You remember the rest of the anecdote; Rogers had the habit, during the latter years of his life, of writing, when able to use his pen, notes to be dated and directed as occasion required, in this established form "Pity me, I am engaged." So, on this occasion, the careful attendant added: "The pity-me's are all gone!"
Weather-bound during the long, cold winter of 18—, by a protracted snow-storm and a severe cold, in the house of an old friend, I left my comfortable private quarters one morning for a little walk up and down the corridor into which my own apartment and those of the family opened.
By and by the active step of my hostess crossed my sauntering way.
"Perhaps it may amuse you to come into the
nursery, a little while, colonel," said she, "it will be a novelty, at least, to you, to see behind the scenes."
"I feel myself honored by the permission, I assure you; the green-room always has an interest for me!" returned I; and I was soon ensconced in a large, cushioned-chair, in a cozy corner, near the open, old-fashioned "franklin" in which blazed a cheerful wood-fire. The rosy-cheeked juveniles among whom I found myself vied with each other in efforts to promote my comfort. One brought her own little chair, and placed it to support my feet; another climbed up and stuffed a soft cushion greatly larger than his own rotund, dumpling of a figure, between me and the chair-back, assuring me with a grave shake of the head, in which I saw the future Esculapius, "it is so nice ven your head do ache—mamma say so, ven I put him on her always!" and bright-eyed little Bessie, between whom and me a very good understanding already existed, crowned the varied hospitalities of my initiatory visit by offering me the use of her tiny muff!
My hostess, though she kept an observant eye upon us, from her seat by her work-table over against my arm-chair, had too much tact to interfere with the proceedings of my ministering cherubs; except to prevent the possibility of my being annoyed.
When I had leisure to reconnoitre a little, I discovered, among the other fixtures in the large, well-lighted, cheerful-looking apartment, an old woman with a good-humored face and portly person, seated near a window, sewing, with a large, well-stored basket of unmended linen and hosiery before her.
Presently, the eldest son, a fine manly boy of some sixteen years entered, hat and cane in hand. Used, I suppose, to a jumble of faces and forms, in this human kaleidoscope, he evidently did not observe the quiet figure in the high-backed chair. "Mother," he exclaimed in a tone in which boyish animation and the utmost affection were singularly united, striding across the room, like the Colossus of Rhodes, suddenly endued with powers of locomotion: "Mother, you are the most beautiful and irresistible of your beautiful and irresistible sex!" and stooping, he pressed his full, cherry lips gently upon her rounded cheek.