“Beltina,” said she, addressing her maid in a voice as clouded and rich as a south wind on an Æolian, “how am I to-day?”
The conversation fell into short sentences, and the dialogue became monologue. I entered upon my declaration with the assistance of Beltina, who supplied her mistress with cologne. I kept her attention alive through the incipient circumstances. Symptoms were soon told. I came to the avowal. Her hand lay reposing on the arm of the sofa, half buried in a muslin foulard. I took it up. I pressed the cool, soft fingers to my lips—unforbidden. I rose and looked into her eyes for confirmation. Delicious creature! she was asleep.
I never have had courage to renew the subject. Miss McLush seems to have forgotten it altogether. Upon reflection, too, I am convinced she would not survive the excitement of the ceremony, unless, indeed, she should sleep between the responses and the prayer. I am still devoted, however, and if there should come a war or an earthquake, or if the millennium should commence, as it is expected, in 1833, or if anything happens that can keep her waking so long, I shall deliver a declaration abbreviated for me by a scholar friend of mine, which he warrants may be articulated in fifteen minutes—without fatigue.
Nathaniel Parker Willis.
A LONG TIME AGO.
(FROM ACT I. OF “THE WHITE FEATHER.” A RED INDIAN COMEDY.)
Owosco. Here, here, enough of this nonsense! Why should you sing about that which you think peculiar to yourselves, when, as a matter of fact, all tribes, nations, and classes are alike?
Wanda. But are you sure all are alike?
Owosco. Certainly. We are all tarred with the same stick.