I tried not to meet any body, but I met every body, and every body would speak to me: beggars stopped me, country folks singled me out to inquire the way—me! why me? with a street full of people? Did I direct them wrong? Let them learn to ask somebody next time who does not mourn a lost MS.; somebody whose life is not spent in locking up things and losing the keys; somebody who is not required to write an article with a stupid chambermaid flying in and out every ten minutes, leaving your door ajar, whirling your papers across the room, and scattering your ideas to the remorseless winds; somebody whose meals are not always not to be had, when type and printers wait for no woman.
This is a digression. I reached the goal at last; simply and only because one who keeps moving must inevitably fetch up somewhere. I performed my errand, or thought I had, till I had got half-way home, when I recollected an important fact omitted—n’importe. I was desperate now. Guns and pistols could not have turned my steps back again. How it blew! how it snowed! I did not hurry one step; I took a savage pleasure in thinking of my spoiled bonnet-ribbon, wet feet, and ice-ermined skirts. I even stopped, as I observed some umbrella-shielded pedestrian looking wonderingly at me, and gazed with affected delight at the miserable feminine kick-shaws in the shop windows, just to show my sublime indifference to the warring elements.
I reached my room, by dint of climbing the obnoxious stairs. I turned the key, as I fondly hoped, on all my species.
Rat, tat, rat, tat!
Shall I hear it?
Not I!
Rat, tat, tat, rat, tat!
It is of no use; I shall go mad with that thumping. I had rather face Cloven Foot himself than hear it. I open the door; it is my washerwoman. She has a huge pile of clothes to be counted, and sorted, and paid for, too! She dumps them down on the floor, just as if every minute was not to me so much gold-dust until that MS. was resurrectionized. I look around for my list of the clothes. It is not in the big dictionary, no, nor in the Bible, no, nor in the pocket of my blue, red, gray, green, or plaid dress.
Bother! I exclaim, I can’t find it. I dare say you have them all right; so I commence taking them out, and counting the pieces with an eye to her pay. What’s that? A dickey, two shirts, and a vest! I hold them up to the light with the tips of my fingers.
Woman alive! what need has a female of such garments?