"I really must have some clothes," said one of the hitherto sensible matrons, "the next time I go into the country. I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how very shabby was my wardrobe."
"I would rather," said a friend at her elbow, "that you, the healthy mother of six healthy daughters, should have said: 'I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how sensible and befitting the country was my wardrobe; and how proper and right it was that my husband should be taking his rest in the country with me, instead of divorcing himself at the risk of our mutual peace, to furnish me with nine trunks full of Paris dresses.'"
"I have done nothing to-day but keep things straight in the house," you say wearily at the close of it. Do you call that nothing? Nothing that your children are healthy, and happy, and secured from evil influence? Nothing that neatness, and thrift, and wholesome food follow the touch of your finger-tips? Nothing that beauty in place of ugliness meets the eye of the cheerful little ones, in the plants at your window, in the picture on the wall? Nothing that home to them means home, and will always do so, to the end of life, what vicissitudes soever that may involve? Oh, careworn mother! is all this nothing? Is it nothing that over against your sometime-mistakes and sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she could?"
[DANIEL WEBSTER'S HOME.]
IT was not as a mere relic-hunter, that I crossed the threshold of Daniel Webster's home in Marshfield. As a Bostonian, long years ago, I had been spell-bound by those wondrous eyes, and that irresistible eloquence which so seldom failed to magnetize. As to the mistaken words which, had he lived till now, I firmly believe he would have grievingly wished unsaid, and which have palsied many hands that would have been raised over that roof in blessing, I have nothing to say now. As far as the East is from the West, so far do I differ with him on that point. But all these thoughts vanished, and the old Boston magnetism moved me, as I stood in that beautiful library, which, more than any other room of that lovely home, his presence seemed to fill and pervade. The beautiful sunlight streamed in upon the favorite books he loved so well, upon the favorite chair and table, upon the thousand and one tributes of love and admiration from across the sea, and from nearer home, which are still carefully treasured. There only, after all these years, could I really "make him dead." My last sight of him was on a public occasion in Boston, sitting in a barouche, with that grand massive head uncovered, in recognition of the applause about him. And I am not ashamed, at this distance, to say that when he kissed the forehead of my little girl—now a woman grown—as he took from her hand the flowers I sent him, that I looked upon it as a sort of baptism.
Now, all about his home in Marshfield, are family pictures of the little children he tenderly loved. And what beautiful children they are! or were, for many of their names are now recorded on marble beside his own. And above the picture of him—as if such a head as his could ever be faithfully reproduced!—were his hat and stick. I stood looking at them, and wondering if, when he used to sit there he ever thought of that—if when resting in that peaceful spot, with bloom and brightness about him, weary with the ceaseless strife, and with the din of life, shut out, for a time at least, he ever longed to lay them aside for ever—thus!