Poetically, it is very well. Practically, I object to it. Has it ever “a decent dress,” although the family seamstress works from morning till night of every day in the year, taking in and letting out, lengthening and shortening, narrowing here and widening there? The very first day a new dress is worn, don’t “sweet sixteen” tear it, and that in a most conspicuous place, and in the most zig-zag manner? Could she “help it,” when there is always a protruding nail or splinter lying in wait purposely for her, which by no foresight of hers could be walked round, or avoided? Don’t the clouds always seem to know when she has on a new bonnet, and the mud when she wears new gaiters? And when she wants her umbrella at school, isn’t “the nasty thing” always at home, and when she needs it at home, is it not always perversely at school? Don’t “sweet sixteen,” when she takes a notion to sit down and sew, always locate herself by the side of the bed, which she sticks full of needles, and going her way straightway forgetteth, till roused by the shrieks of punctured sufferers? Don’t “sweet sixteen” always leave the street door open, and the gas in her room burning at high pressure all night? Does she ever own a boot-lacing, or a pin, or a collar, although purchases of these articles are made for her continually, if not oftener? Isn’t her elder sister always your “favorite,” and was she ever known to like her breakfast, dinner or supper, or prefer wholesome food to sweet and dyspeptic messes? Is she ever ready to go to bed of a night, or get up of a morning? Don’t she always insist on wearing high heels to her boots, which are constantly putting her feet where her head should be? Don’t she always, though consulted as to the hues and make of her garments, fret at the superior color and fit of those of Adelina Seraphina Elgitha Smith’s? And finally, although she has everything she wants, or thinks she wants, isn’t everything, and everybody, “real mean, and so there!”
SITTING FOR MY PORTRAIT.
The other day I was riding in an omnibus, when it got too full by one little girl, whom I offered to take on my lap, as the mother had her arms full of parcels. She sat for a moment on my knee with her finger in her mouth, and head turned shyly away. Then she made up her little mind to look round in my face, and see whether or no she would continue to stay with me. I declare that I awaited that scrutiny as bashfully as ever a timid lover did his maiden’s answer. I actually felt the blood rushing up to my cheek, as the clear blue eyes looked searchingly into mine, as if God himself were asking, “Lovest thou me?”
Then the little thing turned her head away again, but not till she had given me a warm, bright smile, by which I knew that her heart knew no fear of me. I did not speak, because we understood each other; I waited as one waits near a bush upon which a little humming bird has alighted—fearful lest a breath should disturb it. By and by she gave a careless glance out the omnibus window, and says—by way of encouraging me—“There’s horses out there.”
“Yes,” said I.
She waited a few minutes longer—then finding me still apparently bashful—she says—
“There’s shops out there.”
“Yes,” said I again.
Then she waited another while—and then turning her cunning little face full upon me as if determined to make me speak, she says—
“Ain’t there many peoples out there?”