gentle prophet eyes? Has death’s dark wing even now fanned those girlish temples?
CHAPTER II.
It was so odd in Ruth to have no one but the family at the wedding. It was just one of her queer freaks! Where was the use of her white satin dress and orange wreath? what the use of her looking handsomer than she ever did before, when there was nobody there to see her?
“Nobody to see her?” Mark that manly form at her side; see his dark eye glisten, and his chiselled lip quiver, as he bends an earnest gaze on her who realizes all his boyhood dreams. Mistaken ones! it is not admiration which that young beating heart craves; it is love.
“A very fine-looking, presentable fellow,” said Hyacinth, as the carriage rolled away with his new brother-in-law. “Really, love is a great beautifier. Ruth looked quite handsome to-night. Lord bless me! how immensely tiresome it must be to sit opposite the same face three times a day, three hundred and sixty-five days in a year! I should weary of Venus herself. I’m glad my handsome brother-in-law is in such good circumstances. Duns are a bore. I must keep on the right side of him. Tom, was that tailor here again yesterday? Did you tell him I was out of town? Right, Tom.”
CHAPTER III.
“Well, I hope Harry will be happy,” said Ruth’s mother-in-law, old Mrs. Hall, as she untied her cap-strings, and seated herself in the newly-furnished parlor, to await the coming of the bride and bridegroom. “I can’t say, though, that I see the need of his being married. I always mended his socks. He has sixteen bran new shirts, eight linen and eight cotton. I made them myself out of the Hamilton long-cloth. Hamilton long-cloth is good cotton, too; strong, firm, and wears well. Eight cotton and eight linen shirts! Can anybody tell what he got married for? I don’t know. If he tired of his boarding-house, of course he could always come home. As to Ruth, I don’t know anything about her. Of course she is perfect in his eyes. I remember the time when he used to think me perfect. I suppose I shall be laid on the shelf now. Well, what beauty he can find in that pale, golden hair, and those blue-gray eyes, I don’t know. I can’t say I fancy the family either. Proud as Lucifer, all of ’em. Nothing to be proud of, either. The father next to nothing when he began life. The son, a conceited jackanapes, who divides his time between writing rhymes and inventing new ties for his cravat. Well, well, we shall see; but I doubt if this bride is anything but a well-dressed doll. I’ve been peeping into her bureau drawers to-day. What is the use of all those ruffles on her under-clothes, I’d like to know? Who’s going to wash and iron them? Presents to her! Well, why don’t people make sensible presents,—a dozen of dish towels, some crash rollers, a ball of wick-yarn, or the like of that?”
“O-o-oh d-e-a-r! there’s the carriage! Now, for one month to come, to say the least, I shall be made perfectly sick with their billing and cooing. I shouldn’t be surprised if Harry didn’t speak to me oftener than once a day. Had he married a practical woman I wouldn’t have cared—somebody who looked as if God made her for something; but that little yellow-haired simpleton—umph!”
Poor Ruth, in happy ignorance of the state of her new mother-in-law’s feelings, moved about her apartments in a sort of blissful dream. How odd it seemed, this new freedom, this being one’s own mistress. How odd to see that shaving-brush and those razors lying on her toilet table! then that saucy looking smoking-cap, those slippers and that dressing-gown, those fancy neck-ties, too, and vests and coats, in unrebuked proximity to her muslins, laces, silks and de laines!
Ruth liked it.
CHAPTER IV.
“Good morning, Ruth; Mrs. Hall I suppose I should call you, only that I can’t get used to being shoved one side quite so suddenly,” said the old lady, with a faint attempt at a laugh.
“Oh, pray don’t say Mrs. Hall to me” said Ruth, handing her a chair; “call me any name that best pleases you; I shall be quite satisfied.”
“I suppose you feel quite lonesome when Harry is away, attending to business, and as if you hardly knew what to do with yourself; don’t you?”
“Oh, no,” said Ruth, with a glad smile, “not at all, I was just thinking whether I was not glad to have him gone a little while, so that I could sit down and think how much I love him.”
The old lady moved uneasily in her chair. “I suppose you understand all about housekeeping, Ruth?”
Ruth blushed. “No,” said she, “I have but just returned from boarding-school. I asked Harry to wait till I had learned house-keeping matters, but he was not willing.”
The old lady untied her cap-strings, and patted the floor restlessly with her foot.
“It is a great pity you were not brought up properly,” said she. “I learned all that a girl should learn, before I married. Harry has his fortune yet to make, you know. Young people, now-a-days, seem to think that money comes in showers, whenever it is wanted; that’s a mistake; a penny at a time—that’s the way we got ours; that’s the way Harry and you will have to get yours. Harry has been brought up sensibly. He has been taught economy; he is, like me, naturally of a very generous turn; he will occasionally offer you pin-money. In those cases, it will be best for you to pass it over to me to keep; of course you can always have it again, by telling me how you wish to spend it. I would advise you, too, to lay by all your handsome clothes. As to the silk stockings you were married in, of course you will never be so extravagant as to wear them again. I never had a pair of silk stockings in my life; they have a very silly, frivolous look. Do you know how to iron, Ruth?”
“Yes,” said Ruth; “I have sometimes clear-starched my own muslins and laces.”
“Glad to hear it; did you ever seat a pair of pantaloons?”
“No,” said Ruth, repressing a laugh, and yet half inclined to cry; “you forget that I am just home from boarding-school.”
“Can you make bread? When I say bread I mean bread—old fashioned, yeast riz bread; none of your sal-soda, salæratus, sal-volatile poisonous mixtures, that must be eaten as quick as baked, lest it should dry up; yeast bread—do you know how to make it?”
“No,” said Ruth, with a growing sense of her utter good-for-nothingness; “people in the city always buy baker’s bread; my father did.”
“Your father! land’s sake, child, you mustn’t quote your father now you’re married; you haven’t any father.”
I never had, thought Ruth.
“To be sure; what does the Bible say? ‘Forsaking father and mother, cleave to your wife,’ (or husband, which amounts to the same thing, I take it;) and speaking of that, I hope you won’t be always running home, or running anywhere in fact. Wives should be keepers at home. Ruth,” continued the old lady after a short pause, “do you know I should
