The last object that I saw in my vision was the figure of a woman, walking the ramparts of an old Spanish city on the Pacific coast of Central America. Matronly, and dignified in her air and bearing, her featured bore the impress of past anxiety, but across them flitted at times the consciousness of approaching joy. She gazed wistfully ever and anon seaward; and my heart yearned to tell her all that I had so lately seen. The herd of vulgar gold-hunters, who thronged the battlements, respected her, for her long-continued sorrows, her abiding faith, her matchless perseverance. They pressed not on her steps.
I, too, who knew more than they did, how I longed to see the meeting—but no, no, 'twere better that it should be sacred.
I had not the choice; at this moment, forced upon my unwilling ears, through the key-hole came a tiny voice, "Please, Sir, mother says won't you get up; the stage will be here in ten minutes."
WOMAN NEVER AT A LOSS.
An Eastern Apologue—From the French.
----I read her my manuscript; I had been abusing woman I must confess. Not a single good word could I say for the sex; and long did my companion and I battle the point. Many truisms, much that was strictly veritable had I brought forward, and she had been obliged to yield to the justice of almost all my remarks, though disclaiming against my slander at the same time. Finally—"You intend to marry, yourself?" she asked.
"Certainly," I replied; "to find a woman bold enough to take me, after having convinced her that I knew all the duplicity of the sex, will henceforward be the dearest of my hopes."
"Is this resignation or fatuity?"