Thus she would soliloquize, particularly when some single man had been looking kindly at her; and, as this seemed to her to be frequently the case, she at last came to suspect every man in the place, of "evil designs," as she called it, on her chaste person. At length,—for her imagination had been wanton with her for more than twenty years,—she came to look upon every single man as her silent adorer, and every married man as her faithless one.
It may easily be conceived with what inveteracy she declaimed against weddings of every kind, and how bitterly she abused the whole godless, light-minded male sex, (for her quarrel was with the whole sex,) and with what transcendent venom she inveighed against the coquettish minxes who had the impudence to think of a man before they were out of their leading-strings; though these same minxes in leading-strings were all the while walking about in shoes such as are generally manufactured for damsels about to bid adieu to their teens.
Some elderly maidens, pure and pious like herself, assisted her in the laudable occupation of prying into the domestic occurrences of the town, and moralising over them while sipping their coffee. In this conclave, every new gown, every wedding, every christening, was conscientiously discussed; and no time was lost in dispersing the result of their amiable confabulations through every corner of the town. A saucy sign-painter being once called on to paint a picture of the goddess of Fame, armed her with a bugle instead of a trumpet; and, when some pre-eminent piece of scandal became current, it was customary to say "the bugle has been sounded,"—by which it was intended to indicate the quarter where the report originated.
If to these amiable qualities we add the extreme godliness of the chaste Sarah, and her invincible partiality for compound interest, it is not difficult to understand why, with the exception of the said ancient maidens and the four expecting nephews, every creature was careful to remain at a most respectful distance from her.
THE CARES OF LIFE.
She had not the least inclination to die. She was, therefore, by no means displeased with the competition of the four faculties, for her inheritance. Nobody gained by it more than herself. It brought her the dainties of philosophy, the consolations of religion, the protection of the law, and moderate doctor's bills. Doctor Falcon was as dear to her as the others, but not a bit more so: only when some transitory indisposition seemed to hint at the instability of everything human, the doctor never failed to become, for the time, the dearest of all her nephews.
"Quick doctor! Pray come immediately! Miss Sarah is dying!" exclaimed one morning, the antiquated maid-servant of the aunt, as she popped her head in at the door. "My lady has been looking most wretchedly for some days."
Falcon was sitting, when this news came, upon his unpretending sofa; and, with his arm round her waist, was endeavouring to console his weeping Susan. He knew that Miss Sarah was not likely to be very serious in her intentions of dying: so he promised the maid he would come immediately, but remained nevertheless with his wife, to console her.
But he had little success this time in his attempts at consolation. Poor Susan wept more bitterly than ever; and the poor doctor sat beside her, unconscious of the cause of her tears.
"Come, be open-hearted to your husband, my dearest love," he said; "you torture me,—you kill me,—to see you thus, while you conceal from me the cause."