Fashion and Famine

by Ann S. Stephens

No wonder! the odor that stole so insidiously to her nostrils was appetising, for the turkey had plenty of companionship in the oven. A noble chicken-pie flanked his dripping pan on the right; a delicate sucking pig was drawn up to the left wing; in the rear towered a mountain of roast beef, while the mouth of the oven was choked up with a generous Indian pudding. It was an ovenful worthy of New England, worthy of the day.

The hours came creeping on when guests might be expected. Mrs. Gray, who had been invisible a short time after filling the oven, appeared in the little parlor perfectly redolent with good humor, and a fresh toilet. A cap of the most delicate material, trimmed with satin ribbons, cast a transparent brightness over her bland and pleasant features. A dress of black silk, heavy and ample in the skirt, rustled round her portly figure as she walked. Folds of the finest muslin lay upon her bosom, in chaste contrast with the black dress, and just revealing a string of gold beads which had reposed for years beneath the caressing protection of her double chin.

Mrs. Gray, was ready for company, and tried her best to remain with proper dignity in the great rocking chair, that she had drawn to a window commanding a long stretch of the road; but every few moments she would start up, bustle across the room, and charge Kitty, the Irish girl, to be careful and watch the oven, to keep a sharp eye on the sauce-pans in the fire-place, and, above all, to have the mince pies within range of the fire, that they might receive a gradual and gentle warmth by the time they were wanted. Then she would return to the room, arrange the branches of asparagus that hung laden with red berries over the looking glass, or dust the spotless table with her handkerchief, just to keep herself busy, as she said.

At last she heard the distant sound of a wagon, turning down the cross road toward the house. She knew the tramp of her own market horse even at that distance, and seated herself by the window ready to receive her expected guests with becoming dignity.

The little one-horse wagon came down the road with a sort of dash quite honorable to the occasion. Mrs. Gray's hired man was beginning to enter into the spirit of a holiday; and the old horse himself made every thing rattle again, he was so eager to reach home, the moment it hove in sight.

The wagon drew up by the door yard gate with a flourish worthy of the Third avenue. The hired man sprang out, and with some show of awkward gallantry, lifted a young girl in a pretty pink calico and a cottage bonnet, down from the front seat. Mrs. Gray could maintain her position no longer; for the young girl glanced that way with a look so eloquent, a smile so bright, that it warmed the dear old lady's heart like a flash of fire in the winter time. She started up, hastily shook loose the folds of her dress, and went out, rustling all the way like a tree in autumn.

"You are welcome, dear, welcome as green peas in June, or radishes in March," she cried, seizing the little hand held toward her, and kissing the heavenly young face.

The girl turned with a bright look, and making a graceful little wave of the hand toward an aged man who was tenderly helping a female from the wagon, seemed about to speak.

"I understand, dear, I know all about it! the good old people—grandpa and grandma, of course. How could I help knowing them?" Mrs. Gray went up to the old people as she spoke, with a bland welcome in every feature of her face.