my child, I take it that I
+am at liberty to do so.”
+
+“Humph!”
+
+“When I send for a physician, I consider it a business transaction. He
+gives me his advice for the money I pay him. If his conduct entitles
+him to be cherished as a friend--as an angel sent with healing balm for
+the soul as well as the body,”--and Mr. Barrington looked sternly at
+the doctor,--“I cheerfully accord him his due.”
+
+“Well, sir!”
+
+“If I send for my millwright, I do not leave it optional with him to
+determine whether I need him or not. If he does not choose to come,
+there are other millwrights in the state.”
+
+“Do you compare a physician to a millwright?” sneered the doctor.
+
+“If I send for my millwright to come and tell me whether my water
+wheel needs repairs, he comes; he examines it; perhaps he decides that
+nothing is the matter with it, and that I ought to have known that it
+was perfectly sound. If he should reproach me for sending for him, I
+should call him no business man. I pay him for his time, though he lift
+not an axe.”
+
+“Humph!”
+
+“It is a great satisfaction to me to know that nothing ails my child. I
+am able and willing to pay for that assurance.”
+
+“Pay! Do you take me for a hireling?” exclaimed the doctor, with a
+fresh outbreak of anger, as he abruptly turned on his heel and left the
+chamber.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+On the 1st of January, Dr. Broadbeam’s bill for professional services,
+amounting to over two hundred dollars, was presented to Mr. Barrington,
+and was promptly paid. He was not one of that numerous and highly
+respectable class of people who make it a point to grumble at doctor’s
+bills.
+
+The manufacturer was a peaceful, prudent man, not disposed to stir
+up strife in the neighborhood; so he kept silent in regard to his
+unpleasant interview with the physician.
+
+About a month after, Mr. Barrington was roused from his slumbers at
+midnight by the sound of an ominous cough from Charley. But this time
+it did not awake the little fellow. The fond father was still fearful
+of the croup; yet the child slept so soundly that his fears subsided,
+and he was just dropping asleep again when the cough was repeated.
+
+In a few minutes the child awoke, and his respiration began to grow
+difficult.
+
+“What do you think?” asked he of his wife.
+
+“He is a little croupy; but I do not think there is any occasion to
+be alarmed. I will give him the ‘Hive Sirup,’ which I doubt not will
+immediately relieve him.”
+
+Mr. Barrington got up and brought the sirup. A dose was given, and the
+parents waited with anxiety the effect.
+
+An hour elapsed, and the child was no better.
+
+“Don’t you think I had better send for the doctor?” said Mr. Barrington.
+
+“No, I can get along very well.”
+
+“But the croup; hasn’t he got it?”
+
+“He has a croupy cough, which may lead to croup, if it is not attended
+to,” replied Mrs. Barrington, giving the little sufferer another
+spoonful of the sirup.
+
+Two hours more passed away, and instead of getting better, the child
+grew worse every minute. But Mrs. Barrington did not like to send for
+the doctor. In the family of her father, a physician had rarely ever
+been called, and she had come to regard the faculty with something like
+contempt.
+
+“He grows worse,” said Mr. Barrington, beginning to lose confidence in
+the efficacy of his wife’s treatment.
+
+“The medicine has not had time to produce its effect yet,” replied Mrs.
+Barrington. “He will begin to grow better soon.”
+
+“I think we had better send for the doctor,” added the anxious father.
+“It may be too late in the morning.”
+
+“I do not want any more fuss with the doctor. The last time he came, he
+made me so nervous that it took me a week to get over it.”
+
+“We will not have Dr. Broadbeam, then.”
+
+“He will be better soon.”
+
+“Do not delay it too long.”
+
+Another hour elapsed, and still the little sufferer was no better. His
+breathing was extremely difficult, and the cough was more frequent and
+hard. The mother’s remedy had apparently produced no effect whatever,
+and she began to be alarmed herself.
+
+“Perhaps you had better send for the doctor,” said she.
+
+“Dr. Broadbeam?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I determined, when I paid his last bill, never to employ him again.”
+
+“Dr. Slender has been very successful in croup,” added Mrs. Barrington,
+“and I should feel just as much confidence in him as in Dr. Broadbeam.”
+
+“I will send for him.”
+
+In less than fifteen minutes after the messenger left the house, the
+young physician arrived. Of course he was not a little astonished to be
+roused from his bed by a summons from the “leading man of the village;”
+but he had chosen his profession, and considered it a duty to go
+whenever and wherever he was called.
+
+Dr. Slender examined the child.
+
+“You should have procured a physician before,” said he, shaking his
+head ominously.
+
+Mr. Barrington’s heart rose to his throat. His frame trembled, and he
+was so nervous that he was forced to cling to the bedpost for support.
+
+“Is he dangerous, doctor?” asked he.
+
+“Three hours ago, it would not have been a bad case. I doubt if he can
+be saved now. But there is no time to be lost. Bring me some cold water
+and some linen cloths.”
+
+Dr. Slender gave the child a portion of medicine, and applied himself
+with so much energy to the means of effecting a cure, that the parents
+were inspired with hope, and felt entire confidence in his skill.
+
+Morning dawned upon the little patient, and he was apparently in the
+last stages of the fell disease. Dr. Slender still remained by him, and
+was now adopting the last resort known to the physician. The agony of
+the parents can be conceived by those who have watched over the death
+bed of a cherished little one, but it cannot be described.
+
+Providence smiled upon the young physician, and he had the
+inexpressible satisfaction, before noon, of declaring that the child
+would recover. A pæan of praise rose from the grateful hearts of the
+devoted parents. In a few days little Charley was as well as ever, and
+the reputation of Dr. Slender was made.
+
+The star of Dr. Broadbeam had set. The young physician in a few months
+secured the entire practice of the place. The potent influence of Mr.
+Barrington was all he needed to insure his success. He was polite and
+affable in his professional intercourse with his patients, and the
+contrast between him and his crusty rival was so striking, that every
+body wondered how they had been able to endure the latter.
+
+Dr. Broadbeam was compelled to “leave town.” Whether or not he has
+learned that a decent deportment towards his patients is expedient, we
+are unable to say. But we infer that he has, from the fact that, unable
+to establish himself again in practice, he turned his attention to the
+manufacture and sale of patent medicine; and “Broadbeam’s Celebrated
+Chinese Antibilious Pill” are as popular as advertising and false
+certificates can make them.
+
+Mr. Barrington has decided that it is best to send for the doctor when
+the baby sneezes. Dr. Slender is always willing to come when he is sent
+for, and laughingly maintains that he is just as well satisfied to
+pocket his fee for saying nothing ails the baby, as for giving it an
+emetic.
+
+
+
+
+“FOUR KINDS OF CAKE.”
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“It is folly, wife!” exclaimed Mr. Jotham Somes, a matter-of-fact,
+plain-spoken sort of man, to his better half. “There you have got
+no less than four kinds of cake, three kinds of pies, two kinds of
+preserves, to say nothing of knicknacks and gimcracks.”
+
+The fact was, that Mrs. Somes was having the minister and his wife
+and two grown-up daughters to take tea with her. She had been engaged
+for three days in the preparations, and such a display of nice things
+was calculated to astonish the minister and his family--to give them
+a two-fold surprise--first, at the variety and extent of her culinary
+resources, and, secondly, at her folly in attempting to make a display
+far beyond her means.
+
+The Someses were in comfortable circumstances. Mr. Somes was a farmer,
+and probably his income might have amounted to four hundred dollars per
+annum.
+
+Mrs. Somes was a prudent, careful housewife, who wasted no more of her
+culinary skill upon her own family than was absolutely necessary; but
+she delighted in making a grand appearance when she had company. Mr.
+Somes and the boys were sometimes so ill-natured as to growl at her
+careful catering when the house contained no company, and it cut them
+to the bone to see such extraordinary preparations for the neighbors.
+It was “kiss the cook” when they were alone; but the board groaned with
+plenty when there were guests present.
+
+Mr. Jotham Somes had just come from the sitting room where the table,
+with all its tempting array of viands was spread. He did not like it a
+bit, and after passing the time of day with the parson and his family,
+he proceeded to the kitchen, where his wife was just taking the hot
+biscuits out of the oven.
+
+“What do you mean by folly, I should like to know?” replied Mrs. Jotham
+Somes, somewhat tartly.
+
+She was a second wife, and having been redeemed from one of the advance
+stages of maidenhood, her temper had grown a little sour before she
+became a wife.
+
+“The folly of setting a table as you have yours,” replied the husband.
+“I should think you were going to have the president and the royal
+family to take tea with you.”
+
+“I am going to have the Rev. Mr. Meeklie and his family.”
+
+“But I can’t afford such extravagance as this. You will ruin me.”
+
+“I will take care of my business, if you will of yours,” returned the
+lady, slamming the oven door.
+
+“Perhaps this is not my business.”
+
+“No, I’m sure it is not.”
+
+“Who pays for all them gewgaws and gimcracks?”
+
+“You do, of course.”
+
+“But it is none of my business?”
+
+“No; I never thought before you were so confounded mean,” said the
+lady, her face reddening with anger.
+
+“Mean! I’m not mean. But when you get victuals for your own family, you
+think almost any thing is good enough for them. We never see any pies,
+and cakes, and knicknacks.”
+
+“Do you think I’m going to make pies and cakes for the men folks to eat
+every day?” retorted the indignant housekeeper.
+
+“Then don’t do it for company. What is good enough for me is as good as
+I can afford to give my visitors.”
+
+“I really believe if you had your way, you would have me as mean with
+company as the Smiths.”
+
+“The Smiths are as good folks and as liberal as any in town; and I’ll
+warrant Parson Meeklie thinks a heap more of them than he does of you,
+with all your four kinds of cake.”
+
+“You’re a fool, Mr. Somes!”
+
+“I am fool enough to know that folks are not judged by the quantity of
+sweet cakes they put upon the table when they have company. I repeat
+it--there is no better folks in town than the Smiths.”
+
+“I s’pose not; but they had nothing but cold biscuit and molasses
+gingerbread when we took tea there.”
+
+“That’s as good as they can afford; but it is no better than they have
+every day, and I admire their independence.”
+
+“They’re contemptible, mean folks, there!”
+
+“Why? Because they don’t attempt to make folks believe they live
+better than they do? For my part, I don’t think it is any better than
+hypocrisy to make such a parade as you do, especially when it is hard
+work for me and the boys to get a decent meal of victuals.”
+
+“Did any body ever hear the like?” groaned the lady, who had by this
+time arrived at that pitch of excitement when tears are more effective
+than words.
+
+“Perhaps they never did; but if ever I see any thing of this sort
+again, they will be pretty likely to hear of it,” replied Mr. Somes,
+throwing off his blue frock, and commencing his preparations for taking
+tea with the minister.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+The plate of hot biscuit was placed in the midst of the profusion of
+fancy eatables with which the table was crowded. The minister and his
+family were duly seated, and the ceremony was proceeding decently and
+in order.
+
+Mrs. Somes had not wholly recovered from the excitement of the
+interview in the kitchen, and her hand trembled slightly as she handed
+Mrs. Meeklie her tea. Mr. Somes had donned his best blue coat, with
+brass buttons, which had done duty as a Sunday garment for the past
+fifteen years.
+
+He seemed to be somewhat uneasy; and though he and the minister had
+always been on the best of terms, his answers were too short and crusty
+for a courteous host.
+
+“Won’t you pass the biscuit to Mrs. Meeklie, husband?” said Mrs. Somes,
+with her sweetest smile, albeit not very sweet at that.
+
+Mr. Somes did pass the biscuit to Mrs. Meeklie, and she took one; but
+when he passed them to Mr. Meeklie, he smilingly declined.
+
+“No, I thank you, Mr. Somes; I never eat hot bread. It does not agree
+with me,” said he.
+
+Mrs. Somes passed the cold bread, thinking all the time how very
+uncivil it was in the parson to refuse the hot biscuit she had taken so
+much pains to prepare.
+
+But Mr. Meeklie was very respectful to his stomach; for he found, when
+insulted and imposed upon, that it was tyrannical and disagreeable;
+and he paid more deference to his digestive organs than he did to the
+feelings of his vain parishioners.
+
+“My biscuit are not very nice; I did not have as good luck as I
+generally do,” suggested Mrs. Somes, as Mrs. Meeklie took a second cake.
+
+“Better,” interposed Mr. Somes.
+
+The lady looked at him with very evident marks of displeasure.
+
+“They are very nice,” said the parson’s wife.
+
+“Take a little more of this quince preserve, Miss Meeklie. I dare say
+it is not so nice as your mother makes; but the truth is----”
+
+“It has stood too long,” interrupted Mr. Somes. “The jar has not been
+opened since you were here last fall.”
+
+Mrs. Somes looked daggers; but the parson very considerately asked Mr.
+Somes whether he had done planting just at that moment, and her anger
+evaporated without any unpleasant effects.
+
+“Husband, won’t you pass that cake to Mr. Meeklie?”
+
+“Thank you, Mrs. Somes; I never eat cake. Your bread is very good; I
+will thank you for some more.”
+
+“Really, Mr. Meeklie, you will take some of this cake? It is not very
+rich; there is very little butter in it.”
+
+“Not any, I thank you; I never eat cake, unless it be something very
+simple, such as gingerbread or molasses cake.”
+
+What a calamity! Four kinds of cake and the parson wouldn’t touch one
+of them!
