LVII.
MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH'S PHILOSOPHY.
Dear me! how expensive it is to be poor. Every time I go out, my best bib and tucker has to go on. If Zebedee was worth a cool million, I might wear a coal-hod on my head, if I chose, with perfect impunity. There was that old nabob's wife at lecture, the other night, in a dress that might have been made for Noah's great-grandmother. She can afford it! Now if it rains knives and forks, I must sport a ten dollar hat, a forty dollar dress, and a hundred dollar shawl. If I go to a concert, I must take the highest priced seat, and ride there and back, just to let 'Tom, Dick and Harry' see that I can afford it. Then we must hire the most expensive pew in the broad-aisle of a tip-top church, and give orders to the sexton not to admit any strangers into it who look snobbish. Then my little children, Napoleon Bonaparte and Dona Maria Smith, can't go to a public school, because, you know, we shouldn't have to pay anything.
"Then if I go shopping, to buy a paper of needles, I have to get a little chap to bring them home, because it wouldn't answer for me to be seen carrying a bundle through the streets. We have to keep three servants where one might do; and Zebedee's coats have to be sent to the tailor when they need a button sewed on, for the look of the thing.
"Then if I go to the sea-shore, in summer, I can't take my comfort, as rich people do, in gingham dresses, loose shoes, and cambric sun-bonnets. My senses! no! I have to be screwed up by ten o'clock in a Swiss muslin dress, a French cap, and the contents of an entire jeweller's shop showered over my person; and my Napoleon Bonaparte and Dona Maria can't go off the piazza, because the big rocks and little pebbles cut their toes so badly through their patent kid slippers.
"Then if Zebedee goes a-fishing, he wouldn't dare to put on a linen coat for the price of his reputation. No indeed! Why, he never goes to the barn-yard without drawing on his white kids. Then he orders the most ruinous wines at dinner, and fees those white jackets, till his purse is as empty as an egg-shell. I declare it is abominably expensive. I don't believe rich people have the least idea how much it costs poor people to live!"
LVIII.
INTERESTING TO BASHFUL MEN.
"'Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.'
"Didn't it though! I FAN-cy it does! If there's anything in the world that is quite entirely interesting, it's a man who daresn't say 'I love you,' though his eyes told the story long ago! Of course you don't know anything about it. Oh, no! Can't, for the soul of you, tell why he never comes near you without a tremor, or what possesses him to say 'yes,' instead of 'no,' or to kiss your little brother so often, and give him so much sugar-candy! Have no idea why he looks so 'distrait'and embarrassed, when you take another gentleman's arm or smile at him. Never see that bright magnetic sparkle in his eye when you call him Harry, instead of Mr. Fay. Don't see him pick up a rosebud that you dropped from your girdle, and hide it in his vest! (don't like it, either!!) You don't notice what a long job he makes of it, putting your shawl on. You haven't the slightest suspicion where the mate of your little kid glove went, the last time you went to walk; you are not at all magnetically affected yourself! Oh, no, not a bit of it! Just as cool as a fur—refrigerator!
"Don't feel a bit nervous when your mother gets up and leaves the room! Always have a topic at your tongue's end to dash off on. Never pick your ribbons all to pieces because you daresn't look him in the face. Never refuse to go to ride with him, when you are just dying to go. Never blush as red as a pulpit cushion, when your brother teases you about him, or say 'you don't care a fig for him.' When HIS ring at the door sends your heart to your mouth, you never snatch up a book and get so entirely absorbed in it, that he is obliged to touch your arm, before you can find out that he's in your presence! You never read his notes, when you could say them all off with your eyes shut! You never hide them where anybody can find them—without you should be taken with a fainting fit! You take precious good care to keep all that from Mr. Fay!