“A SQUIRE”
So it is, that as you lie there upon the sunny greensward, at the old Squire’s door, you muse upon the time when some rich-lying land, with huge granaries and cozy old mansion sleeping under the trees, shall be yours;—when the brooks shall water your meadows, and come laughing down your pasture-lands;—when the clouds shall shed their spring fragrance upon your lawns, and the daisies bless your paths.
“SOME TIDY OLD LADY IN BLACK”
You will then be a Squire, with your cane, your lean-limbed hound, your stocking-leg of specie, and your snuff-box. You will be the happy and respected husband of some tidy old lady in black and spectacles,—a little phthisicky, like Frank’s grandmother,—and an accomplished cook of stewed pears, and Johnny-cakes!
THE CHOIR
The country church is a square old building of wood, without paint or decoration, and of that genuine, Puritanic stamp, which is now fast giving way to Greek porticos, and to cockney towers. The unpainted pews are ranged in square forms, and by age have gained the color of those fragmentary wrecks of cigar-boxes, which you see upon the top shelves in the bar-rooms of country taverns. The minister’s desk is lofty, and has once been honored with a coating of paint;—as well as the huge sounding-board, which, to your great amazement, protrudes from the wall, at a very dangerous angle of inclination, over the speaker’s head.