+
+“But you will take some of these jumbles; I made them on purpose for
+you.”
+
+“That’s a fact, Mr. Meeklie,” added Mr. Somes, maliciously.
+
+He would further have added that his wife never made pies and cakes for
+her own family; but he was afraid of frightening the parson.
+
+“You must excuse me. I doubt not they are very nice; but I have to be
+careful.”
+
+Mrs. Meeklie and her two grown-up daughters were more courteous, and
+each nibbled a small bit of the rich pound cake; but they seemed to do
+it against their consciences, and against their better judgment.
+
+The truth was, they felt embarrassed by the extraordinary display Mrs.
+Somes had made. They did not feel at home. The whole affair was too
+set and artificial to be enjoyed, and at an early hour the whole party
+withdrew, mentally determining to make it a long time before they took
+tea with Mrs. Somes again.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+“Wife, where is the piece of meat I sent home for dinner?” asked Farmer
+Somes, as he and the boys came in for their noonday meal, on the day
+following the tea party.
+
+The farmer glanced inquiringly at the table which was spread before
+him. Involuntarily his nasal organ contracted longitudinally; it would
+not be polite to say he “turned up his nose,” though such was the fact
+beyond the possibility of denial.
+
+Farmer Somes was not, in any sense, an epicure. He liked a plain,
+substantial diet, that “which was good, and enough of it,” as he
+forcibly expressed his ideas of table economy.
+
+Lest the reader should suppose he was one of those grouty, ill-natured
+“feeders,” who would grumble at the ambrosia and nectar of the gods,
+we deem it necessary to particularize the articles on the board of the
+lady who placed four kinds of cake before company.
+
+Certainly there was variety enough to satisfy the most fickle taste. On
+a broken plate--the best dishes were religiously reserved to the use of
+company--was the half of one sausage and two thirds of another, making
+one sausage and one sixth, all told. They were partially embedded in a
+petrified sea of suspicious-looking fat, and altogether, the aspect of
+the dish was singularly forbidding.
+
+On a white plate, with a long black fracture extending quite across
+it, lay, in an aggregated mass, three dozen baked beans, and an
+infinitesimal fragment of a pork rind. This was an antiquity. Farmer
+Somes and the boys had a very distinct remembrance of having seen
+this dish every day during the previous fortnight, proving that Mrs.
+Somes was not only one of the most economical, but one of the most
+persevering dames in the world. The farmer and the boys had virtually
+said they would not eat those same beans, and Mrs. Somes virtually said
+they should.
+
+On a worn-out blue plate, superannuated, and “nicked” in a thousand
+places, were four pork bones, looking as though they had been preyed
+upon by that army of mice which Whittington’s cat destroyed. These
+bones had seen service during the last twelve days; the joint, of
+which they were the disintegrated members, had graced the table just a
+fortnight before.
+
+There were sundry other articles, antique, old fashioned “titbits,”
+which might have been set before Noah and his friends in the ark. Six
+long red potatoes, unpeeled, even unsprouted, completed the array of
+edibles, ornamental and substantial.
+
+The farmer’s nose contracted as before related.
+
+“Where is the meat I sent home?”
+
+“Hanging in the well.”
+
+“Hadn’t we better eat it?”
+
+“I want it for company next Sunday.”
+
+“The ---- ahem! Company again?”
+
+“I expect my brother will dine with us then, and I want something fit
+to set before him.”
+
+Mr. Somes looked sulky.
+
+“And you mean to starve me and the boys in the mean time?”
+
+“I should like to know if there is not enough for you?” said the dame,
+pointing at the table.
+
+Farmer Somes turned up his nose.
+
+“Did I ever refuse to buy victuals when you wanted it?” said he, rather
+sternly.
+
+“Not that I know of; but I didn’t suppose you wanted to buy fresh meat
+_every_ day,” returned the wife, sourly. “I am sure I try to be as
+economical as I can.”
+
+“Four kinds of cake, which nobody would touch, I suppose is prudent,
+ain’t it?”
+
+“Ah, good morning, Mr. Somes; I am glad to find you at home,” said Mr.
+Meeklie, walking into the room unannounced.
+
+Good gracious! the minister, and with such a table as that spread
+before the family! What a commentary on four kinds of cake for company!
+
+Mrs. Somes was all confusion. Though the parson intended to look right
+at the farmer, she could see that more than once his eyes wandered over
+the table.
+
+“Glad to see you, parson; sit down and take some dinner with us,” said
+Mr. Somes, shaking the minister’s offered hand.
+
+“Thank you; I don’t care if I do,” replied Mr. Meeklie. “I have a long
+walk to take before I return home.”
+
+Farmer Somes was pointing him to a chair, when the lady interposed.
+
+“We have got a picked-up dinner to-day. Husband sent home a joint of
+veal; but it didn’t get here till half after eleven; so I had no time
+to cook it.”
+
+“Got here by eight o’clock,” said Farmer Somes; “no fibs to the parson.”
+
+“But if you will wait only a few moments, I will fry some of the veal.”
+
+“Sit down, parson; it is every day fare; but then, what is good enough
+for me is good enough for my friends.”
+
+“Right, Mr. Somes,” replied the minister, drawing up his chair. “My
+business relates to the new bell for the meeting house. I am carrying
+round the subscription paper.”
+
+“I am with you, parson.”
+
+Farmer Somes was in most malicious good humor, and, with a broad laugh
+on his honest phiz, he opened the paper the minister gave him.
+
+“Smith, twenty dollars.”
+
+“Twenty dollars!” exclaimed Mrs. Somes; “I should not think he could
+afford it.”
+
+“He gives his friends nothing but gingerbread,” said the farmer. “Put
+me down for thirty; we have four kinds of cake.”
+
+The parson consumed one “long red,” and one of the vulgar fractions of
+a cold sausage. He preferred brown bread to white, and wouldn’t touch
+any of the pies which the prudent housekeeper set before him.
+
+Mrs. Somes was awfully mortified. Her reputation was sacrificed, and
+Farmer Somes never again had occasion to find fault with her for making
+a vain show of three kinds of pies, two kinds of preserves, and four
+kinds of cake.
+
+
+
+
+EXTREMES MEET;
+
+OR,
+
+FACT AND FICTION.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“What are you reading, sis?”
+
+“Hard Times.”
+
+“A novel!”
+
+“Yes; why not? Dickens’s last new novel, and a capital thing it is,
+too.”
+
+The two ladies, between whom this conversation passed, were sisters,
+and nieces of one of the better class of New England farmers, with
+whom they resided. ’Squire Fairbank, without being a very brilliant
+man, had acquired considerable distinction in the village where
+he lived, probably because, besides being “worth money,” he was a
+straightforward, conservative, reliable man, and had frequently served
+the town in an acceptable manner, both in the legislature, and as
+moderator in town meeting. He was the most notable man in the village,
+and won the title of ’Squire, which was universally accorded to him,
+simply by being a very respectable person and a man of influence.
+
+Susan and Mary Fairbank were orphans, inheriting from their father the
+very pretty little sum of five thousand dollars each. Both had attained
+their majority, and consequently were in full possession of their
+portions, untrammelled even by the authority of as indulgent a guardian
+as ’Squire Fairbank had proved to be.
+
+They had been well educated at a celebrated female seminary in the
+vicinity of Boston, and as a matter of course, had brought home to
+the quiet village of Poppleton many strange notions and remarkable
+peculiarities. But they were sensible girls in the main, and though
+their habits and education elevated them above the reigning _ton_ of
+the place, it was generally conceded that they knew “what was what,”
+and were not “a mite more stuck up” than would naturally have been
+expected.
+
+Mary and Susan were essentially different in temperament and
+disposition. The former was exceedingly open and free-hearted, while
+the latter was rather disposed to truckle to the formality of the
+world, or to the circumstances in which she happened to be placed. Mary
+never asked what the world would say or think, and while her notions
+of duty were very clearly defined, she chose to be independent and
+straightforward. People said she “took after” her father.
+
+Susan, on the contrary, was nicely sensitive to the good opinion of
+others. She had not the energy to do any thing in opposition to popular
+sentiment. Indeed, she was very much like some of the distinguished
+public servants at Washington, who do every thing with an eye to a
+reëlection or to government patronage.
+
+A short time before our story opens, a young minister had been settled
+in Poppleton, and being a single man, ’Squire Fairbank had consented,
+as a special favor, to receive him into his house. The Rev. Mr.
+Carlisle was universally allowed to be a very promising young man. He
+was talented, had a graceful elocution, and, what pleased the young
+ladies better still, was decidedly a handsome person. Those who were
+not much influenced by talent, elocution, and personal beauty, thought
+he was rather bigoted for one so young, and hoped that time would wear
+off the rough corners of his repulsive theology.
+
+Susan Fairbank was deeply interested in the young clergyman, and as
+a natural consequence to one of her vacillating temperament, became
+deeply interested in spiritual things. We do not believe she had any
+intention of playing the hypocrite; but her devotion to the young
+minister involuntarily led her to assume an interest, which, if Mr.
+Carlisle had been old, ugly, or married, she would not have felt.
+
+“A novel, sis! only think of it!” exclaimed Susan, holding up both
+hands with pious horror.
+
+“Pray, Susan, how long is it since you have possessed this holy
+repugnance to novels? It was only last winter that I saw you reading
+The Children of the Abbey,” returned Mary, laughing heartily.
+
+“I have not read one since, and I never mean to again.”
+
+“Fudge!”
+
+“What do you think Mr. Carlisle would say if he should see you reading
+a novel?”
+
+“I shouldn’t care what he said.”
+
+“Why, Mary!”
+
+“I shouldn’t; if he does not like it, he may whistle for all me.”
+
+“Don’t talk so, Mary.”
+
+“Why will you make a fool of yourself, Susan? Mr. Carlisle cares no
+more for you than he does for the fifth wheel of a coach; I would not
+stand in such fear of him for the world.”
+
+“Fear of him! I do not fear him; I only respect him as a very good man.”
+
+“You have set your cap for him; but let me tell you to be more
+independent, or you never will catch him,” said Mary, laughing.
+
+“How absurd you talk!”
+
+“Do I?”
+
+Susan fell to biting her finger nail--a very vulgar habit, by the
+way--and to think of something which her sister had no difficulty in
+discerning.
+
+“Do you really love him, Susan?” asked Mary.
+
+“Love him! No; I never thought of such a thing.”
+
+Perhaps she never did.
+
+“What makes you go to all the prayer meetings, and mope round the house
+like a sick owl, then?”
+
+“I think I am under conviction,” replied Susan, demurely.
+
+“Conviction of what?”
+
+“Conviction of sin.”
+
+“Conviction that Mr. Carlisle is a very handsome fellow, more like.”
+
+“How absurd you are!”
+
+“And I have heard a report round town, that you were going to join the
+church.”
+
+“I have spoken to Mr. Carlisle about it.”
+
+Mary looked serious for a moment.
+
+“If you really feel so, I commend your conduct; but I advise you not to
+be too hasty. Examine your heart attentively, and do not bring scandal
+upon the church by having side motives. But here comes Mr. Carlisle,”
+said Mary, as she again turned her attention to the fascinating pages
+of Hard Times.
+
+[Illustration: EXTREMES MEET. Page 267.]
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+The young minister entered the room. Susan had taken up Saints’ Rest,
+which lay by her, and commenced reading where she had left off, when
+she saw Mr. Carlisle coming up the yard. As he came into the room
+she laid down the book, and looked, for all the world, as though she
+had not a friend in the world. The assuming of this appearance was
+involuntary on her part; it was in accordance with her nature.
+
+Mr. Carlisle seated himself by her side, and commenced catechising her
+in regard to the impression the contents of the book produced upon her
+mind--whether it afforded her consolation in her troubled mind--and
+finally whether she really thought she had a hope. To all these queries
+Susan replied in a satisfactory manner, assuring the handsome young
+shepherd that she had been much edified by her reading.
+
+There was a smile of mischief playing upon the pretty and expressive
+face of Mary, as she peered over the top of Hard Times, to observe
+the ghostly interview. She could see that Mr. Carlisle engaged in
+the conversation with her sister merely as a matter of professional
+interest--sincerely, it is true, but with no unusual interest in the
+penitent. He regarded her as a wandering sheep, whom it was his duty to
+bring into the fold.
+
+But she compassionated her sister, who had deluded herself into the
+belief that she could win the heart of the shepherd by becoming one of
+his sheep; and she was provoking enough to tell her that instead of
+making a sheep, she had made a calf of herself.
+
+When the minister had finished his professional counsel, he turned to
+Mary. As he did so, an involuntary smile came upon his lips. It was not
+the smile of a ghostly father, but of a young man who has flesh in his
+heart and blood in his veins.
+
+Mary laid down her book as she noticed his intention to address her.
+
+“What are you reading, Miss Fairbank?” asked he.
+
+“Hard Times,” promptly replied Mary.
+
+“A novel?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+The jaw of the young minister dropped down two inches.
+
+“Do you like it?”
+
+“O, very much, indeed!” replied Mary, with wicked enthusiasm; “I admire
+Dickens’s of all the novels I ever read.”
+
+“Do you make a practice of reading novels?”
+
+“I seldom read anything else. I did read Reveries of a Bachelor and
+Dream Life.”
+
+The minister shook his head.
+
+“I take the newspapers, and I always read them through--stories,
+poetry, sentiment, editorials, and all.”
