Well, sir, before summer was over, my wife and I looked as jaded as omnibus horses—she with chance “help” and floods of city company, and I with my arduous duties as express man for my own family in particular, and the neighbours in general.
And now here we are—“No. 9 Kossuth Square.” Can reach anything we want, by putting our hands out the front windows. If, as the poet says, “man made the town,” all I’ve got to say is—he understood his business!
THE AGED MINISTER VOTED A DISMISSION.
Your minister is “superannuated,” is he? Well, call a parish meeting, and vote him a dismission; hint that his usefulness is gone; that he is given to repetition; that he puts his hearers to sleep. Turn him adrift, like a blind horse, or a lame house dog. Never mind that he has grown gray in your thankless service—that he has smiled upon your infants at the baptismal font, given them lovingly away in marriage to their heart’s chosen, and wept with you when Death’s shadow darkened your door. Never mind that he has laid aside his pen, and listened many a time, and oft, with courteous grace, to your tedious, prosy conversations, when his moments were like gold dust; never mind that he has patiently and uncomplainingly accepted, at your hands the smallest pittance that would sustain life, because “the Master” whispered in his ear, “Tarry here till I come.” Never mind that the wife of his youth, whom he won from a home of luxury, is broken down with privation and fatigue, and your thousand unnecessary demands upon her strength, patience, and time. Never mind that his children, at an early age, were exiled from the parsonage roof, because there was not “bread enough and to spare” in their father’s house. Never mind that his library consists only of a Bible, a Concordance, and a Dictionary; and that to the luxury of a religious newspaper, he has long been a stranger. Never mind that his wardrobe would be spurned by many a mechanic in our cities; never mind that he has “risen early and sat up late,” and tilled the ground with weary limbs, for earthly “manna,” while his glorious intellect lay in fetters—for you. Never mind that; call a parish meeting, and vote him “superannuated.” Dont’ spare him the starting tear of sensibility, or the flush of wounded pride, by delicately offering to settle a colleague, that your aged pastor may rest on his staff in grateful, gray-haired independence. No! turn the old patriarch out; give him time to go to the moss-grown churchyard, and say farewell to his unconscious dead, and then give “the right hand of fellowship” to some beardless, pedantic, noisy college boy, who will save your sexton the trouble of pounding the pulpit cushions; and who will tell you and the Almighty, in his prayers, all the political news of the week.
THE FATAL MARRIAGE.
A very pretty girl was Lucy Lee. Don’t ask me to describe her; stars, and gems, and flowers have long since been exhausted in depicting heroines. Suffice it to say, Lucy was as pretty a little fairy as ever stepped foot in a slipper, or twisted a ringlet.
Of course Lucy knew she was pretty; else why did the gentlemen stare at her so? Why did Harry Graham send her so many bouquets? Why did Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones try to sit each other out in an evening call? Why were picnics and fairs postponed, if she were engaged or ill? Why did so many young men request an introduction? Why did all the serenaders come beneath her window? Why was a pew or omnibus never full when she appeared at the door? And last, though not least, why did all the women imitate and hate her so?
We will do Miss Lucy the justice to say, that she bore her blushing honours very meekly. She never flaunted her conquests in the faces of less attractive feminines; no, Lucy was the farthest remove from a coquette; but kind words and bright smiles were as natural to her as fragrance to flowers, or music to birds. She never tried to win hearts; and, between you and me, I think that’s the way she did it.
Grave discussions were often held about Lucy’s future husband; the old maids scornfully asserting that “beauties generally pick up a crooked stick at last,” while the younger ones cared very little whom she married, if she only were married and out of their way. Meanwhile, Lucy smiled at her own happy thoughts, and sat at her little window on pleasant, summer evenings, watching for Harry (poor Harry), who, when he came, was at a loss to know if he had over given her little heart one flutter, so merrily did she laugh and chat with him. Skilful little Lucy, it was very right you shouldn’t let him peep into your heart till he had opened a window in his own.
Lucy’s papa didn’t approve of late hours or lovers; moonlight he considered but another name for rheumatism. At nine o’clock, precisely, he rang the bell each evening for family prayers; and when the Bible came in, lovers were expected to go out. In case they were obtuse—chairs set back against the wall, or an extra lamp blown out, or the fire taken apart, were hints sufficiently broad to be understood; and they generally answered the purpose. Miss Lucy’s little lamp, glowing immediately after from her bed-room window, gave the finale to the “Mede and Persian” order of Mr. Lee’s family arrangements.