 | Western clearings |  |
LOVE vs. ARISTOCRACY.
The great ones of the earth might learn many a lesson from
the little. What has a certain dignity on a comparatively large
scale, is so simply laughable when it is seen in miniature, (and,
unlike most other things, perhaps, its real features are better distinguished
in the small), that it must be wholesome to observe
how what we love appears in those whom we do not admire.
The monkey and the magpie are imitators; and when the one
makes a thousand superfluous bows and grimaces, and the other
hoards what can be of no possible use to him, we may, even in
those, see a far off reflex of certain things prevalent among ourselves.
Next in order come little children; and the boy will
put a napkin about his neck for a cravat, and the girl supply her
ideal of a veil by pinning a pocket handkerchief to her bonnet,
while we laugh at the self-deception, and fancy that we value
only realities. But what affords us most amusement, is the awkward
attempt of the rustic, to copy the airs and graces which have
caught his fancy as he saw them exhibited in town; or, still
more naturally, those which have been displayed on purpose to
dazzle him, during the stay of some “mould of fashion” in the
country. How exquisitely funny are his efforts and their failure!
How the true hugs himself in full belief that the gulf between
himself and the pseudo is impassable! Little dreams he that his
own ill-directed longings after the distingué in air or in position
seem to some more fortunate individual as far from being accomplished
as those of the rustic to himself, while both, perhaps, owe
more to the tailor and milliner than to any more dignified source.
The country imitates the town, most sadly; and it is really
melancholy, to one who loves his kind, to see how obstinately
people will throw away real comforts and advantages in the vain
necessary to city life are there compensated by many
advantages resulting from close contact with others; while in
the country those restraints are simply odious, curtailing the real
advantages of the position, yet entirely incapable of substituting
those which belong to the city.
Real refinement is as possible in the one case as in the other.
Would it were more heartily sought in both!
In the palmy days of alchemy, when the nature and powers
of occult and intangible agents were deemed worthy the study of
princes, the art of sealing hermetically was an essential one;
since many a precious elixir would necessarily become unmanageable
and useless if allowed to wander in the common air.
This art seems now to be among the lost, in spite of the anxious
efforts of cunning projectors; and at the present time a subtle
essence, more volatile than the elixir of life—more valuable than
the philosopher's stone—an invisible and imponderable but most
real agent, long bottled up for the enjoyment of a privileged few,
has burst its bounds and become part of our daily atmosphere.
Some mighty sages still contrive to retain within their own keeping
important portions of this treasure; but there are regions of
the earth where it is open to all, and, in the opinion of the exclusive,
sadly desecrated by having become an object of pursuit to
the vulgar. Where it is still under a degree of control, the seal
of Hermes is variously represented. In Russia, the supreme
will of the Autocrat regulates the distribution of the “airy
good:” in other parts of the Continent, ancient prescription has
still the power to keep it within its due reservoirs. In France,
its uses and advantages have been publicly denied and repudiated;
yet it is said that practically every body stands open-mouthed
where it is known to be floating in the air, hoping to inhale as
much as possible without the odium of seeming to grasp at what
has been decided to be worthless. In England we are told that
the precious fluid is still kept with great solicitude in a dingy receptacle
called Almack's, watched ever by certain priestesses,
who are self-consecrated to an attendance more onerous than that
respect nor gratitude for their pains. Indeed, the fine spirit
has become so much diffused in England that it reminds us of the
riddle of Mother Goose—
But can't catch a bowl-full.
If such efforts in England amuse us, what shall we say of the
agonized pursuit every where observable in our own country?
We have denounced the fascinating gas as poisonous—we have
staked our very existence upon excluding it from the land, yet it
is the breath of our nostrils—the soul of our being—the one
thing needful—for which we are willing to expend mind, body,
and estate. We exclaim against its operations in other lands,
but it is the purchaser decrying to others the treasure he would
appropriate to himself. We take much credit to ourselves for
having renounced what all the rest of the world were pursuing,
but our practice is like that of the toper who had forsworn drink,
yet afterward perceiving the contents of a brother sinner's bottle
to be spilt, could not forbear falling on his knees to drink the liquor
from the frozen hoof-prints in the road; or that other votary
of indulgence, who, having once had the courage to pass a
tavern, afterward turned back that he might “treat resolution.”