+
+“Will you allow me to suggest some reading for you? and I should take
+the greatest pleasure in lending you the books.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted is an excellent book for----.”
+
+“It is _so_ stupid!”
+
+Mr. Carlisle was horrified.
+
+“I would not be hired to read it.”
+
+“Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, perhaps, would suit your taste better.”
+
+“I have read it; but don’t you call that a novel?”
+
+“An allegory.”
+
+“If I mistake not, I saw you reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’m sure that
+is a novel, and no better novel either than any of Dickens’s.”
+
+“It is a moral and philanthropic work.”
+
+“So are Dickens’s works. Indeed, I have never read a novel from which a
+great deal of good might not be obtained, though I know there are such.”
+
+“Mere fictions generally have a debasing tendency.”
+
+“I judge novels as I do anything else--by their own merits. If I
+understand you, Mr. Carlisle, you object to works of fiction, as such,
+and not on account of any evil they may contain.”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“You insist that the book must be true in its narrative in order to be
+good.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Then you despise the teachings of Him you profess to serve. He spoke
+in parables--in fiction. I do not understand the Prodigal Son to be a
+narrative of facts.”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“Then why may not Scott, Dickens, Irving, Miss Bremer, and Miss Leslie
+teach us love and charity through the same medium?”
+
+“Such works vitiate the taste.”
+
+“O, it is the taste, and not the heart, that is damaged.”
+
+“Both; the latter through the former. Let me induce you to read
+Baxter’s Call, and you will then allow that you have obtained more
+real good from it than from all the novels you ever read in your life.”
+
+“It is too dull and insipid for me. I must draw my inspiration from
+more sparkling fountains.”
+
+“You misjudge the book.”
+
+“Perhaps I do. I am not a saint, I am willing to acknowledge; therefore
+it does not suit me. And I fancy it is so with half the world, who,
+rejecting the counsels of the church, get their wisdom and their
+goodness from works of fiction. They are readable to those whose taste,
+like mine, has not become sanctified; without them they would read
+nothing, and thus the world is better for novels.”
+
+Mr. Carlisle could not but grant that there was some truth in what Mary
+had said; and though he did not, in so many words, yield the point, an
+impression was produced upon his mind which could not fail to soften
+down the bigotry of his views.
+
+But the merry, fearless, independent tones of the eloquent advocate of
+works of fiction, went deeper down than the mind, and touched a weak
+spot in his theological heart. Her pretty, sparkling eye, roused and
+animated by her earnest thought, were irresistible; and the Rev. Mr.
+Carlisle, maugre the carnal nature of the fair debater, actually fell
+in love with the contemner of Baxter’s immortal works.
+
+Mary was undoubtedly a great sinner, but she was a beautiful and
+spirited girl for all that. We will not trouble the reader with the
+ingenious plans which the enamoured minister laid that night to reclaim
+the erring beauty; it is only necessary to say that, within a week, he
+popped the question to her; and that she, out of consideration for her
+sister, refused to consider the proposal.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Susan was a docile lamb, and her conversion progressed to the entire
+satisfaction of her spiritual adviser. It was rumored that she was to
+be “propounded” on the following Sabbath.
+
+Mary had quite as strong a veneration for spiritual things as her
+sister; but she was too straightforward to assume what she did not
+possess, and too sensible to be led into imaginary raptures by any
+extraneous influence. She knew Susan too well to believe her holy
+aspirations were real; she knew that the poor girl had involuntarily
+deluded herself. She was not surprised to hear that she had concluded
+to join the church.
+
+“Susan, you are deceiving yourself. You love the fold for the sake of
+the shepherd,” said she.
+
+“Nay, sister, you wrong me. Can you think me a hypocrite?”
+
+“Not a hypocrite; you have misled yourself.”
+
+“I have carefully examined my heart, and I am confident that I am not
+deluded.”
+
+“What would you say if I should tell you that Mr. Carlisle can never
+love you?”
+
+“I should say that you knew nothing about it,” replied Susan,
+unthinkingly; but in an instant she corrected the mistake. “But that
+has nothing to do with it.”
+
+“I fear it has. Tell me honestly, Susan, do you not love Mr. Carlisle?
+I will not laugh at you.”
+
+Susan hesitated.
+
+“Be candid sister.”
+
+“I do not love him; but if he loved me, I feel that I could return his
+affection.”
+
+“He does not love you, Susan.”
+
+The ambitious “sheep” looked earnestly into the face of her sister.
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“I _do_ know.”
+
+Susan looked pensive and sad.
+
+“What do you know?”
+
+“That he has even offered his hand and heart to another.”
+
+“The hypocrite!” exclaimed Susan, with a flushed face.
+
+“Why, sis!” and Mary was filled with astonishment, for it appeared from
+Susan’s violent ebullition of feeling that the matter had passed much
+farther than she had suspected. “Why do you use that pointed word? Did
+he ever speak to you of love?”
+
+“Never; but he has led me to believe by his constant attentions that he
+was interested in me.”
+
+“That was professional, sis; you have mistaken his zeal to bring you
+into the fold for love. I warned you of this.”
+
+“You did; I am a fool. But to whom has he offered himself.”
+
+“It is a secret.”
+
+“Tell _me_!”
+
+“Will you be discreet?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“To me!”
+
+“To you! You who despised Baxter’s Call and Saints’ Rest?”
+
+“Even so. Extremes meet sometimes.”
+
+“I wish you joy, Mary.”
+
+“But I declined the offer.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“For your sake. I knew that you loved him.”
+
+Susan was deeply affected at the generosity of her sister.
+
+“I do not love him, sister. Do not let me be an obstacle in the way of
+your happiness.”
+
+“I have not said that I loved him.”
+
+“But you do?”
+
+“I have refused him.”
+
+“Nay, he is a noble and a good man, besides being handsome and
+talented. You need not be a fool because I have been. I assure you I am
+completely cured; I think he is a flirt.”
+
+Mary did not think so, and the young minister was too deeply enamoured
+of her, too devotedly admired her wit and beauty, no less than her
+innate goodness of heart, to be content with a refusal. When he renewed
+his suit, the spirited girl was more tractable, and in process of time
+they were married.
+
+Whether Mr. Carlisle ever succeeded in removing those pernicious
+notions about novels from the mind of his wife, we are unable to say;
+but we do know that Scott, Dickens, and Irving have found a place on
+the shelves of his library, beside the tomes of theology and history;
+and we infer that a mutual influence has brought each to adopt more
+reasonable views both of Baxter and the novelists.
+
+
+
+
+THE MERCANTILE ANGEL.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“The contemptible little jackanapes! he had the audacity to ask me to
+play whist with him!” exclaimed Sophia Danvers to her sister.
+
+“And why should he not, sister?” answered Mary Danvers, calmly.
+
+“Why should he not, indeed! Did he think I would demean myself by
+playing whist with a clerk--one of my father’s servants?” and Sophia
+tossed her head in proud disdain.
+
+“I can see no impropriety in your associating with him, Sophia. He is
+certainly a handsome, intelligent and well-behaved young man.”
+
+“Behaves well enough, for aught I know; but only think of it--a clerk
+in our drawing room! For my part, I wonder how father could ever think
+of such a thing as admitting him into the family.”
+
+“I suppose it was because he liked the looks of him.”
+
+“What will Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert say when he finds us associating
+with poor clerks--the trash of counting rooms?”
+
+“It matters little to me what he thinks; he is a conceited puppy, and I
+wonder that you can endure his presence,” replied Mary, smartly.
+
+“But he is the leader of the _ton_, Mary,” said Sophia, astonished at
+the plebeian notions of her sister.
+
+“He is a perfect flat, for all that, and infinitely inferior, in all
+that constitutes a man, to Mr. Harlowe, whom you affect to despise.”
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Danvers.
+
+“How could you bring that horrible clerk into the house, papa?” said
+Sophia, as the merchant prince seated himself by the blazing grate.
+
+“Horrible clerk! Pray, what is the matter with him?” asked Mr. Danvers,
+evincing some surprise at the plain speech of his daughter.
+
+“Why, he is a clerk.”
+
+“But a respectable young man.”
+
+“Respectable enough, but not fashionable, papa.”
+
+“I was a clerk once, Sophia; I commenced by sweeping out a store, and
+carrying bundles about the city.”
+
+“How absurdly you talk, papa!”
+
+“But Mr. Harlowe is a very estimable young man; I am confident you will
+find him agreeable company.”
+
+“I shall have nothing to say to him,” replied Sophia, with a shrug of
+the shoulders.
+
+“Beware, Sophia; there is an old proverb, you know, about entertaining
+angels unawares.”
+
+Sophia laughed heartily at the idea of a poor clerk being an angel.
+
+“But what says Mary?” asked the merchant, turning to his gentle-hearted
+daughter.
+
+“O, _I_ like him very much; we are already fast friends,” replied Mary,
+and a slight blush seemed to emphasize the remark.
+
+“Just like her, papa; I should not wonder if she got head over heels in
+love with your mercantile angel.”
+
+“She must do as she pleases about that,” replied Mr. Danvers, smiling.
+
+“Pooh, Sophy! who said a word about falling in love? Can’t a body be
+civil to a young gentleman without falling in love with him?”
+
+The pretty Mary blushed as she spoke, in good earnest--blushed so
+palpably that her father began to think the affair was something more
+than a mere jest.
+
+“But pray, papa, when does your new partner arrive?” asked Sophia.
+“If all the accounts I have heard of his wit, gallantry, and personal
+attractions are true, I shall certainly set my cap for him.”
+
+“He will appear one of these days,” replied Mr. Danvers.
+
+“I hope you will not keep this stupid clerk in the house after he
+comes.”
+
+“I certainly shall.”
+
+“But, papa, we shall ‘lose caste’ if you do; it is really abominable.”
+
+“Small loss, my child. If we are dependent upon the apes and puppies
+of fashionable life for our position in society, the sooner we lose it
+the better for our own self-respect,” said Mr. Danvers, smiling good
+humoredly.
+
+“You are absurd, papa.”
+
+“Now, Sophy, you have given me a lesson, let me give you one. The
+idol you worship is more senseless than those of the Feegee Islands.
+Fashionable society is as hollow as a brass pan; place no reliance upon
+it. The fops and fools who follow in your train are as soulless as they
+are brainless.”
+
+“I wish Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert could hear you say so,” added Sophia.
+
+“Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert was a journeyman barber in New Orleans, less
+than a year ago. I had the honor of being shaved by him last winter
+when I was there.”
+
+“O, horrid, papa! Why have you not exposed him?”
+
+“Why should I, my child? He is as good a fellow, as sensible a person,
+and, according to your statement, as fashionable a man as Mr. Finstock,
+whose great grandfather was the governor of the state.”
+
+“Is it possible that Mr. Fitzherbert was a barber?” exclaimed Sophia,
+horrified at the appalling statement.
+
+“Nothing else, my child.”
+
+“An impostor?” added Mary.
+
+“Just so. Probably he is trying to obtain a rich wife.”
+
+“It is abominable, I declare! One hardly knows, nowadays, who is
+respectable and who is not,” said Sophia.
+
+“Therefore, my child, we ought not to speak so disparagingly of persons
+in humble life, as you have to-night.”
+
+“Pooh! a clerk!”
+
+At this moment, Mr. Harlowe, the new clerk, entered the room, and, as
+Sophia would have expressed it, had the impudence to seat himself by
+the side of Mary Danvers, who appeared not at all averse to this close
+proximity with him.
+
+Frederic Harlowe was, as Mary had said, a handsome, intelligent, and
+agreeable young man; and Sophia, if she could have forgiven him for
+being a clerk, could have appreciated his society quite as highly as
+did her sister.
+
+With her father’s permission, Mary accepted an invitation from Frederic
+to attend Alboni’s last concert.
+
+They had scarcely left the house before Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert
+was ushered into the sitting room. This gentleman was an exquisite
+of the “first water.” In his personal appearance, he certainly was
+sufficiently well endowed to challenge the admiration of the fair sex;
+but, unfortunately, he was sadly lacking in that necessary element of a
+man of sense--brains.
+
+Sophia could scarcely refrain from expressing the contempt she felt
+for the journeyman barber in disguise. The leader of the “ton,” in her
+estimation, was a ruined man.
+
+The dandy, as a matter of courtesy, inquired for Mary, and was informed
+that she had gone to the concert with Mr. Harlowe.
+
+“With Mr. Harlowe--a clerk--aw?” said the ex-journeyman barber, with a
+sneer, as he twirled up the long “rat tail” of his mustache.
+
+“A very worthy young man,” replied Mr. Danvers.
+
+“No doubt of it, saw; but a clerk--aw.”
+
+“Pray, were you never a clerk, Mr. Fitzherbert? _I_ was.”
+
+“A clerk! No, saw--nevaw!”
+
+“Did I not meet you in New Orleans last winter?”
+
+The dandy started up like a parched pea from a hot pan.
+
+“I have a faint recollection of having met you in a barber’s shop
+there,” continued the merchant, tormentingly.
+
+“Aw, very likely, saw. I patronize the barbaws.”
+
+“And now I think of it, you wore a little white apron, and, if I
+mistake not, I had the pleasure of being shaved by _you_ in person.”
+
+“Quite a mistake, saw, I assuaw you.”
+
+Suddenly Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert, whose real name was John Smike,
+remembered an imperative engagement, and hastened to take his leave.
