“Greenleaf! Foh! Turnip-tops and cabbage-heads! Radishes and carrots! How can you condescend to mention his vulgar, vegetable name after what yourself have said about him to me, my dear aunt? Besides, how do you know that the milk-man’s son has not changed his mind by this time, seeing your hostility to his pretensions?”
Aunt Adeline had penetration enough to put a favorable construction upon this last interrogation, and, leaving her niece, she started off to pay a visit to Greenleaf. After an abundance of circumlocution, she ventured to sound him upon the subject of her niece. To her disappointment, she found him cold and impenetrable, and when she put him the question point-blank, whether he wished to marry Amy, the upstart replied that he had some young ladies in his eye, who, if they did not possess the personal charms of her niece, could boast of more illustrious ancestors, which, of course, rendered them far more eligible. Aunt Adeline could only groan. The weapons with which she was foiled were of her own forging.
Poor Aunt Adeline! After being tormented a couple of days longer, the joke was explained to her, the money and jewels were restored, and Colonel Mornington and Harry Ammidon were shown to be one and the same personage. In the first blush of her mortification and rage, she packed up her trunks, and removed to the city, where she bivouacked upon a niece, who was blessed with a houseful of small children. Soon after her departure, Greenleaf and Amy were married, and established in the new and tasteful structure built by the father and embellished by the son. Since that event, there has been but one ripple in the smooth stream of their felicity, and that was occasioned by the reception of a letter from Aunt Adeline, in which was the following passage:
“You know, Amy dear, that you were always my favorite niece, and I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I intend paying you a long visit next month. I am quite willing to forego the gayeties of New York, for the pleasure of passing a year or two with you and your charming husband. I hear you see a good deal of company, and are visited by many highly genteel people from the city. I always said that my darling Amy would make a creditable match. You may expect me early in October.”
Immediately on the arrival of this letter, there were a number of anxious consultations in regard to its contents. A proposition was brought forward by Harry Ammidon for blowing up the old woman with gunpowder, after a plan that had been communicated to him in Paris by one of the conspirators against Louis Philippe. This project being objected to, he suggested whether she couldn’t be put into a haunted room, and a ghost hired, for a small compensation, to torment her nightly. But the house being one of modern construction, and no well authenticated murder having been yet committed in it, this contrivance did not appear altogether feasible.
When I took leave of the family, which was on a pleasant afternoon last September, they were still plotting the means of averting the menaced visitation. Should any thing interesting transpire in this connection, perhaps I will give an account of it in a supplement to my present narrative.
THE LIFE VOYAGE—A BALLAD.
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BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.