“Elfie has had a proposal from—whom do you think?—young Mr. Albert Goldsborough, who was intended for his cousin; but as she ran away with the flute-playing Italian, of course he could not be considered bound to her; so he followed the bent of his inclinations, and offered his hand to Elfie Fielding.
“The proposal was in every point of view a most eligible one for Elfie, and much better, she says, than she had any reason to expect. The young suitor was handsome, amiable, intelligent, and possessed a large fortune, and last and most, he had the favor of his intended—but—he differed in politics with Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks.’
“Now you know what it is to differ in politics in these days—you have read how gray-haired Senators take each other by the throat in the Senate Chamber. You have seen how it sets father against son, and mother against daughter; how it parts lovers and divides families; pray Heaven it may not some day come nigh to divide the Union!
“Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks’ are enlightened, far-seeing and progressive men. Elfie’s lover is a conservative, and believes in the eternal stability of ‘institutions’ and the infallibility of the powers that be, etc. Elfie’s lover, had he lived in the first year of the Christian era in Judea, would have been a Jew, and helped to crucify Christ. Had he lived in England at the time of the civil wars, he would have been a royalist. Or had his presence enriched the earth at the time of our own Revolution, he would have been a Tory.
“Now, you know, of course, it is an irreconcilable difference between Elfie’s ‘pap and two unks’ on the one hand, and her lover on the other. But Elfie won’t run away with him, as he wishes her to do. She tells him plainly that he must convert her ‘pap and two unks,’ or be converted by them, before she will endow him with her hand and the reversion of the old gig, the blind mare, niggers, and other personals to which she is heiress; for, though she don’t care a pin for politics herself, she will have peace in the family.
“I have here quoted Elfie’s own words. Now, who would have given that little monkey credit for so much wisdom and goodness?
“And in the meantime you see Mr. Goldsborough has his hands full between his cool, determined daughter and his self-willed, refractory nephew; both of whom, instead of marrying each other, and keeping the family estates together, to please their friends, have taken the liberty to choose partners for life to please themselves.
“But after all, as these marriages are not yet consummated, who knows but that young Mr. Goldsborough may ‘see his own interest,’ as the phrase goes, and persuade Alberta to ‘see her own duty,’ as the other phrase goes, and that they may yet marry and unite the two great branches of the great house of Goldsborough.
“But, oh, I am wrong to write so lightly on such sacred subjects. How hard it is, dear Britomarte, to keep from sinning with one’s tongue and pen! I hope that all these lovers will be true to themselves, and to God, who is the Inspirer of all pure love. I hope they will wait patiently until they win their parents’ consent and the reward of forbearance.”
There was much more of Erminie’s letter, too much to quote. Sometimes the effervescent spirits of her youth would break forth in some such little jest as the above, and then she would quickly repent and piously rebuke herself for such levity.