+
+He was seen to enter the cars for New York on the following day, and
+nothing has been heard of him since.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Of course the reader understands that Frederic Harlowe and Mary are
+deeply, irretrievably in love with each other by this time. The poor
+clerk had won his way to the heart of the fair girl, and she, poor
+thing, had been captivated by the manly attractions, the noble soul of
+him who offered incense before her shrine.
+
+As the world goes, it would be deemed a very wicked thing for a poor
+clerk to fall in love with the daughter of his aristocratic employer.
+Some people would say it was ungrateful in him thus to spirit away the
+affections of a confiding girl, when his position and prospects did not
+warrant his presuming to be her husband.
+
+These questions are still open to the casuist. He may debate them to
+his entire satisfaction; but Mr. Danvers, either because he was more
+sensible than many of the aristocratic merchants of the day, or for
+some other equally potent reason, neglected to make any fuss about the
+matter, and suffered the clerk to woo and win his daughter, without
+even remonstrating against the wickedness of the act.
+
+But Sophia was deeply grieved by her sister’s folly, as she deemed it,
+and used all the arguments in the range of her shallow sophistry to
+dissuade her from the folly and madness of wedding a clerk.
+
+Mary was obstinate. The only excuse she offered in palliation of the
+flagrant misdemeanor was, that she loved him; and if she _loved_
+a scavenger, she would cling to him with the last breath she was
+permitted to draw.
+
+“A ring!” exclaimed Sophia, one day when matters appeared to have taken
+a very decided turn. “Well, well, I suppose you are engaged.”
+
+“We are, Sophia,” replied Mary, with a face radiant with happiness.
+
+“And you intend to be married?”
+
+“Certainly we do; that is the end of an engagement.”
+
+“My conscience! to think that the daughter of a merchant prince should
+became the wife of a poor, insignificant clerk!”
+
+“Nothing very alarming about it, Sophy; it wouldn’t be half so
+ridiculous as another daughter of a merchant prince becoming the wife
+of an ex-journeyman barber. I believe Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert was your
+beau ideal of what a fashionable husband ought to be.”
+
+“The impostor!”
+
+“I am at least sure that Frederic is not an imposter--a humbug; one
+would not be likely to _assume_ the character of a clerk.”
+
+“Perhaps not; but pray, sister, when do you intend to become the wife
+of this counting room cherub?”
+
+“The day has not been fixed yet; in the spring, probably.”
+
+“And may I ask what you intend to do with yourself? His salary is only
+a thousand dollars a year.”
+
+“We can get along very well on that sum.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so, and live in some ten footer in a dark alley.”
+
+“We intend to live out of town, in a nice little cottage.”
+
+“Y-e-s! a nice little cottage!” drawled Sophia, in derision. “O sis, I
+will show you how to live when I am married. None of your nice little
+cottages for me. But I wonder when the new partner is coming.”
+
+“Papa told me this morning that he had deferred the arrangement till
+next spring, and that the gentleman would attend to his business at the
+south as heretofore.”
+
+“How provoking! I have been reserving my affections on purpose for him.
+I mean to make a conquest of him in just one month.”
+
+“How foolish you talk, Sophy! One would think you had entirely
+forgotten your maidenly delicacy.”
+
+“Pooh! I’m jesting; it’s between _us_;” and Sophia relapsed into
+a revery, which, we are almost sure, related to the aforesaid new
+partner, who was not only a nice young man, but was to put thirty
+thousand dollars into the concern when he became a partner.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The winter passed away, and the spring came. Frederic and Mary were
+to be married in a few days. Mr. Danvers, to the infinite chagrin of
+Sophia, had readily consented to the match. The proud sister--though
+in the natural goodness of her heart she would not have had Mary’s
+affections blasted--would fain have had a little opposition, to save
+appearances.
+
+The bridal day came, and after the ceremony had been performed, the
+happy parties started for their new residence in the suburbs. Sophia,
+who had acted as bridesmaid, was to accompany them.
+
+The carriage wound through an elm-shaded road, and suddenly brought to
+the view of the delighted party a splendid country residence.
+
+“That is the cottage,” exclaimed the bride.
+
+“That a cottage! Why, Mary it is a palace!” replied Sophia, in utter
+astonishment; for she had never taken interest enough in her sister’s
+affairs to visit her proposed residence.
+
+The carriage stopped before the door, which was half hidden behind a
+vine-laced portico, and the party alighted.
+
+The place was a perfect paradise, and many were the encomiums lavished
+upon it by the bewildered Sophia.
+
+“You cannot think how surprised I was when I first beheld it,” said
+Mary, when she and Sophia were alone. “It seemed more like a dream
+of fairyland than a reality. But Frederic is so very odd about these
+things.”
+
+“I should think that he was! Why, sis, it will certainly ruin him, a
+poor clerk on a thousand dollars salary.”
+
+“Well, he knows best; he says the rent is nothing.”
+
+“Nothing, indeed; but it will eat up his poor pittance.”
+
+“Well, I gave him a lesson on extravagance; but he only laughed in my
+face, and said he knew what he was about.”
+
+“But here are Frederic and father; I am sure papa has been scolding him
+for his recklessness.”
+
+“He does not look as though the scolding had produced a very powerful
+effect,” said Mary, as she saw her husband’s smiling countenance.
+
+“What a beautiful house!” exclaimed Sophia, as Frederic Harlowe joined
+the group.
+
+“A fitting nest for my pretty bird,” replied the husband, gayly, as he
+chucked his blushing wife under the chin.
+
+“I should think your thousand dollars a year would have to suffer
+some,” said Sophia, bluntly.
+
+“O, your father has been so very good as to elevate me a peg, so that I
+can well afford to incur the expense.”
+
+“Yes, my child,” interposed Mr. Danvers; “you know I said something to
+you about entertaining angels unawares. Sophy, _Mr. Frederic Harlowe_
+is the new partner.”
+
+“What an abominable cheat, papa! I’ll warrant you told Mary of it in
+the beginning,” said Sophia, with abundant good humor.
+
+“Nay, she knew nothing of it till a few days before her marriage. This
+was all Mr. Harlowe’s whim; he must explain it for himself.”
+
+Mr. Harlowe did attempt to explain his motive in entering the family
+_incog._, but it was a lame explanation. Probably the reader, who
+readily penetrates the secret thoughts of the hero of the story, has
+already divined his motive. He wanted a wife, and had the sense to seek
+for genuine goodness in preference to name and position in society. He
+won the daughter of a merchant prince as a simple clerk; there was no
+doubt that she loved him.
+
+Mary was very much surprised, and perhaps not a little chagrined, to
+find the romance of marrying a clerk so suddenly disappear; but in the
+wealth of a mutual love they were richer than in the smiles of fickle
+fortune, which had blessed them with an abundance of the good things of
+this life.
+
+
+
+
+CONFESSIONS OF A CONCEITED MAN;
+
+BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF WHAT SOME YOUNG MEN THINK, BUT NEVER SAY.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+When I was a boy, the schoolmaster succeeded in impressing upon my mind
+the truth of that common saying--“If a man thinks nothing of himself,
+no one will think any thing of him.” The pedagogue believed it himself,
+and his daily deportment was based upon it. Whether I learned any thing
+else of him I cannot now say; but I am sure I learned to set a high
+value upon myself.
+
+[Illustration: CONFESSIONS OF A CONCEITED MAN.]
+
+At the age of eighteen, I found myself in the service of an eminent
+merchant of Boston, in the capacity of assistant bookkeeper, on the
+paltry salary of four hundred dollars a year. I was worth more--I was
+sure of it. But perhaps my employer had not yet come to a knowledge of
+the treasure he possessed in me, and I wisely determined to wait till I
+had a better opportunity to distinguish myself.
+
+Certainly I took a great deal of pride in discharging the duties of my
+position. I labored assiduously to please both the merchant and the
+head bookkeeper, and they seemed to regard me with satisfaction; but
+I resolved to make myself so necessary that the business could not be
+carried on without me.
+
+Whether my imagination was more lively than my reason, or not, I do
+not know; but certainly, at the end of six months I made up my mind
+that Mr. Bancroft could not possibly continue in business a single
+month without me. As to my superior, he would be perfectly powerless
+if I should leave. In fact, I “conceited” that I was in reality _the_
+bookkeeper of the concern, though he received the salary and did all
+the dictating.
+
+I was an ambitious young man. I built a great many very pretty castles
+in the air; among them the idea of marrying my employer’s beautiful
+daughter was not the least attractive. She was a splendid girl--people
+called her the belle of Boston--and what to me was just as insinuating,
+she was an only child, and consequently the heiress of all Mr.
+Bancroft’s reputed wealth.
+
+I never was one of that sort who wistfully dream over fine things,
+without making an attempt to attain them. That stale old maxim to the
+effect that “faint heart ne’er won fair lady,” was uppermost in my
+mind. I had come to the conclusion that Rosabel Bancroft should have
+the supreme felicity of becoming my household deity.
+
+But the way was full of difficulties. I had never seen the peerless
+maiden, save on occasions when I had called at the house in the
+capacity of an errand boy--for the key of the safe, to get Mr. Bancroft
+to sign a check, or something of that sort. She was a proud beauty,
+and had never even taken the pains to look at me. “Ah, my fine lady,”
+thought I, “when we are married, I will teach you what is what!”
+
+Certainly I would! And as for marrying her, why, that was a settled
+fact in my mind--I had resolved to do the deed.
+
+I flattered myself that I was a decidedly good-looking fellow, and a
+great many young men cherish this idea in these progressive times.
+My looking glass had told me I was handsome, and there was no going
+behind its impressive declaration. But I was aware that my beauty
+needed a little cultivation, and accordingly I applied to Bogle for
+some of the “compounds,” and in a few weeks, I had the satisfaction
+of contemplating the addition of a downy mustache upon my well-turned
+upper lip. I took a great deal of pains with this beautifier of my
+physiognomy, and felt perfectly sure that the charming Rosabel would be
+unable to resist my killing attractions.
+
+There was to be a grand ball at Union Hall, and I heard that my
+divinity was to form one of the revellers. I will not trouble the
+reader with a relation of the difficulties that beset me in procuring a
+ticket--for the affair was intended solely for the “upper ten;” but I
+got one, though it cost me in the neighborhood of twenty-five dollars,
+to say nothing of twenty-five more expended in a fancy vest, cravat,
+and other little amiabilities.
+
+When I was dressed for the occasion, the effect was perfectly stunning.
+Rosabel was certainly a goner!
+
+My _entrée_ into the drawing room seemed to create a profound
+sensation. All the gentlemen stared at me, and I felt assured of being
+the lion of the evening. It was plain that my “personal” had created
+a _furor_ among the aristocratic dandies; but I tried to treat them
+all with respect and politeness. It is true I saw some of them turn up
+their noses at me; and all evinced a disposition to avoid me. But I
+attributed all these unmannerly symptoms to the envy which my superior
+personal attractions had roused in their narrow minds. I did not resent
+their ill nature--I could afford to be magnanimous.
+
+I walked like a king through the sumptuous apartments; indeed I always
+prided myself on my gait. More than once, when I have been leisurely
+promenading Washington Street, I have felt sure that all the ladies had
+singled me out for especial admiration.
+
+There was something magnificent about my style of walking, and I did
+not blame the dear creatures for sighing when I passed them. It was a
+great pity that, in the illiberality of our laws, only one lady could
+ever have the satisfaction of calling me her husband. I am naturally
+of an sympathetic temperament, and I assure the reader that it deeply
+grieved me to think of the number of fair, promising ladies who would
+be disappointed in winning my affections. I could not love them all,
+and from the bottom of my heart I pitied those who were doomed to be
+disappointed.
+
+Rosabel Bancroft was destined to be my wife. I had deliberately made up
+my mind, and though I thought, in consideration of my condescension in
+choosing her from the thousands who would have rejoiced to win me, she
+ought to meet me half way. But I was not over nice, and in deference to
+the fashions of the times, I mentally consented to do all the courting
+myself.
+
+I succeeded in getting an introduction to her, and she consented to
+dance with me. I was not much elated; I regarded my progress as a
+matter of course. During the quadrille, I did the agreeable to my own
+satisfaction, and though the impression was not as marked and decided
+as I had expected, I was assured that everything was going on well.
+
+“Procrastination is the thief of time,” said somebody. I don’t remember
+whether it was Plato or Diogenes. When the dance was ended, and I had
+conducted her to the drawing room, I made bold to express my admiration
+of her beauty and grace. She blushed, smiled, and looked confused. Poor
+thing! how could she help it?
+
+Just then a dandy spoke a word to her, and then retreated. I was not
+to be balked, and with all the eloquence I possessed--and I would just
+hint that Demosthenes, Cicero, or Daniel Webster couldn’t hold a candle
+to me in making a speech--I popped the question.
+
+It was handsomely done, and Rosabel was taken all aback. I expected all
+this--I knew all about making love--Ovid couldn’t tell me any thing
+about it. Girls at this momentous crisis, do not always mean half they
+say; and I was prepared to hear her declare it was rather sudden, that
+she must ask papa about it, and all that sort of thing.
+
+But my ardent confession seemed to throw her into a perspiration--if I
+may so unpoetically express the confusion which my declaration produced.
+
+“You impudent puppy!” exclaimed she, her pretty cheeks red with anger;
+“so you are one of my father’s clerks, and have the presumption to ask
+me to dance with you, and then to offer me such an indignity! Leave my
+presence, sir, this instant, or I will ask my friends to kick you away!”
