“Those Murrays are protegés of mine, but I didn’t know that any of them were sick.”
“The child seems to be threatened with a fever, but I made them give it a warm bath, and put baths of hops on its head and feet, and before I left, it was quite relieved. I staid to superintend the operations, lest they should not do it properly, for I fancy they are not accustomed to the use of water. To be sure, dirt is the native element of that class—but aren’t they uncommonly dirty?”
“I think they are,” replied I. “Last winter I asked Mrs. Murray why she didn’t wash the children before she put on some new clothes I had provided for them, and she opened her eyes in astonishment. ‘Sure ma’am,’ said she, ‘sure and the dirt keeps ’em warm when they’ve nothin’ else to kiver ’em.’
“I suppose she thinks the same reason applies in summer by the rule of contraries, for they were none of them very clean, and I thought they were rather alarmed at the sight of a tubfull of water. Murray asked if I “wasn’t afeard the child ’ud cotch cold,” but he says he thinks “hops is werry good things,” and she imitated the deep guttural tones of our gardener with a perfection that was perfectly startling.
“You are quite a doctress,” said Fred, when he had done laughing—“can’t you prescribe for me?”
“I should think patience and resignation—an ounce each, thoroughly compounded—would be the most necessary remedy for a sprain,” replied Harriet—and the conversation turned on other subjects.
We examined the shawl, and pronounced it unmendable and I offered to lend her my mantilla. “I will accept it,” said she, “if you will yourself accompany it and assist me in making some purchases this morning. Sally Murphy, who has lived with us so long, is about being married, and father intends furnishing her house for her. It is a small tenement with only four rooms, but it will be all her own, and she would not be more delighted with a palace.”
I was soon ready, and we walked to the cabinet-makers, who was delighted to furnish what we wanted, and then to that “omnium gatherum,” yclept, “the dry goods store,” where we found every thing necessary for our purpose, from the lace for the bride’s dress to the carpet that was to adorn her “keeping-room.” “These are my part of the wedding presents,” said Hattie. “I earned the money—you know how?”
I have said that I had a plan in view, in which my brother and Hattie were to be the principal actors, and you will readily perceive that though not much given to meddling with the affairs of other people, I was sufficiently feminine in my tastes to be something of a matchmaker. Notwithstanding his fine intellectual powers and considerable knowledge derived from men and books, Fred had always been exceedingly deficient in the ability to say and do those graceful nothings that are the usual stepping-stones to an acquaintance between ladies and gentlemen, and this, added to a certain bashfulness that frequently attends a proud, sensitive nature, had kept him from finding any intimate friends among the ladies he had met in his college life, and in his subsequent wanderings over the world. Unfortunately, too, for my matrimonial schemes in his behalf, he was provokingly contented with the prospect of being an old bachelor; and since his establishment in our village, had confined his visits to a few married ladies who were vastly superior in cultivation of mind to any of the unmarried ones of our acquaintance. Thus with a handsome person, and more than ordinary powers of pleasing, had he chosen to exert them, my brother had passed to the shady side of thirty, without having his large, warm heart stirred by a deeper emotion than the quiet love excited by the home circle. I was determined this state of things should not endure much longer, and to Harriet I looked for aid in breaking the spell of indifference that was consigning him to the lonely and selfish existence of a confirmed old bachelor.
Some weeks after the morning on which my story opens, Fred invited me to walk with him to one of his favorite places of resort—a grove that was situated about a mile from the village. The purple light of sunset was thrown like a glory over the surrounding hills, and fell upon the bosom of the river which, foaming in successive rapids through most of its course, here spread out in a broad, deep current, as it swept with graceful curve between its steep wooded banks. Following the path that led down the bank, we came out from the shadow of the trees into a point of land that, jutting out into the river, was covered with a soft greensward. A willow grew on its extremest verge, and on a flat rock under its overhanging branches Hattie Atherton was seated, with her sketch-book on her knee. Her hat lay beside her on the grass, and the wind sweeping back the long, shining curls that usually hung over her face, revealed her broad, intellectual brow, and the perfect contour of her features, while her slight, delicate figure was relieved against the dark trunk of the tree. So absorbed was she in her occupation that she did not know of our approach till we were beside her, and I had taken her book to show Fred her accurate drawing of the view before us. She started up with a slight blush, and turning to my brother said, with a low silvery laugh,