The young lady, having satisfied herself that I was undergoing proper correction for my misdemeanors, condescended to be pacified, and surveyed me with an aspect of great complacency. Quite wearied out with her superhuman exertions, she soon fell asleep; and having deposited her on the bed, Mrs. Morfield expressed her wonder at the child’s behavior.
“It is quite surprising,” she continued, “she is generally so good and so little trouble—I begin to think, Ella, that you cannot be very well versed in the accomplishment of nursing.”
I was quite provoked at this insinuation, after all the pains I had taken, and replied with some warmth, that good or bad, such a child was enough to provoke the patience of Job.
“Oh, stop! stop!” said she pleasantly. “It is easy to see that you are cut out for an old maid.”
Well, if this really was not too much! wasn’t it, now? To be sure old maids are very nice people—I would speak of the community with all due respect; but still no girl of seventeen likes to be threatened with a life of single blessedness, because she cannot regard with much affection a cross, troublesome baby, who has teased and tormented her a whole afternoon. I was too full to speak, and Mrs. Morfield regarded me with considerable amusement; but swallowing my irritated feelings as I could, I complied with her invitation to walk out to tea. I fear that I regarded the table with a blank look of astonishment, for not a sign of fruit could I discover; and Mrs. Morfield apologized for the omission by saying that she had no one to gather it. I had quite forgotten that fruit did not drop into dishes of its own accord; and in no very amiable mood I sat down to a supper of flannel-cakes, which I soon found had been very appropriately named.
Mr. Morfield now made his appearance, and took his seat without a coat; the table being further embellished with the six young Morfields, who had been sent out with their father. Mr. Morfield liked every thing countrified, and in accordance with this prejudice, the eating utensils consisted of large buck-handled knives and forks, which, after my fatigue, I could scarcely hold; and my hand trembled so in lifting my cup that I narrowly escaped spilling the whole contents. I never worked so hard in my life as I had then; I felt completely reduced and enervated, and could scarcely move my arms.
“It is rather strange,” said Mrs. Morfield, “that Henry has not been here—he was to have come to-night, was he not, father?” Mr. Morfield nodded assent, being busily engaged with the flannel-cakes, and she continued—“It is really too bad, Miss Ella, to have no beau to offer you—but have patience, and perhaps the truant will come yet.”
After tea I concluded to reconnoitre the garden; but there was not much pleasure, after all, in wandering off alone; Mrs. Morfield being engaged with the baby, who was now wide awake, and Mr. Morfield occupied in some distant part of the ground. Then, too, the view of ripe fruit staring one right in the face with such an impudent kind of an air, as if it knew that I could not get at it, was any thing but agreeable; I thought of the baskets I had intended to bring to carry home all my spoils, and turned aside in extreme irritation. I looked up and down the road, but the tardy collegian was not to be seen; and with no very high opinion of “a social tea-drinking,” I returned to the house. We passed a tedious evening, and at length quite tired out, I announced my intention of going home. With Mr. Morfield for an escort, I again traversed the weary road, forcibly impressed with the difference between Romance and Reality.
Oh, how they did laugh at me! as bursting into tears I recounted all my toils and troubles; the idea of going out sociably to tea, and tending baby for an afternoon’s amusement, drew forth bursts of merriment, that grated on my ears as if in mockery of my overthrown expectations. But I seemed to dwell more particularly on Mrs. Morfield’s disagreeable prophecy than the unsatisfactoriness of the visit, and their laughter redoubled when after representing in glowing colors my toiling efforts to gain the name of a good nurse, I told of my dismay at finding myself branded with such an epithet. This appeared to strike them as the most ridiculous part, and I sat in sullen silence while they gave vent to their amusement. “So much for sympathy,” thought I.
For myself, I was thoroughly disgusted with “not being made a stranger of;” but my mortification was complete when the next morning Anne, looking over the fence which joined ours, exclaimed —