+
+Whew! I did feel sheepish for a moment; but then, poor thing, she did
+not know her own mind. Some of those envious noodles had been exciting
+her prejudices against me. That dandy had told her I was her father’s
+clerk, before I had had an opportunity to weave my spell upon her.
+
+Comforting myself with the assurance that there were thousands of
+heiresses who were more discriminating than she, I whistled an air, and
+ambled away from her. If there is any person on the face of the earth
+whom I pity more than another, it is he or she who wilfully throws away
+a good opportunity.
+
+Poor Rosabel! I pitied _her_! I believe I was unselfish enough to
+deplore her misfortune more acutely than I did my own. I had lost
+nothing that might not be regained; she had cast away one of the most
+brilliant opportunities that ever dawned upon the destiny of a maiden.
+
+I have the credit, among those who know me best, of possessing
+firmness in a very remarkable degree; and it was melancholy to think
+she had cast me off forever, for, I am sure, if she had fallen upon her
+knees, and begged and pleaded, I should have been as firm as a rock.
+Those insulting, unlady-like words, had “fixed her flint”--to use a
+rather homely phrase, which I believe did not originate either with
+Addison or Macaulay.
+
+I did not dance any more that evening. I found that I had fallen among
+fools, who could not appreciate me. And strange as it may seem to
+the unphilosophical reader, the fact did not in the least disturb my
+natural equanimity. Why should it? Did not Socrates experience the same
+coldness at the hands of the fickle Athenians, who put him to death by
+mixing poison with his “sherry cobbler?” Why should I expect a better
+fate than others whose misfortune it is to be superior to the masses
+around them?
+
+I left the hall regretting only that the eighth part of my year’s
+salary had been wasted in the adventure.
+
+When I went to the counting room next morning, Mr. Bancroft summoned me
+to his private office.
+
+“You are a fool, young man!” said he, and his face was flushed with
+anger.
+
+O the ingratitude of the world! This was a pretty return for the
+distinguished honor I had intended for his daughter, and which only
+her own wilfulness had prevented her from receiving at my hands.
+
+“If you ever presume to speak to my daughter again, under any
+circumstances, I will immediately discharge you from my service,”
+continued he, with the utmost coolness.
+
+“Nonsense!” thought I--and I beg the reader will not suppose I uttered
+this unseemly expression--“you won’t do any thing of the kind. You know
+your own interest too well.”
+
+Discharge me! I should have liked to see him do it. I believe I should
+actually have gone, if he had said the word, and left him to take care
+of his business as best he might! If he had got me mad, I should just
+as lief seem him fail as not--it is my temperament. To a friend, I am a
+friend; to a foe, a foe of the most determined sort.
+
+But he knew better than to provoke me too far. Bancroft was a
+shrewd man. He knew just how far I would have permitted him to go,
+in deference to the dignity of his position, and he did not exceed
+that limit. It was a lucky thing for him that he did not. Disaster,
+mercantile ruin, would have been the inevitable consequence of such an
+imprudent act!
+
+I regret that my space does not permit me to give the reader the
+details of my exploits in the arena of Cupid for the succeeding six
+months. They were rich and varied; but I am happy to console my friends
+and admirers with the assurance that I am at present engaged in writing
+out the history of the whole period, which in due time will appear,
+complete in seven volumes, with portraits and illustrations.
+
+From the events of this campaign, I deduce the melancholy conclusion
+that the fair sex are sadly wanting in good taste and nice
+discrimination. The fact that I am still a bachelor is a sad commentary
+on this truth. The ladies “are not what they are cracked up to be”--to
+use a rather inelegant expression, which I think was original with
+Hogg, the poet.
+
+But disappointed of my matrimonial hopes, I determined to make commerce
+the study of my life. I had about made up my mind to offer my time
+and talents to Bancroft--in short, to offer to become his partner
+in business. I never was much in favor of these complications of
+mercantile affairs, and to become a partner of his might involve me in
+some future sacrifices, which it might not be pleasant to make.
+
+I thought it best, on the whole, to retain my present situation. But
+the salary was too small. I must wait upon Bancroft, and consent to
+remain in his service, if he would add a hundred dollars to my pay. Of
+course he could not be so imprudent as to run the risk of failure and
+utter ruin for so trifling a matter as this.
+
+“I beg your pardon, Mr. Bancroft,” said I, in my blandest tones,--for
+even a highway robber is polite nowadays when he blows a man’s brains
+out--“but I have taken the liberty to wait upon you for the purpose of
+asking you to advance my salary from four to five hundred dollars.”
+
+“Go to the devil!” said he, rudely.
+
+It is astonishing how some folks will even kick an angel out of their
+presence. Poor Bancroft! he “stood in his own light,”--to borrow from
+Carlyle or Mephistopheles, I forget which.
+
+“You are dear help at two hundred a year; I don’t want you any longer
+at any price,” continued Bancroft.
+
+“There’s stupidity for you!” thought I.
+
+My blood was up, and I determined to leave him, let the consequences be
+what they might.
+
+I did leave him, assured that the mercantile world would be startled
+to its centre by a crash, in a very short time. The concern has not
+broke down yet, but there is a moral certainty that it must soon “go by
+the board,”--to quote from Captain Cook, or Sir John Franklin, it is
+not very material which.
+
+I had not been out of business a week before I discovered that
+literature was the proper sphere for me. I intend to bring about a
+revolution in the world of letters, by introducing an entirely new
+style of composition, adapted both to prose and poetry. I have several
+works under way, including a complete History of the Musquito Kingdom,
+Annals of Hull, and a poem in two hundred and seventy-six cantos, on
+the Want of Appreciation and Correct Taste in the Female Sex,--all of
+which will appear as soon as written and published.
+
+
+
+
+THE BACHELOR BEAU.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“I can no longer struggle against the current of misfortune,” exclaimed
+Mr. Whiting, a small merchant, who had by the pressure of hard times
+become somewhat involved; “I am ruined!”
+
+“Nay, my husband, do not be distressed. Worse calamities than this
+might happen, and we will make the best of it.”
+
+“But wife, I must fail; I cannot sustain myself another day.”
+
+“You have done all you can to avert the misfortune, and if it must
+come, let us not repine, but bear it like Christians.”
+
+“I will try to keep calm; but it seems hard, after weathering the worst
+of the storm, to be wrecked in sight of the land.”
+
+“Perhaps your creditors will give you more time,” suggested Mrs.
+Whiting.
+
+“I cannot hope it; the note which comes due to-morrow, and which I am
+utterly unable to pay, is in the hands of my bitterest enemy.”
+
+“He will not distress you.”
+
+“I know him well. He is a villain!”
+
+“Whom do you mean?”
+
+“Bacher.”
+
+“God help us, if _he_ is your creditor!”
+
+“As near as I can learn, he bought the note on purpose to perplex me,
+and perhaps to obtain his revenge.”
+
+“Why is he so bitter against you?”
+
+“Because I exposed a swindling operation, in which he was engaged.”
+
+“How much is the note, father?” asked a beautiful, hazel-eyed girl, who
+had not before spoken, but who had been listening with intense interest
+to the conversation between her father and mother.
+
+“Three thousand dollars, Sarah,” replied Mr. Whiting, fixing a glance
+of anxiety upon the fair girl.
+
+“Can’t you borrow it, father?”
+
+“Alas! my child, my credit is very much impaired. My notes have been
+too thick in State Street for me to borrow without paying exorbitant
+interest; and that, I think, would wrong my creditors in case any thing
+should happen.”
+
+“It is not so very dreadful to fail, is it, father?”
+
+“It would be ruinous to me, my child. If I could pay this note
+to-morrow, I could get along very well. I should not have been
+embarrassed, had it not been for the failure of Jones. But I suppose it
+must be, and we must content ourselves to live a little more closely
+than we have been accustomed to do.”
+
+Sarah asked no more questions, and though the conversation was
+continued by her father and mother, she seemed to pay no attention to
+it. She appeared to be musing deeply over something.
+
+As the evening advanced, John Barnet, a clerk, who had for some months
+been attentive to Sarah, and who, report said, was a favored suitor,
+made his accustomed evening visit. Every body said that John Barnet was
+a nice young man, and every way worthy of so beautiful and amiable a
+wife as Sarah Whiting would undoubtedly make him.
+
+If there is any thing in smiles and gentle words, the affection of the
+young clerk was warmly reciprocated by Sarah. They were not engaged,
+however, though he called at Mr. Whiting’s house from four to seven
+evenings in a week.
+
+Mr. Whiting and his wife retired at an early hour in the evening,
+leaving the lovers “to have it out.”
+
+As usual, John Barnet begged her to make him happy by promising to be
+his forever. To his utter surprise and consternation, she told him she
+could never be his wife, and entreated him to think no more about her.
+Of course, the lover pressed her for an explanation of this sudden and
+remarkable change in her manner towards him. But she could not even do
+this, and John took his leave, feeling that he had not another friend
+in the world.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Sarah Whiting had another suitor in the person of a wealthy and
+eccentric old bachelor, who, after withstanding the assaults of
+thousands of bright eyes and bewitching smiles, had laid his heart at
+the feet of our beautiful heroine. We don’t blame the old fellow for
+falling in love with her, any more than we blame Sarah for laughing at
+him, when he threw himself at her feet and “popped the question.”
+
+Mr. Landyke Somerset was only about forty, so that, if Sarah had been
+less cruel, it would not have been exactly “May and December,” but
+about June and November. He loved her with all the fervor which the
+march of time had left in his heart, and was actually disconsolate when
+she told him “no.”
+
+Mr. Landyke Somerset was not an ill-looking man, though he was an old
+bachelor. True, his hair was not as black and glossy as it had been
+twenty years before; there was an occasional iron-gray hair, which
+looked a little suspicious; yet, when he began to make his court to the
+divinity of his dreams, even these suddenly disappeared, and people
+were malicious enough to say it was through the influence of a certain
+compound applied by the barber. True, also, there was now and then a
+wrinkle in his face, which some young ladies affect to dislike. But
+what of all these things? Old age is honorable, and the iron-gray hairs
+and the wrinkles did not in the least mar the kindly expression of his
+phiz.
+
+He was a very clever fellow, and though the merry little Sarah Whiting
+could not help laughing when he “popped the question” to her, she would
+very willingly have had just such an uncle, or something of that sort.
+In short she _liked_ him, but she didn’t _love_ him.
+
+Mr. Landyke Somerset was a firm believer in the ancient verity, that
+“faint heart ne’er won fair lady,” and he determined not to faint or
+give up the chase till he had bagged the game, or had seen her the
+wife of another. Consequently he held out all the inducements in his
+power to engage her heart in his favor.
+
+He was not what young ladies called an “old fool,” for he had sense
+enough to feel that he should never be able to gain the victory on the
+strength of his physical attributes--his personal beauty. But he was an
+amiable man at heart, and trusted solely to the influence of his moral
+and mental qualities for success. They had thus far failed him, though
+he still persevered.
+
+Mr. Whiting, readily understanding what these attentions meant, did all
+in his power to favor his suit; for he was an old-fashioned man, and
+placed more confidence in the power of a good heart and plenty of money
+to make his daughter happy, than he did in the more common attributes
+of youth and good looks, even though the possessor of the first-named
+commodities had passed the meridian of life.
+
+But Sarah had a mind of her own in these matters, and though she
+appreciated her kind father’s motives, she could not think of throwing
+herself away on a man of forty, even if he was an angel.
+
+It was only the afternoon of the day preceding the conversation we
+have recorded, that Mr. Somerset had paid her a visit, and renewed his
+protestations of love to her. She had told him for the twentieth time,
+“no.”
+
+When she heard her father relate the particulars of his embarrassment,
+the image of Mr. Somerset had involuntarily presented itself to her
+mind. He was abundantly able to assist them in this emergency, and for
+the love he bore her perhaps he would.
+
+But, then, if she applied to him, and he afforded the necessary aid,
+she would be under an obligation to him, which she might find it very
+inconvenient to discharge.
+
+Ruin stared her father in the face. He had said it was _ruin_, and she
+was sure it was. What right had she to be selfish or over nice, when,
+perhaps, she had it in her power to avert the dreadful calamity? Her
+father was all in all to her; and though some girls are so sentimental
+as to sacrifice father, mother, home, friends, for a lover, she would
+sacrifice a dozen lovers for her father alone, to say nothing of her
+mother, who was at least worth two dozen more.
+
+Let not the reader suppose the pretty Sarah did not love him upon whom
+she had smiled--she did; but her bump of veneration was bigger than
+that other bump on the back of the head.
+
+Her resolution was formed, and about eleven o’clock the next day,
+she put on her bonnet, and walked up to the Revere House, where Mr.
+Somerset boarded.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Mr. Landyke Somerset was a nabob, and retained a private parlor, to
+which the obsequious servant conducted Sarah Whiting.
+
+Of course the bachelor was reasonably astonished at this visit.
+
+“Indeed, Miss Whiting, I am delighted to see you,” exclaimed he, with
+rapturous enthusiasm.
+
+“I knew you would be, and that’s the reason I came,” laughed Sarah,
+and at the same time she blushed so sweetly that Mr. Landyke Somerset
+had almost dissolved in a rapture of delight.
+
+“Ah, my dear Miss Whiting, you are not always so kind to me as you are
+to-day.”
