I am fond of children (says a celebrated author). I think them the poetry of the world—the fresh flowers of our hearths and homes—little conjurors, with their natural magic; evoking by their spells what delights and enriches all ranks, and equalizes the different classes of society. Often as they bring with them anxieties and cares, and live to occasion sorrow and grief, we should get on very badly without them. Only think—if there was never anything anywhere to be seen but great grown-up men and women! How we should long for the sight of a little child! Every infant comes into the world like a delegated prophet, the harbinger and herald of good tidings, whose office it is "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children," and to draw "the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." A child softens and purifies the heart, warming and melting it by its gentle presence; it enriches the soul by new feelings, and awakens within it what is favorable to virtue. It is a beam of light, a fountain of love, a teacher whose lessons few can resist. Infants recall us from much that engenders and encourages selfishness, that freezes the affections, roughens the manners, indurates the heart, they brighten the home, deepen love, invigorate exertion, infuse courage, and vivify and sustain the charities of life. It would be a terrible world, I do think, if not embellished by little children.
SELLING THE LOVE-TOKEN.
MY GRANDMOTHER'S STORY.
BY ALICE B. NEAL.
(See Plate.)
"Very well done!" said my grandmother; "very well done, sir—you have succeeded better than I expected."
The foreign-looking gentleman bowed and smiled, showing his white teeth through a dark overhanging moustache, as my grandmother bent forward again from the easy-chair, and raised her double silver-rimmed eye-glass.
Now, Josephine and myself had been sent to her room on some household errand connected with the coming festivities of Christmas, and were not sorry to find the door slightly ajar. We had seen the strange-looking gentleman, with the large square case, arrive, and knew that it was not his first visit to the sitting-room, which we young people never entered without knocking first for admittance. Everybody said Madam Evelyn was peculiar; but everybody loved her, or rather regarded her with that mingling of trust and respect which we call deference, in its warmest and most grateful sense. This was one of her peculiarities, that her room was held free of all intrusion, except from such visitors as she chose to admit. I do not believe papa, her favorite son, ever broke through the rule of asking audience, though she had made his home her home for many a year. Poor mamma used to declare that she envied her this privilege. Her chamber was a perfect thoroughfare. The seamstress always occupied one corner. The servants were coming for orders incessantly. Maude, my oldest sister, who had her grandmother's name, retreated to mamma's lounge if she chanced to disagree with Elizabeth, and at any hour of the day a little horde of Goths, in the shape of us younger children, were liable to overrun and take possession of this neutral territory between the parlor and the nursery.
Poor mamma! no wonder her favorite expressions were—"I'm sure I shall go distracted some day," and "I am just ready to die." I dare say she was at any time; but there seemed to be no refuge. Grandmother often remonstrated with her, and told her that every person needed some time in the day to collect their thoughts, and balance accounts with themselves. After these talks, mamma would sometimes make the attempt to have an undisturbed five minutes, "sitting with closed doors;" but nurse would come with the baby, Charley with his cut finger, Josephine with her torn frock or hard spelling lesson, and I with a mutilated doll that required instant surgical aid. Maude and Elizabeth were sure to have a dispute about the joint occupancy of some desk or closet; the cook was in want of some receipt, or the newspaper carrier insisted on sixty cents for the "Journal," and could not be put off. No wonder that mamma was always "nervous" and delicate, and that those periods of seclusion were few and far between.