beneath her lashes, and lay like pearls upon her bosom.
“You need not wait to undress me,” said Mary to the weary-looking waiting-maid, as she averted her swollen eyes from her gaze – and taking the lamp from her hand, Mary passed up to her chamber. So noiseless was the fall of her light foot upon the carpet, that Mark did not know she had entered. He sat with his back to the door, bending over the cradle of his child, till his snow-white locks rested on its rosy cheeks; talking to it, as was his wont, to beguile his loneliness.
“Mary’s forehead – Mary’s eyes – Mary’s mouth – no more like your old father than a rosebud is like a chestnut-burr. You will love the lonely old man, little one, and perhaps she will, by-and-by; who knows?” and Mark’s voice trembled.
“She will – she does” – said Mary, dropping on her knees at the cradle of her child, and burying her face in Mark’s hands; “my noble, patient husband!”
“You don’t mean that?” said Mark, holding her off at arm’s-length, and looking at her through a mist of tears; “you don’t mean that you will love an old fellow like me? God bless you, Mary – God forever bless you! I have been very – very lonely,” – and Mark wept for sheer happiness.
The gaping world, the far-sighted world, the charitable world, shook its wise head, when the star of fashion became a fixed star. Some said “her health must be failing;” others, that “her husband had become jealous at last;” while old stagers maliciously insinuated that it were wise to retire on fresh laurels. But none said – what I say – that a true woman’s heart may always be won – ay, and kept, too – by any husband who does not consider it beneath him to step off the pedestal of his “dignity” to learn how.
BREAKFAST AT THE PAXES’
“Morning paper, John?”
“Didn’t come this morning, mem; I inquired at the office as I came up with the breakfast, mem; none there, mem.”
How provoking! What is breakfast without the morning paper? Coffee and eggs are well enough, but they don’t tell a body whether the Pacific has arrived, or Greeley’s head is safe on his non-resistant shoulders (I wish that man could fight); or whether breadstuffs have “riz,” as every housekeeper knows they ought to; or whether Olmsted’s new book is selling as it deserves (were it only for that racy little morceau about his ride with Jenny, the mare); or whether the “Onguent warranted to raise a moustache and whiskers in six weeks” is still on the sprout; or whether Griswold is proven a saint or a sinner; or whether the amiable young man, who advertised the other day for “board in a family where there are no babies,” has found his desert-s; or whether the philanthropic firm of M‘Mush & Co. are still persisting in that “ruinous sacrifice,” for the benefit of a credulous public in general, and themselves in particular; or whether Barnum’s head is really under water, or whether he has only made a dive to grab some new mermaid; or whether the Regular Male Line viâ (nobody knows where), is an heir line; or whether there are any lectures to be delivered to-night worth foregoing a cosy fireside, and freezing the tip of one’s nose to hear. How am I going to find out all this, I should like to know, without the morning paper? (Long life to the inventor of it!)
Oh! here comes Mr. Pax with one – good soul – he has been out in his slippers, and bought one. Now I shall find out all about every thing, and – who did what. See what a thing it is to have a husband! No, I shan’t either: may I be kissed if Pax has not sat down to read that paper himself, instead of giving it to me. Now I like that; I dare say he thinks because he is connected with the Press that he should have the first reading of it. Am not I connected with the Press I’d like to know? I guess you’d have thought so, had you seen me squeezing into the Opera House the other night to hear Everett’s lecture.
Perhaps he is going to read it aloud to me – I’ll sip my coffee and wait a bit. Good Pax! how I have maligned him; what an impatient wretch I am. I think impatience is a fault of mine. I wonder is it a fault? I wonder if I can help it, if it is? I wonder if people weren’t made that way the year I was born? Yes; Pax must be going to read me the paper; that’s it. Good Pax – how well he looks in that Turkish breakfast-jacket; he has really a nice profile and pretty hand. I can’t say that he has a very saintly under lip, but I have known more saintly looking ones do naughtier things! Yes; I’ll sip my coffee – he is undoubtedly going to read the paper to me; no, he isn’t either; he means to devour the whole of it solus. I won’t stand it – hem – no reply – hem – none so deaf as those who won’t hear.
“Pax!”
“Well, dear” (without raising his eyes).
“Pax! what is there interesting in that paper?”
(Pax still reading intently.) “Nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing.”
Humph! wonder if it takes a man a whole hour to read “nothing?”
Now, do you suppose I whined about that? cried till my eyes looked as though they were bound with pink tape? Not I. I just sat down and wrote an article about it for the “Weekly Monopolizer,” and when it is published, as published it will be, I shall be disinterested enough to hand Pax my paper to read first! Then – when he reads the article, and looking up reproachfully, says: “Mrs. Pax!” it will be my turn not to hear, you know; and when he gets up, and laying his connubial paw on my shoulder, says: “Mrs. Pax, do you know any thing about this article in the Weekly Monopolizer?” I shall reply, with lamb-like innocence: “Nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing!”
Won’t that floor him?
GIRLS’ BOARDING-SCHOOLS
Had I twenty daughters, which I regret to say I have not, not one of them should ever enter a “Boarding-school.” I beg pardon; I should say “Institute;” schools are exploded; every two-year-older learns his A B C now at an “Institute,” though that institute, when hunted down, may consist of a ten-feet-square basement room. But this is a digression.
To every mother who is contemplating sending her daughter to a boarding-school I would say: Let neither your indolence, nor the omnipotent voice of fashion, nor high-sounding circulars, induce you to remove her from under your own personal care and supervision, at a time when the physique of this future wife and mother requires a lynx-eyed watchfulness on your part, which no institute ever has – ever will supply. This is a point which I am astonished that parents seem so utterly to overlook. Every mother knows how fatal wet feet, or insufficient clothing, may be to a young girl at the critical age at which they are generally sent away to school. It is not enough that you place India-rubbers, thick-soled shoes, and flannels in the trunk which bears the little exile company; they will not insure her from disease there. It is not enough that you say to her, “My dear, be careful of your choice of companions,” when she has no choice; when her bed-fellows and room-mates – the latter often three or four in number – are what chance and the railroads send; for what teacher, with the best intentions, ever gives this subject the attention which it deserves, or which a mother’s anxious heart asks? That the distant home of her daughter’s room-mates is located within the charmed limits of fashion; that a carriage with liveried servants (that disgusting libel on republicanism), stands daily before their door; that the dresses of these room-mates are made in the latest style, and their wrists and ears decked with gold and precious stones – is an affirmative answer to these questions to satisfy a true mother?
No – and it is not the blushing country maiden, with her simple wardrobe, and simpler manners, whom that mother has to fear for her child’s companion or bed-fellow. It is the over-dressed, vain, vapid, brainless offshoot of upstart aristocracy, who would ridicule the simple gingham in which that country girl’s
