One young man, a foreigner from Tobolsk, encouraged by her bravos at his performances, did propose; but was indignantly refused. Old Mrs. Liner, who was a little à la Malaprop, said, crimson with rage, that she 'wouldn't make use of him as a foot-pad.' Had the youth from Tobolsk asked a few years later, he would have been accepted. A man can carry off any single woman, if he only chooses the right time. Drowning men are said to catch at straws. It may be so. We have never witnessed a drown, and cannot say: but spinsters about sinking into the vast profound of old-maidism do catch at straw men. This we can assert.
No good parti offered. Attention too began to be scanty. The world of beaux, empty-stomach'd as empty-hearted, rushed to her balls to enjoy the suppers, and to dance with newer belles. They were smiling but unsatisfactory. Now and then some eager débutant would claim her hand for a waltz, and lead her off in triumph, amid the sneers of the experienced. Pardon us, good friends, if we again recur to the romance, the analyses of which we have been giving you:
'The ball room was bright and beautiful. Two thousand candles shone in the lofty rooms; two hundred belles flashed as they sidled in the waltz and simpered in the cotillion. The 'middle ages' line the walls; capped, sitting bolt upright, wide awake, smiling, but looking out like highwaymen for rich young men. Tarpenny descends from the dressing-room, and trembles. It is his fourth party. Simple-minded youth! He feels the arduous nature of his undertaking. He gives his hair the last adorning touch, the coup de grâce; with hands glued to sides, he enters, fixes his eye upon the hostess, and rushes headlong at her. Politeness urges her to advance to meet him; self-preservation prompts her to avoid. Convulsively forward jerks his hand, eager for a shake; two taper fingers only, cautiously advanced, are feebly placed within his grasp. His friendly force betrays him; he shakes the air; loses his balance; hops upon one foot. While on the hop, his rosy face meets a cognizant female eye. He bows upon one leg, totters still, and half falls against a man of muslin. He jumps away, muttering an indistinct 'Pardon!' With a hot, painful sensation in the face, he takes refuge behind a door, to emerge again when coolness brings relief, and the nose no longer glistens. He looks about him, and gallantly resolves to dance. Miss Liner meets his inquiring eye. When a little boy he had seen beaux about her. It was years ago. She is a belle. There can be no doubt about it. How lucky that she is not engaged! He sees distinction close at hand, and hurries to the hostess. She presents him. He stammers out the question. Miss Liner grumbles a 'Yes.' He leads her off in triumph. Short-sighted mortal!'
Mrs. Liner began to ask, 'Why don't the men come forrard?' and old Liner was heard to mutter: 'Quousque tandem Caty Liner abutêre patientiâ nostrâ?'
Another year, and the last faint spark expired.
'Why is it Mrs. Liner,' quoth the father, as he was tying his night-cap strings, 'that our daughter cannot get a husband? I know very well that Erasmus says, in speaking of women, Nulla bona, Nullus beau; but we, thank God! are rich, and I am sure we all have tried hard enough. There was Shuffleshank, for instance. Did not we run after him at balls, plays, concerts, until I got the pleurisy, and you a bilious attack? And Catharine, poor soul! did she not dance after him until she wore herself down to a skeleton? and all for nothing? Something must be done, Mrs. Liner. Gad! I have a plan——' A rattling, reverberating snore completed Mr. Liner's paragraph; and soon the married noses, blended in harsh discord, pealed a lullaby through the bed-curtains. As to Miss Catharine, she looked upon the first part of the proverb, 'L'homme propose,' as an absurd and cruel fiction, invented by a tantalizing wretch. And when her cousin, Miss Frizzle—who like the Scythian in Elian was all face, and poor and ill-natured to boot—when Frederica Frizzle, whose physiognomical and moral qualifications were forcibly described by one of her friends as
'Nose carnation,
Temper darnation!'
when Miss Frizzle, I say, engaged herself to her first offer, a nice musical young man, with the slightest possible moustache, then Catharine waxed gloomy, and her snowy batiste was bedewed with tears. As the poet hath it:
'Through fingers tiny
Streamed the briny.'
We have now come to the beginning of our story. Miss Liner sits weeping upon the sofa, regretting Shuffleshank and her first offer from Tobolsk. It remains for us to see what was Mr. Liner's plan.