+
+“But I always will be hereafter,” and Sarah smiled, though her heart
+beat like the boundings of a race horse.
+
+“Ah, you are so good, and so pretty, too.”
+
+“I will save you the trouble of all these useless adulations, by saying
+that I have come to accept your oft-repeated proposal.”
+
+“Indeed!” and the bachelor was taken “all aback;” he could hardly
+believe the evidence of his own senses.
+
+“What, sir! Do you recede from your offer?” said Sarah, laughing with
+all her might--a very convenient cloak for young ladies sometimes.
+
+“Capital joke, eh?” and the bachelor laughed too.
+
+“No joke, sir; I am in earnest.”
+
+Sarah looked as sober as the matron of an orphan asylum.
+
+“Nay, nay, my pretty Sarah, do not make sport of me.”
+
+“I will give you my promise in writing, with my signature, if you
+desire it.”
+
+“Is it possible that you mean so?” said the doubtful Mr. Somerset.
+
+“Take my hand.”
+
+The bachelor took it, pressed it to his lips, and began to think
+himself the happiest fellow in the world.
+
+“I am yours, Mr. Somerset.”
+
+“Bless you, Sarah!”
+
+“On one condition.”
+
+“Name it.”
+
+Sarah recounted the story of her father’s embarrassment.
+
+“Fill me out a check for three thousand dollars, and I promise to
+become your wife within one year.”
+
+Mr. Landyke Somerset mused. He appeared to be in doubt. He was a
+high-souled man, and the idea of _buying_ the hand of his wife was to
+the last degree repugnant to him.
+
+“You hesitate sir; I know you do not love me,” said Sarah, with
+apparent pique.
+
+“On my soul, I do! I agree; here is the check,” replied Mr. Somerset,
+as he seated himself at the table and drew the check.
+
+“Now enclose it in a note to my father, saying you learned his trouble
+from a mutual friend, and then beg the privilege of loaning him the
+amount of the check.”
+
+“And you sacrifice yourself to your father, my fair Sarah!” said the
+bachelor, as he sealed the note.
+
+“I do.”
+
+“You are an angel!”
+
+“Nay, I must go now.”
+
+The check did the business, and Mr. Whiting was as happy as ever he
+was in his life. Bacher could not sleep that night because he had been
+foiled in his revenge.
+
+In the evening Mr. Somerset called at the house to see his future
+bride. She treated him kindly, and permitted him to sit by her side,
+hold her work basket, and pick up her thimble when she dropped
+it--which was glory enough for an evening, to one as moderate in his
+wishes as the bachelor beau of our heroine.
+
+But about eight o’clock, to Sarah’s utter consternation, John Barnet
+paid his usual visit. The poor clerk was sadly distressed, as well he
+might be, and had called to desire an explanation of the cool manner in
+which he had been dismissed.
+
+The presence of Mr. Somerset was all the explanation he desired. He was
+uneasy; he could not join in the conversation, and aware that he was
+making himself disagreeable to the party, he determined to take his
+leave; but how could he leave her?
+
+He knew Mr. Somerset to be one of the best men in the world, and he
+resolved to request an interview with him on the spot.
+
+The worthy bachelor kindly condescended to walk down the street a short
+distance with him, and John Barnet told him the whole story; how he
+loved Sarah, and how he had every reason to believe that Sarah loved
+him. He was sure that some unfair advantage had been taken, and he
+wanted the matter explained.
+
+“Come back to the house, young man, and I will give you all the
+satisfaction you desire.”
+
+John consented.
+
+A few minutes sufficed to explain to Mr. Whiting and the discarded
+lover the nature of the sacrifice which the devoted Sarah had made for
+her father’s sake.
+
+“Bless you, my child!” exclaimed the merchant, his eyes filling with
+tears of love, as he tenderly embraced his noble-hearted daughter.
+
+“You understand it now, don’t you, Mr. Barnet?” said the bachelor, with
+a good natured smile.
+
+“I do, indeed,” replied John, sorrowfully; “she is a noble girl, and I
+shall never cease to love her, though she can never be mine.”
+
+Sarah cast a sad glance at him, and her eyes filled with tears. She
+never knew till that moment how much she loved the poor clerk. But it
+was all over now--the bright dreams of love had passed away, and she
+could never be happy again.
+
+“What, Sarah! do you recede from your promise?” asked Mr. Somerset.
+
+“Nay, I do not. Farewell, John! farewell forever!” and the poor girl
+sobbed convulsively.
+
+“Farewell, Sarah!” and the clerk seized his hat and rushed towards the
+door.
+
+“Hallo! stop, young man!” exclaimed Mr. Somerset; “don’t go off mad.
+Give me your hand.”
+
+The bachelor took the clerk’s hand.
+
+“You are a good fellow; I honor you. Your hand, Sarah,” and Mr.
+Somerset took the little white hand of the weeping maiden, and placed
+it in that of John Barnet. “Be happy!”
+
+“What do you mean, sir?” asked Sarah, bewildered at the actions of the
+bachelor.
+
+“Mean? You love him, don’t you?”
+
+“With all my soul!”
+
+“And you do not love me?”
+
+Sarah began to understand.
+
+“I _like_ you.”
+
+“You are his; be happy! You did not for a moment suppose I could be so
+mean as to take advantage of such a noble act of self-sacrifice as you
+performed to-day? No! I love you, but I will not make you miserable.”
+
+Poor Sarah! How happy she was, and how she pitied poor Mr. Somerset,
+who loved her so much! She felt that, if she had never seen John
+Barnet, she would have been glad to become his wife, iron gray and
+wrinkles to the contrary notwithstanding--he was such a dear good soul!
+
+“Be happy! and that isn’t all; when I die you shall have half my
+fortune.”
+
+The bachelor kept his word, and though he didn’t die of a broken heart,
+he did not live many years; yet when he did die, the hand of woman--of
+as true and loving a woman as ever made home a paradise--smoothed his
+dying pillow, and closed his eyes in their last sleep; and there were
+sincere mourners over his bier.
+
+Poor Mr. Landyke Somerset! though he found not a wife in Sarah Whiting,
+he found a true friend.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAND RECEPTION BALL.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+Tiptop is somewhere in the State of Massachusetts; but, in
+consideration of the unpleasant nature of the details of my story, I
+do not feel at liberty to state its precise geographical position.
+Undoubtedly, too, there are within the limits of our ancient
+commonwealth a great many Tiptops, and, by assigning it a specific
+_locale_, many whom the coat fits will fail to put it on.
+
+Tiptop was fully up with the times. The distinctions of caste were as
+precisely defined and protected as in New York or Philadelphia. It is
+true, a belle from one of the emporiums of fashion would not have felt
+at home there; but then the Tiptopites labored to be as fashionable as
+the metropolitans, and if they did not succeed, it was not their fault.
+
+There were balls, parties, and lyceums in Tiptop; but, unfortunately
+for the luminous propensities of the “upper ten,” they were obliged to
+call in the aid of the _canaille_ on these occasions, in order to make
+the expense fall as lightly as possible on the glorified few.
+
+There was a great excitement in the place when it was understood that
+the Hon. Mr. Silas Lumpkin, M. C., from one of the Western States,
+proposed to spend a few days with Squire Rogers, his “chum” in college.
+
+The Hon. Mr. Lumpkin was a distinguished man in his day and generation.
+Though not thirty-five at the period of our story, he had made a mark
+on the country which time will not immediately obliterate.
+
+But Mr. Lumpkin was a sensible man, notwithstanding the temptations of
+his position to be otherwise. We have referred to the Congressional
+Globe, but we do not find that he ever made a long speech, which, in
+our mind, fully establishes his reputation as a model Congressman.
+
+The distinguished gentleman’s visit to Tiptop, promised to be an epoch
+in the history of the place. The notables were duly impressed with the
+honor which awaited them, and immediately put their heads together
+to devise a suitable plan for a public demonstration. They fully
+appreciated the great man’s condescension, and it only remained to make
+a proper expression of it.
+
+A voluntary committee of the most notable of the notables waited on
+Squire Rogers in this emergency. Unfortunately, the Squire was a legal
+man, and did not feel competent to advise in an affair of this kind;
+and the squire, too, was a sensible man, and had it not been for the
+fact that he was a candidate for the office of representative to the
+next General Court, would probably have expressed his disgust at the
+whole thing.
+
+But while the voluntary committee were discussing a scheme for a public
+dinner in the town hall, the ladies decided that a grand reception ball
+should be given on the occasion of Mr. Lumpkin’s arrival.
+
+Of course the matter was settled, for Miss Araminta Pipkin and
+Annabellina Punkinton had said so. Miss Dorothea Pilkinton was opposed
+to it at first, on account of the shortness of the time; but Miss
+Pipkin was an Amazon in an argument, and carried the day.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+It was after dark when the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin arrived at Tiptop. The
+Lyceum Hall was already in a blaze of brilliancy, and the revellers
+were rapidly gathering to do honor to the man who had distinguished
+himself by holding his tongue.
+
+Mr. Lumpkin, all unconscious of the honors that were in store for him,
+cordially grasped the hand of Squire Rogers, and entered the house. He
+drank several cups of particularly strong tea, and found himself fully
+refreshed from the fatigues of his journey.
+
+“The hall was lighted as you passed, was it not?” asked the squire,
+thinking it time to broach the subject of the complimentary ball.
+
+“The building on the hill?”
+
+“Yes--next to the meeting house.”
+
+“It was.”
+
+“Something grand there to-night; we must go up.”
+
+“Political?”
+
+“No, nothing of the kind; your friends in this place, without
+distinction of party, propose to welcome you to Tiptop in a grand
+reception ball.”
+
+“The deuse they do!”
+
+“Fact!” and the squire grinned in sympathy with the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin.
+
+“But, Rogers, it’s silly.”
+
+“Public men must humor the follies of their constituency.”
+
+“Not my constituents, thank my stars! I am not holden to them for my
+office; so I shall do them the honor to spend the evening with you,
+Rogers.”
+
+“But my dear Lumpkin, the affair was got up wholly on your account.”
+
+“Infernally silly of them--decidedly flat.”
+
+“They will be disappointed;” and Squire Rogers looked sad, for he
+happened to think at that moment that he was a candidate for the
+legislature.
+
+“No matter.”
+
+“But the aristocracy--bah!--will be mortally offended with me.”
+
+“The what?”
+
+“The affair was got up by our fashionables.”
+
+“So much the better. If they wish to make fools of themselves, they
+shall not do it at my expense.”
+
+“But consider, my dear Lumpkin, what a terrible disappointment it
+will be to them. They are even now waiting your arrival. I have been
+appointed gentleman usher, to conduct you to the hall, and do the
+honors.”
+
+“Good, Rogers!” and Mr. Lumpkin, being a jolly, good natured
+Congressman, laughed heartily, notwithstanding the consternation of his
+legal friend, who began to fear that his want of tact would insure the
+victory, at the approaching election, to his rival.
+
+“But the ladies, Lumpkin.”
+
+This was a fortunate hit on the part of Squire Rogers. Mr. Lumpkin
+was a bachelor, and like bachelors in general, he loved the ladies
+to distraction, while he kept them at a safe distance. The thought
+of being the centre of attraction, amid a galaxy of bright eyes and
+blushing cheeks, was rather inviting; but Mr. Lumpkin could not forgive
+the Tiptopites for making fools of themselves at his expense.
+
+The honorable gentleman was a consistent man, and having before decided
+not to go, it was against his principles to change his mind. There was
+a villainous rumor in circulation that Mr. Lumpkin, having unhappily
+fallen asleep during the making of a certain motion, had suddenly woke
+up and voted “yea,” in opposition to his colleagues, and against the
+instructions of his constituents.
+
+Having always been considered sound on the question at issue, every
+body was surprised at his vote. He did not discover his mistake until
+the following day; but, being a consistent man, he defended his course,
+and made the longest speech he was ever known to make, on the folly
+of instructing public men who are sent to Congress for the good of
+their country. He would have lost his subsequent election, only that a
+majority, admiring his manly independence, saw fit to give him their
+suffrages.
+
+Mr. Lumpkin had said no, and it was an exceedingly difficult thing for
+him to reverse his sentiments, and say yes. But the ladies, being--as
+he eloquently expressed it, in his speech on the necessity of reducing
+the duty on Cashmere shawls, and making it specific, instead of _ad
+valorem_--the bright particular luminaries of a republican nation,
+seemed to beckon him to the ball--to be recreant to his principle of
+consistency.
+
+But Mr. Lumpkin, in the true spirit of our glorious constitution,
+resolved to compromise the matter, and go. There was a codfish clique
+in Tiptop, and Mr. Lumpkin considered it his duty to punish them. After
+making some arrangements with his friend, whose urgent remonstrances
+were all unheeded, he left the house.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+Lyceum Hall blazed with beauty and tallow candles. All the _élite_ of
+Tiptop were on tiptoe with expectation. After a long and rather stormy
+discussion, it was decided that Miss Pipkin should dance first with Mr.
+Lumpkin.
+
+Eight o’clock came, and the distinguished gentleman did not make his
+appearance. The less pretentious portion of the party began to grow
+impatient. They cared nothing at all about Mr. Lumpkin; they came to
+have a good time, and were bound to enjoy themselves, whether Mr.
+Lumpkin and his admirers did or not.
