"The splendid mansion of the physician had for its mistress the orphan governess. The world, with its sycophantic smile, now flatters, where it once frowned. Both are alike to Grace, who has given her warm heart, 'till death do us part,' to one who knows well how to prize the gift."
XIX.
ALL ABOUT SATAN.
Fanny says herself, she "knows all about him." Now who in the world so fit to deliver a discourse on the subject, as so intimate an acquaintance? Beside, we have seen already that Fanny is in the habit of writing about her friends. Satan might think it a little unjust to be held responsible for babies and women's rights movements, but Fanny knows best, so here follows her sermon, text and all:—
"Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."
"To be sure he does! I know all about him! There's no knowing what would happen, if the houses now-a-days were not filled up, one half with babies and the other half with old stockings! Then a man can tell pretty near, what his wife is about!—sure to find her, year in and year out, in that old calico wrapper, in that old ricketty rocking-chair, with the last new twins in her arms, when he wants a button sewed on his coat to go to the opera. No other way, you see!
"Women are getting altogether too smart now-a-days; there must be a stop put to it! people are beginning to get alarmed! I don't suppose there has been such a universal crowing since the roosters in Noah's ark were let out, as there was among the editors when that 'Swisshelm' baby was born! It's none of my business, but it did seem to me rather a circular singumstance, that she should be cut short in her editorial career that way! I suppose, however, that baby will grow out of her arms one of these days, spite of fate; and then, if there's no providential interposition, she may resume her pen again. Well, I hope it will be a warning! the fact is, women have no business to be crowding into the editorial chair. Supposing they know enough to fill it (which I doubt! hem!) they oughter 'hide their light under a b'—aby!
"I tell you, editors won't stand it, to have their masculine toes trod on that way. They'll have to sign a 'quit claim' to their 'dickeys' by and by! I wonder what the world's coming to! What do you suppose our forefathers and foremothers would say, to see a woman sitting up in the editorial chair, as pert as a piper, with a pen stuck behind her little ears? phew! I hope I never shall see such a horrid sight!"
XX.
WELL-KNOWN CHARACTERS.—BY FANNY FERN.
Miss Charity Crackbone was a spinster; not that she ever 'spun street yarn.' Oh no! but she spun tremendous long 'yarns' with her tongue, and had spun out forty years of her life in single blessedness, in a shop at the corner of Pin Alley, where you could purchase, for a consideration, gingerbread and shoe-blacking, hooks-and-eyes and cholera pills, razors and sugar candy, crackers and castor-oil, head-brushes and butter, small tooth combs and molasses.