There wasn’t any. She said she was thankful that I had what would save me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her about it.—I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce a sensation.
So the last day of summer came. It was our choice to go to the church, but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house. The presents were all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest tributes of our fellow-boarders,—for there was not one, I believe, who did not send something. The landlady would insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,—namely, a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure you. The landlady’s daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper’s Poems. On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate and careful hand:—
Presented to . . . by . . .
On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony.
May sunshine ever beam o’er her!
Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy of “The Whole Duty of Man,” bound in very attractive variegated sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled. From the divinity-student came the loveliest English edition of “Keble’s Christian Year.” I opened it, when it came, to the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and read that angelic poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier’s “My God, I love thee.”—I am not a Churchman,—I don’t believe in planting oaks in flower-pots,—but such a poem as “The Rosebud” makes one’s heart a proselyte to the culture it grows from. Talk about it as much as you like,—one’s breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion. A man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for “scenes,” among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that—
“God only and good angels look
Behind the blissful scene,”—
and that other,—
“He could not trust his melting soul
But in his Maker’s sight,”—
that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and profit by it.
My laughing and winking young friend undertook to procure and arrange the flowers for the table, and did it with immense zeal. I never saw him look happier than when he came in, his hat saucily on one side, and a cheroot in his mouth, with a huge bunch of tea-roses, which he said were for “Madam.”
One of the last things that came was an old square box, smelling of camphor, tied and sealed. It bore, in faded ink, the marks, “Calcutta, 1805.” On opening it, we found a white Cashmere shawl with a very brief note from the dear old gentleman opposite, saying that he had kept this some years, thinking he might want it, and many more, not knowing what to do with it,—that he had never seen it unfolded since he was a young supercargo,—and now, if she would spread it on her shoulders, it would make him feel young to look at it.