+
+Joe Maple began to get a little mad. He came with Lizzie Lee, had paid
+for his ticket, and--as he expressed it to Mr. Adolphus Pipkin--he’d
+like to know why they couldn’t go ahead without Mr. Lumpkin.
+
+“Hang me if I stay or pay for my ticket if they don’t put her through
+pretty soon,” said he.
+
+“What are they waiting for?” asked a stranger by his side.
+
+“For Mr. Stumpkins, or some sich name; but I ain’t a-going to wait
+any longer. What do you say, boys--shall we back out if they don’t go
+ahead?”
+
+“Sartin; go to the managers, Joe; we’ll back you up in any thing you
+say,” replied several.
+
+“They ought to go on,” suggested the stranger.
+
+“Tew be sure they had; so here goes for the managers. They are so darn
+stuck up, they seem to think we ain’t nobody; we’ll larn ’em better;”
+and Joe Maple marched for the knot of gentlemen who had charge of the
+arrangements, and who were wondering why the distinguished guest of the
+evening did not appear.
+
+At this moment Squire Rogers entered the hall. In reply to the
+managers’ queries, he said Mr. Lumpkin had left his house half an hour
+before, promising to meet him at the festive scene.
+
+Joe Maple said the “boys” meant to have a time, any how, and he
+insisted that the dance should be immediately commenced, or the “boys”
+would make tracks for “hum.”
+
+Joe Maple’s party were in a very decided majority, and their appeal was
+irresistible. The band, who were prepared to play “Hail Columbia” for
+the “grand entrée” of Mr. Lumpkin, were directed to commence a cotillon.
+
+The sets were nearly formed, when the stranger who had before
+questioned him, requested Joe Maple to introduce him to a partner.
+
+“Sartin,” said Joe, who was a good-natured, clever fellow; “but I don’t
+know ye. What’s your name?”
+
+The stranger hesitated a moment, and then said it was Smith.
+
+“You don’t say so! You ain’t the Smith that’s just moved on to the
+Pelatiah Hopkins place?”
+
+“Just so,” replied Mr. Smith.
+
+“Well, now, I am glad to see you;” and Joe Maple cast about him for a
+suitable partner for the new proprietor.
+
+Joe was always up to some mischief, and it seemed as though the very
+demon of mischief ruled him when he glanced at Miss Araminta Pipkin,
+who was impatiently waiting the arrival of her distinguished partner.
+
+Now Mr. Smith was certainly not very prepossessing in his external
+appearance. He looked very much like a country shopkeeper dressed up
+in his Sunday clothes, and Joe Maple was perfectly satisfied that
+Miss Pipkin would never condescend to dance with him. But there was a
+prospect of some sport, and though he and the amiable leader of the
+Tiptop _ton_ were not on speaking terms, he determined to present Mr.
+Smith.
+
+“I want to introduce Mr. Smith to you,” said Joe, mustering his most
+elegant expression. “He wants a pardner.”
+
+Miss Pipkin addressed a languid sneer, first to Joe Maple, and then to
+Mr. Smith.
+
+“No, I thank ye,” replied she, briefly, turning away her head from the
+suppliant at her feet.
+
+“Hadn’t ye better? This is Mr. Smith, that has bought the Pelatiah
+Hopkins place.”
+
+“You have my answer; I dance with Mr. Lumpkin;” and Miss Pipkin looked
+unutterably scornful at the thought of descending from a member of
+Congress even to the proprietor of the Hopkins place.
+
+“That is very plain speech,” suggested Mr. Smith.
+
+“Short as pie-crust; she’s right down smart. But, Mr. Smith, as you
+have bought that place, you shall dance with the poottiest gal in the
+hall--that’s Lizzie Lee. She engaged to dance with me----”
+
+“I could not think of disappointing you,” interposed Mr. Smith.
+
+“I don’t stand on trifles. The fact is, Lizzie and I understand one
+another pootty well.”
+
+Mr. Smith was introduced to Lizzie, who was all the enamoured Mr. Maple
+had said she was.
+
+But the sets were all full save one, in which had been reserved a place
+for Mr. Lumpkin and the sighing Miss Pipkin, who fondly hoped to make a
+conquest of the distinguished bachelor’s heart.
+
+This set was at the head of the hall, and of course the three couples
+which now composed it were the cream of the aristocracy. Mr. Lumpkin
+had not come and Joe, who was all attention to the new owner of the
+Hopkins place, directed Mr. Smith to lead his partner to this vacant
+position.
+
+Mr. Smith did so. He was perfectly innocent of any intention to offend,
+and smilingly bowed to his pretty partner.
+
+The three couples were aghast at the coolness and effrontery of Mr.
+Smith. Mr. Adolphus Pipkin felt outraged, and stepped forward to
+remonstrate, suggesting to the new lord of the Hopkins place that the
+head of the hall had been reserved for Mr. Lumpkin and the accomplished
+Miss Pipkin.
+
+“When _he_ comes, _I_ will go,” replied Mr. Smith, quietly.
+
+“How rude!” exclaimed Miss Punkinton.
+
+“What horrible impoliteness!” added Miss Pilkinton.
+
+“Brought up in the woods,” suggested Miss Smythson.
+
+“I declare he smells of the cow yard,” sneered Miss Punkinton.
+
+“Will you abandon your position?” asked Mr. Pipkin, fiercely.
+
+“No sir,” replied Smith, calmly.
+
+“On with the dance!” shouted Joe Maple.
+
+And on it went, for the leader of the band, knowing who his strongest
+friends were, started the music.
+
+“Sir, you are no gentleman,” continued Mr. Pipkin.
+
+“First couple, lead up to the right!” shouted the caller.
+
+Mr. Smith and Lizzie, being the first couple, _led_ up to the right,
+and in doing so, had nearly borne the enraged Mr. Pipkin under their
+feet.
+
+“_Balancez!_”
+
+“I demand satisfaction, sir.”
+
+“_Chassez_ to the right!”
+
+Mr. Smith danced furiously; but the rest of the set, horrified at the
+idea of dancing with such company as the owner of the Hopkins place and
+Lizzie Lee, abandoned their positions. Joe Maple instantly filled them
+again, and things went on as merrily as a marriage bell.
+
+Squire Rogers was repeatedly importuned for information in regard to
+the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin, whose consistency seemed quite as prominent as it
+had ever been before. The squire assured them he would come--that it
+was only ten o’clock, and genteel folks never appeared till a late hour.
+
+The Hon. Mr. Lumpkin _did_ come at last.
+
+
+_CHAPTER IV._
+
+But when he came, the proprietor of the Pelatiah Hopkins place
+incontinently _vamosed_.
+
+“Rogers,” said Mr. Smith, “_Lumpkin is come_.”
+
+“High time,” replied Rogers.
+
+“Please announce the fact.”
+
+“There will be a tempest; hadn’t we better have the smelling salts
+handy?”
+
+“Ay, cod-liver oil would do as well; there is a smell of codfish in
+this vicinity.”
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Squire Rogers to the little knot of
+uppercrusts that occupied the head of the hall, “I have the honor of
+informing you that the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin has come.”
+
+This announcement produced a very decided sensation. Miss Araminta
+Pipkin heaved a deep sigh, and almost fainted in anticipation of the
+presentation.
+
+“Where is he?” asked Mr. Adolphus Pipkin, glancing eagerly around the
+room.
+
+“The illustrious gentleman is close at hand.”
+
+“Band, play the grand march.”
+
+The band struck up “Hail Columbia.”
+
+Mr. Smith, exhibiting a most wonderful command of himself, while every
+body else was excited by the event about to transpire, stood by the
+side of Lizzie Lee, engaged in a familiar conversation. Joe Maple, in
+view of the very marked attentions of Mr. Smith to his intended, had
+begun to grow a little jealous, and half regretted that he had been so
+polite to the owner of the Hopkins place.
+
+“Mr. Lumpkin,” said Rogers, breaking in upon the pleasant conference,
+“the company wait your presence.”
+
+“Hey, squire! this is Mr. Smith,” said Maple.
+
+“The Hon. Mr. Lumpkin,” continued Rogers.
+
+“You will pardon the little trick I have played upon you,” said Mr.
+Smith; “my name is Lumpkin, M. C.”
+
+“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Joe Maple.
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“And I’ve been talking to you just as though you was a common man.”
+
+“So I am.”
+
+“Ain’t you one of them ’ere Congress fellers?”
+
+“Certainly, but one of the people; and, between you and I and the barn,
+as we say out west, I am no friend of such folks as these over here;”
+and Mr. Lumpkin pointed significantly to the _élite_ of Tiptop.
+
+“You are a brick, squire!” and Joe hawhawed with right good will; “but
+I suppose we shan’t see you again to-night, if you are going over
+there?”
+
+“Yes; Miss Lee, I claim your hand for the next dance, according to your
+promise.”
+
+“I shall be almost afraid to dance with you now,” simpered Lizzie.
+
+“Hush, Liz! talk up to him,” whispered Joe; “a Congress chap ain’t any
+better than any body else.”
+
+“Mr. Lumpkin, your admirers will become impatient,” suggested Squire
+Rogers, with an ironical smile.
+
+“Excuse me for a few moments, Miss Lee;” and Mr. Lumpkin, taking the
+arm of the squire, walked towards the head of the hall.
+
+Joe Maple, whose keen relish for “some sport” did not permit him to
+remain in the background, followed in their wake.
+
+“Miss Pipkin, the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin,” said Squire Rogers.
+
+The amiable lady raised her eyes, which had been fixed in maidenly
+coyness upon the floor, and beheld the abominable Mr. Smith, the
+abhorred owner of the Pelatiah Hopkins place!
+
+“Why--I--yes--I declare--I have met--you before, this evening,”
+stammered the leader of the female _ton_.
+
+“Should rather think you had!” roared Joe Maple, who has since declared
+that he thought “he should ha’ died a larfin’.”
+
+“We have; I had the honor of being refused the pleasure of your
+hand at the first dance,” said Mr. Lumpkin, with a full display of
+congressional dignity.
+
+“Mr. Pipkin, the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin, M. C., from the west,” continued
+Squire Rogers, who, notwithstanding he felt a little nervous on account
+of the seat in the legislature, was in very tolerable spirits, and
+heartily enjoyed the discomfiture of the “codfish” party.
+
+“Happy to know you, Mr. Pipkin. You demanded satisfaction of me in the
+early part of the evening; should be happy to afford it.”
+
+“You will pardon me, sir; there was some mistake; I would not of course
+have spoken in that manner to a member of Congress.”
+
+Mr. Lumpkin, not being above the infirmities of human nature, sneered
+rather rudely at the Tiptop exquisite, as much as to say, “You ought to
+treat every body well, whether they are public or private individuals.”
+
+The master of ceremonies discharged the duties of his office with
+punctilious formality. It seemed to the sufferers that he was
+unnecessarily minute in his presentation ceremonial, permitting the
+distinguished gentleman to make a home thrust at each one of the
+persons who had been so rude to Mr. Smith.
+
+The introductions were happily concluded, and a more chopfallen set
+than the _élite_ of Tiptop never gathered together in the same hall.
+
+Miss Pipkin was in an agony. She had actually turned up her nose to
+a member of Congress. Of course she could no longer hope to make a
+conquest of his heart; the vision of being a distinguished lady melted
+quite away.
+
+But then “it is an ill wind that blows no one any good.” If Miss Pipkin
+could not have a member of Congress, she at least had the consolation
+of saying that she had refused the hand of the Hon. Mr. Lumpkin, which,
+to a lady of her peculiar turn of mind, was an immense satisfaction.
+
+Mr. Lumpkin returned to the side of Lizzie Lee, who, maugre her
+coyness, was tolerably sociable. Joe Maple, from the abundance of his
+good nature, vowed he might dance with her just as many times as he
+pleased.
+
+About eleven o’clock, Miss Pipkin suggested to her brother that the
+delicate state of her health would not permit her to endure the
+excitement of the dance any longer, and when the leader of the _ton_
+left, the followers went after her.
+
+But the common folks “staid it out,” and Mr. Lumpkin confessed that he
+enjoyed the ball very much indeed; for, true to his duty as a public
+man, it had enabled him to administer a suitable reproof to the
+pretensions of the Tiptopites.
+
+Joe Maple and Lizzie Lee--since Mrs. Maple--have not yet forgotten the
+part they acted, and perhaps they may be pardoned for a slight display
+of vanity, as they relate the particulars of _The Grand Reception Ball_.
+
+
+
+
+MARRYING A BEGGAR.
+
+
+_CHAPTER I._
+
+“So much for bringing poor relations into the house! I really believe
+that Charles has fallen in love with the girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Mason to
+her husband, a merchant in moderate circumstances in the city of Boston.
+
+“Well, suppose he has; she is a good girl, is she not?” quickly
+responded the merchant.
+
+“I don’t know but that she is good enough; but she is a pauper!”
+
+“Not exactly a pauper, Mrs. Mason.”
+
+“Didn’t we take her into the family to keep her from starving?”
+
+“I did not so understand it. You needed a young woman to assist you in
+sewing, and employed her at half the usual wages.”
+
+“Yes, and isn’t she a pauper for all that?”
+
+“Gently, Mrs. Mason: you forget that she is my sister’s daughter,” said
+the merchant, a little sternly.
+
+“What if she is? She is a penniless girl for all that. A pretty match
+for _our_ son!”
+
+“And why not for our son? I am not a _millionnaire_. If the times don’t
+come easier than they have been, I shall fail before the year is out.”
