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CHAPTER V.
MONDE TO EDITH.
Danville, Jan. 12, 1852.
Edith, dear, how often I write to you. But it relieves me to throw my story by, and gossip in this careless way. And, moreover, I must be telling somebody how happy I am; and how the days go, day after day, as if on the wings of the morning. I would not have believed that there was any thing like it on this earth; that I, or any one, could ever be so thoroughly comfortable. I suppose it is because uncle and Mr. Cullen talk so much of those excellent things that keep us close by Heaven. I don’t suppose it is any thing else. Only it is pleasant riding every day, sometimes twice a day; sometimes on Kate’s back, sometimes in a sleigh; oftenest, of late, in a sleigh. It is good seeing aunt so kind, so attentive to all our wishes, and so happy—and so facetious, too, in her way. Hear what a curious thing she said to-day, when uncle and Dr. Ponchard were discussing the medical systems. Uncle, by the by, is a homoeopathist. “Husband seems to think, as you see, Dr. Ponchard, that the practice of medicine must needs change with all other practices; that the great pills, for instance, as large as bullets, belong to the almost by-gone age of bullets. I don’t know, I am sure, but he believes that people will be so refined by the time the transition state is fairly over, that nothing but rarefied air will be thought of for remedies. And if he does, I shall think he is right, doctor.”
“Ha! no doubt whatever of that,” said the doctor, who is a sort of witty bear. “No doubt you will have implicit faith in the rarefied-air system, if the judge ever comes to preach it. You’ll be found with a tube in your mouth, breathing it whenever you have a little indigestion or headache.”
Aunt laughed, and filled the huge pockets of the doctor’s fur overcoat with apples for his wife and children.
Hear how diligent I am. I have been writing since five o’clock. I began an hour earlier than usual, because we are to have visitors from Barnet to spend the day, so that I must be hindered.
Mr. Cullen has been reading in the parlor since six; now it is almost seven. He yawns, he moves about; I fancy he is tired of his books. I do not allow him to come into the library in the morning, because then it disturbs me having him near. After they are stirring in all the rest of the rooms, I don’t mind it; and he sits here by the hour. He yawns again, says, “Heigho!” and sees to the fire. “Monde!” he says, as if there were something that he will no longer try to bear.
“What say, sir?”