Mary cursed and raved, but finally put on the dress the old lady handed her, and consented to go with them. A carriage was soon procured, and Mary helped inside—Mr. Pease lifting in the baby and the two little girls; and away they started for the Five Points House of Industry.
“Oh, mother!” exclaimed the younger of the girls, “how very pleasant it is to ride in this nice carriage, and to get away from that dirty place; we shall be so happy now, mother; and Edith and the baby too: see, he is laughing: he likes to ride. You will love sister Edith and baby, and me, now, won’t you, dear mother? and you won’t frighten us with the hatchet any more, or hurt dear grandmother, will you?”
Arriving at Mr. Pease’s house, the delight of the little creatures was unbounded. They caught hold of their mother’s faded dress, saying, “Didn’t we tell you, mother, that you would have a pleasant home here? Only see that nice garden! You didn’t have a garden in Willet Street, mother!”
Reader, would you know that mother’s after history?
Another “Mary” hath “bathed the Saviour’s feet” with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Her name is no longer written Mary Magdalena. In the virtuous home of her aged mother, she sits clothed in her right mind, “and her children rise up and call her blessed.”
APOLLO HYACINTH.
“There is no better test of moral excellence than the keenness of one’s sense, and the depth of one’s love, of all that is beautiful.”—Donohue.
I don’t endorse that sentiment. I am acquainted with Apollo Hyacinth. I have read his prose, and I have read his poetry; and I have cried over both, till my heart was as soft as my head, and my eyes were as red as a rabbit’s. I have listened to him in public, when he was, by turns, witty, sparkling, satirical, pathetic, till I could have added a codicil to my will, and left him all my worldly possessions; and possibly you have done the same. He has, perhaps, grasped you cordially by the hand, and, with a beaming smile, urged you, in his musical voice, to “call on him and Mrs. Hyacinth;” and you have called: but, did you ever find him “in?” You have invited him to visit you, and have received a “gratified acceptance,” in his elegant chirography; but, did he ever come? He has borrowed money of you, in the most elegant manner possible; and, as he deposited it in his beautiful purse, he has assured you, in the choicest and most happily chosen language, that he “should never forget your kindness;” but, did he ever pay?
Should you die to-morrow, Apollo would write a poetical obituary notice of you, which would raise the price of pocket-handkerchiefs; but should your widow call on him in the course of a month, to solicit his patronage to open a school, she would be told “he was out of town,” and that it was “quite uncertain when he would return.”
Apollo has a large circle of relatives; but his “keenness of perception, and deep love of the beautiful,” are so great, that none of them exactly meet his views. His “moral excellence,” however, does not prevent his making the most of them. He has a way of dodging them adroitly, when they call for a reciprocation, either in a business or a social way; or if, at any time, there is a necessity for inviting them to his house, he does it when he is at his country residence, where their greenness will not be out of place.