+
+“So much the more reason why Charles should look out for himself.”
+
+“If he loves my niece, I sincerely hope he will marry her, for I
+believe she is one of the best girls in the world; certainly she is
+vastly superior to the silly, affected, mincing, novel-reading misses
+of fashionable society. I commend his taste and his judgment.”
+
+“Well, Mr. Mason, I _am_ surprised!”
+
+“Not the least occasion to be surprised.”
+
+“Let me tell you, Mr. Mason, that I never will consent to see Charles
+throw himself away on a pauper. If you haven’t the spirit to prevent so
+disgraceful a match, I shall send the girl away.”
+
+“Don’t you do it, madam,” said Mr. Mason, in a firm, decided tone.
+
+“I _shall_ do it!” replied the lady, waxing warm at the obstinacy of
+her husband, who in trivial matters, was in the habit of letting her
+have her own way.
+
+“Better not,” quietly responded the gentleman.
+
+“The minx put on such airs and smirked so, that I really believe she
+meant to catch him.”
+
+“What, Grace? Impossible! She is a little gentle, quiet thing, and I am
+sure the idea of a flirtation never entered her simple head.”
+
+“Humph!” sneered the lady. “I know better. And now that he is really
+making love to her, the provoking jade seems to look upon it as a
+matter of course; thinks it just as much a proper thing that she should
+be the wife of our Charles, as though she had been born a princess!”
+
+“Poor thing! I suppose she is human, and actually loves the boy!”
+
+“Loves him or not, I’ll make an end of it.”
+
+“Don’t be rash, Mrs. Mason,” replied the husband, twirling in his
+fingers a buff envelope, marked “Telegraph.”
+
+“What have you got there?”
+
+“I had almost forgot to mention that brother Joseph had arrived in New
+York, and telegraphs that he shall be here to-night by the New Haven
+train.”
+
+“Just like you! Never tell of a thing till the last moment!” said the
+lady, petulantly.
+
+“I received the despatch only two hours ago.”
+
+“Here is another kettle of fish,” continued the lady, musing. “That
+everlasting niece of yours is in the way again.”
+
+“I hope the poor girl has no more sins to answer for.”
+
+“Where do you suppose your brother Joseph will leave his property?”
+
+“I have not the remotest idea.”
+
+“Don’t you suppose that angelic niece of yours will wheedle him out of
+a part of it?”
+
+“I hope so.”
+
+“You don’t want he should leave it all in your family, then?” sneered
+the lady.
+
+“No, I hope he will do justly.”
+
+“I wish I could get her out of the way before he comes.”
+
+“Don’t attempt it, Mrs. Mason,” said the merchant, with very decided
+emphasis.
+
+“If she were only out of the way, Henrietta would come in for the
+whole,” added the lady, as she hurried out of the room to make
+arrangements for the reception of uncle Joseph.
+
+
+_CHAPTER II._
+
+Uncle Joseph was a Calcutta merchant, in which capacity he had
+accumulated an immense fortune. Being a bachelor, the probable
+disposition of his property became a question of considerable interest
+among his relations.
+
+The family of Mr. Mason, the merchant introduced in the last chapter,
+included but two children, a son and a daughter.
+
+Grace was the only daughter of a sister, recently deceased, who had
+been for many years a widow.
+
+It was supposed that uncle Joseph would make one of his nieces his
+heiress. This was the old fellow’s whim, and no one could gainsay the
+whim of a bachelor. From some indications of preference which he had
+bestowed upon Henrietta in her childhood, it was generally believed
+that she would prove to be the fortunate one.
+
+Henrietta had been educated to be a lady. Her delicate fingers were
+never soiled by rude collision with pots and kettles, and she had been
+taught to believe that it was delicate sensibility to be afraid of a
+spider or a bullfrog. She played the piano with passable skill, and
+lingered away half her time at full length on the sofa, poring over the
+contents of a novel.
+
+Such was the prospective heiress of uncle Joseph’s large fortune. Her
+father was far from approving the education she had received, and had
+used all the influence he possessed, short of quarreling, to have these
+defects remedied.
+
+Uncle Joseph came, and was welcomed as became the dignity of one who
+had a fortune to bestow.
+
+Henrietta thought he was a “dear love” of a man, and she wondered that
+the ladies ever let him remain a bachelor.
+
+Grace, by the contrivance of Mrs. Mason, was not present when her uncle
+arrived; but Mr. Mason, understanding the trick, sought her in person,
+and introduced her to the man of money.
+
+The poor girl was too modest and retiring to force herself upon the
+notice of uncle Joseph, who was too deeply absorbed by the unremitting
+attentions of Henrietta to perceive her situation, or discover the
+mental capacity in which she acted.
+
+At tea, uncle Joseph complained of being ill, and said that he had not
+been well since he landed on the previous day.
+
+Mrs. Mason and her daughter were all sympathy. The ailing bachelor
+was conducted to his apartment, and herb teas and jugs of hot water
+were put in requisition. Henrietta volunteered to sit all night by his
+bedside and minister to his wants; but the sick man did not deem it
+necessary.
+
+During all this confusion, Grace was not to be seen. She was not
+permitted to assist in the preparations for the sick man’s comfort;
+everything must be done by Henrietta’s own hand.
+
+Notwithstanding the kind attentions lavished upon uncle Joseph, there
+was no improvement in his condition; but on the contrary, he rapidly
+grew worse, and at midnight the physician was sent for. Henrietta had
+not left the bedside for a moment. She was the most devoted creature in
+the world, and the bachelor could not but contrast her devotion with
+the utter neglect of Grace, who had not once entered his room, even to
+inquire how he did. Henrietta’s prospects were decidedly brilliant.
+
+The physician came, and after feeling the pulse of the sufferer,
+inquired where he resided when at home.
+
+Uncle Joseph replied that he had no home--had just come from Calcutta.
+
+“I see,” said the physician. “Was there any sickness on board the ship?”
+
+“There was. I came by the overland route to Liverpool, thence by a New
+York liner. There was a steerage full of emigrants on board, among whom
+the fever raged fearfully.”
+
+“Just so,” returned the physician, “and you have got the ship fever.”
+
+“The ship fever!” exclaimed Henrietta, rushing out of the room.
+
+The sick man turned, and witnessed her abrupt departure. With a sigh,
+such as can only be wrung from a bachelor conscious of his loneliness,
+he drew the bedclothes closely around him, and apparently abandoned
+himself to the fate which the dreadful disease seemed to foreshadow.
+
+The physician made up his prescription and retired. No one was left
+with uncle Joseph but his brother.
+
+“I am deserted, brother,” said the sick man.
+
+“No, brother, I am here.”
+
+“But there is no hand of woman here; well, it is a dreadful disease,”
+and the sufferer sighed again.
+
+Mr. Mason went down to the sitting room, whither his wife and daughter
+had fled.
+
+“How is this, wife? Is Joseph to be abandoned now that he most needs
+attention?” asked he of Mrs. Mason.
+
+“You don’t think we are going to stay in the same room with the ship
+fever?” replied Mrs. Mason.
+
+“You may as well be in the room as in the house.”
+
+“We must leave the house immediately. Why did he not go to the
+hospital? It was not very considerate of him to bring the ship fever
+into the family. He might have known that he had it.”
+
+“Heaven forgive your heartlessness! But is my brother to die with no
+one to care for him?” exclaimed Mr. Mason, indignantly.
+
+“You must hire a nurse.”
+
+“And you will desert him?”
+
+“We can’t stay where the ship fever is.”
+
+“No, papa, it would be suicidal,” added Henrietta. “His fortune would
+do us no good if we caught the fever.”
+
+“Go, then! but there is still one in the house who has a heart,”
+replied Mr. Mason, as he left the room to seek the apartment of Grace.
+
+Grace was ready in a moment to attend her uncle to the sick room,
+where, regardless of the danger of contagion, she laved the burning
+brow of the sufferer, and did all that an angel hand could do to render
+him comfortable.
+
+Early in the morning, Mrs. Mason and her daughter departed for the
+residence of a friend in the country.
+
+
+_CHAPTER III._
+
+For several weeks Grace, with such assistance as Mr. Mason and Charles
+could give, nursed the invalid with the most untiring devotion. All her
+time was spent by his bedside. She was all gentleness and sympathy,
+bearing patiently with his petulance and ill humor, and never betraying
+the slightest appearance of anger when he scolded and even swore at her.
+
+The fever turned, and he began to mend. He was now out of danger, and
+rapidly advancing to complete restoration.
+
+The physician commended the skill and devotion of his nurse, assuring
+him that he owed his life to her.
+
+But the devotion of the poor girl cost her dearly; for scarcely had
+uncle Joseph recovered before she was taken down with the fever, and
+for weeks languished on the very verge of the grave.
+
+Yet there was no female hand to lave her brow save that of a hired
+nurse. Charles Mason loved her as he did his own existence, and day and
+night he watched over her with a constancy and a devotion worthy the
+loving heart of the gentler sex.
+
+Uncle Joseph, too, was an anxious watcher round her bed. Though he was
+a bachelor, and had spent the greater part of his life in India, away
+from the gentle influences of female society, he showed an aptness in
+the sick room that would have done honor to a Benedict.
+
+To the intense relief of her devoted friend, Grace recovered. The
+disease was now banished from the house, and Mrs. Mason and Henrietta
+ventured to return.
+
+“I trust you have had a pleasant visit, madam,” said uncle Joseph,
+coldly.
+
+“Pleasant! nay, far from it. You do us injustice; we were perfectly
+miserable on account of your dangerous illness.”
+
+“Humph!” said uncle Joseph, with a sneer.
+
+The love between Charles and Grace, strengthened by the scenes of
+suffering through which they had passed, was now an unalterable
+sentiment. Of course, uncle Joseph had not witnessed their mutual
+devotion to him in his illness, without suspecting the existence of
+some strong bond of union between them. And the young man’s untiring
+attention to her in her own sickness had confirmed the opinion.
+
+Seeking a favorable opportunity, he conversed with Charles upon the
+subject, who readily admitted his affection. The bachelor recommended
+an immediate marriage.
+
+The step was not, of course, ungrateful to the feelings of the lover.
+And the desire to redeem Grace from the life of drudgery to which she
+was reduced by the heartlessness of his mother, seemed to demand their
+immediate union.
+
+The young man’s intentions were soon noised through the family. Mrs.
+Mason renewed the opposition she had before made, and even went so far
+as to threaten that, if she could not break up the match, she would
+imbitter the lives of the parties.
+
+Uncle Joseph remonstrated.
+
+“May I ask, madam, what objection you can possibly have to the
+marriage?” said he, with considerable sternness in his manner.
+
+“What objection! why, the girl is a beggar; I have employed her in my
+family to keep her out of the almshouse, which, I think, is objection
+enough,” replied Mrs. Mason, disliking the interference of uncle Joseph.
+
+“Your son, I think, is not wealthy, so that he need not _demand_ a rich
+wife.”
+
+“He need not marry a beggar, though.”
+
+“She is worthy a prince, beggar though she is.”
+
+“O, very likely,” sneered the lady.
+
+“I owe my life to her, and I can never cease to be grateful to her.
+When _others_ forsook me, _she_ was constant,” replied uncle Joseph,
+pointedly.
+
+“She knew you were rich,” said Mrs. Mason, sarcastically.
+
+“So did you and your amiable daughter. You were like angels round
+my pillow till the doctor said ‘ship fever,’ when you fled like two
+frightened sheep.”
+
+The lady looked as black as a thunder cloud.
+
+“I trust you will withdraw your objections to this marriage, Mrs.
+Mason. You perceive that Charles is resolute, and will have his own way
+about it,” continued uncle Joseph, in a more pliable tone.
+
+“His _own_ way! All this for bad advising! I cannot prevent it,
+perhaps; but I will never consent to it. No! a son of mine shall never
+have my consent to marry a beggar girl.”
+
+“Madam, she is no longer a beggar. She is the heiress of all my
+fortune,” said uncle Joseph, with sudden energy.
+
+Mrs. Mason’s brow contracted.
+
+“And Henrietta?” said she.
+
+“Never touches a penny! She deserted me when I most needed a friend,”
+replied the bachelor, vehemently. “If I had ten thousand fortunes, they
+would be but a poor return for all that Grace has done for me. I make
+over fifty thousand dollars to the newly-married couple as soon as the
+knot is tied; the residue at my decease.”
+
+The marriage took place soon after. The ceremony was performed at the
+house of Mr. Mason, in spite of the opposition of his wife; for when
+the merchant said it should be so, he had the firmness to carry his
+point.
+
+The newly-married couple took up their residence in a beautiful house,
+purchased for them by uncle Joseph, who consented to make his home with
+them.
+
+Henrietta is now five-and-thirty years of age, and an “old maid.” Mrs.
+Mason still continues to be a termagant, though her husband maintains
+his integrity with firmness and decision. She has never forgiven uncle
+Joseph for making Grace the heiress, and probably never will. But the
+worthy bachelor never ceases to rejoice over the disposition he has
+made of his property, and probably _he_ never will.
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
+
+LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+ • Italics represented with _underscores_.
+
+ • Small Caps converted to ALL CAPS.
+
+ • Obvious typographic errors silently corrected.
+
+ • Archaic spelling kept as in the original.
+
+ • Illustrations relocated close to relevant material.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78710 ***