Magnanimous Perry! Had I been your spouse, I should have handed that “one hundred dollar bill” to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed affections—encircled your neck with my repentant arms, and returned to your home. Then, I’d mend every rip in your coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, from that remorseful hour, till the millennial day. I’d hand you your cigar-case and slippers, put away your cane, hang up your coat and hat, trim your heard and whiskers, and wink at your sherry-cobblers, whisky punches, and mint juleps. I’d help you get a “ten strike” at ninepins. I’d give you a “night-key,” and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours you tumbled into the front entry. I’d pet all your stupid relatives, and help your country friends to “beat down” the city shopkeepers. I’d frown at all offers of “pin money.” I’d let you “smoke” in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I’d invite that pretty widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you—you might have knocked me down with a feather after such a piece of magnanimity. That “Levins Clough” could stand no more chance than a woodpecker tapping at an iceberg.
HOW IS IT?
“Well, Susan, what do you think of married ladies being happy?” “Why I think there are more AIN’T than IS, than IS that AIN’T.”
Susan, I shall apply to the Legislature to have your name changed to “Sapphira.” You are an unprincipled female.
Just imagine yourself Mrs. Snip. It is a little prefix not to be sneezed at. It is only the privileged few who can secure a pair of corduroys to mend, and trot by the side of; or a pair of coat-flaps alternately to darn, and hang on to, amid the vicissitudes of this patchwork existence.
Think of the high price of fuel, Susan, and the quantity it takes to warm a low-spirited, single woman; and then think of having all that found for you by your husband, and no extra charge for “gas.” Think how pleasant to go to the closet and find a great boot-jack on your best bonnet; or “to work your passage” to the looking-glass every morning, through a sea of dickeys, vests, coats, continuations, and neck-ties; think of your nicely-polished toilette table spotted all over with shaving suds; think of your “Guide to Young Women” used for a razor strop. Think of Mr. Snip’s lips being hermetically sealed, day after day, except to ask you “if the coal was out, or if his coat was mended.” Think of coming up from the kitchen, in a gasping state of exhaustion, after making a hatch of his favourite pies, and finding five or six great dropsical bags disemboweled on your chamber floor, from the contents of which Mr. Snip had selected the “pieces” of your best silk gown, for “rags” to clean his gun with. Think of his taking a watch-guard you made him out of YOUR HAIR, for a dog-collar! Think of your promenading the floor, night after night, with your fretful, ailing baby hushed up to your warm cheek, lest it should disturb your husband’s slumbers; and think of his coming home the next day, and telling you, when you were exhausted with your vigils, “that he had just met his old love, Lilly Grey, looking as fresh as a daisy, and that it was unaccountable how much older you looked than she, although you were both the same age.
Think of all that, Susan.
A MORNING RAMBLE.
What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened heart.
“This world is very lovely. Oh, my God,