We have satisfied our consciences by theory; we feel no compunction
in making our practice just like that of the rest of the
world.
This is true of the country generally; but it is nowhere so
strikingly evident as in these remote regions which the noise of
the great world reaches but at the rebound—as it were in faint
echoes; and these very echoes changed from their original, as
Paddy asserts of those of the Lake of Killarney. It would
seem that our elixir vitæ—a strange anomaly—becomes stronger
by dilution. Its power of fascination, at least, increases as it recedes
from the fountain head. The Russian noble may refuse to
let his daughter smile upon a suitor whose breast is not covered
with orders; the German dignitary may insist on sixteen quarterings;
the well-born Englishman may sigh to be admitted into a
coterie not half as respectable or as elegant as the one to which
when we see the managers of a city ball admit the daughters of
wholesale merchants, while they exclude the families of merchants
who sell at retail; and still more when we come to the
“new country” and observe that Mrs. Penniman, who takes in
sewing, utterly refuses to associate with her neighbour Mrs.
Clapp, because she goes out sewing by the day; and that our
friend Mr. Diggins, being raised a step in the world by the last
election, signs all his letters of friendship, “D. Diggins, Sheriff.”
There is Persis Allen, the best and the prettiest girl to be
found within a wide belt of forest, must be quite neglected by the
leaders of the ton among us, because she goes out to spin, in order
to help her “unlucky” father. Not that spinning is in itself considered
vulgar—far from it! Flocks are but newly introduced
among us, and all that relates to them is in high vogue; but going
out! there is the rub! Persis might have lounged about at
home, with her hair uncombed and her shoes down at heel, only
“helping” some neighbour occasionally for a short time to earn
a new dress,—without losing caste. But to engage herself as a
regular drudge, to spin day after day in old Mr. Hicks' great
upper chamber all alone, and never have time or finery to go to a
ball or a training—she must be a poor, mean-spirited creature,
not fit to associate with “genteel” people.
The father of Persis is a blacksmith, and an honest and worthy
man, but he is one of those who are described in the country as
having “such bad luck!” When he first came into the wilds, he
put a sum of money that constituted his all, in a handkerchief
about his head, and then swam over a deep and rapid river,
because he was too intent on pursuing his journey to await the
return of a boat which had just left the shore. He saved
his hour, but lost the price of his land; and so was obliged to
run in debt for a beginning. During the haying of his first western
summer he was too ardent in his endeavours to retrieve his
loss to allow himself a long rest at noon, as the other mowers
did; and the consequence was an attack of fever which put him
still further back in the world. Once more at work, and no less
determined than before, he employed his leisure time in assisting
the neighbours in the heavy and dangerous business of “logging;”
a log which threatened to roll down a slope, and the next moment
he lay helpless with a dislocated shoulder and a hand so mashed
that it was long doubtful whether it would ever regain its
powers.
All through these disasters his faithful help-meet struggled on,
enfeebled by ague, and worn with nursing and watching and
pitying her husband. Early and late—out of doors and within—
she was at work, endeavouring to preserve a remnant from the
general wreck, aided and cheered by her eldest daughter, who,
like many children so situated, became prematurely thoughtful
and laborious, and seemed never to have known the careless joyousness
of childhood. At length Mrs. Allen took a heavy cold
in searching all the evening for her cow, through grass and bushes
dripping with dew, and she was seized with a rheumatism which
made a cripple of her, just as her husband was able to go to his
forge again. So our pretty Persis seemed, as I have said, born
the “predestined child of care,” but she held the blessed place of
comforter, and that consciousness can throw somewhat of an
angelic radiance over even the face of care. She looked neither
pale nor sad, though she was seldom smiling; and from the habit
of constant effort and solicitude at home, she seemed, when away
and among young people, as if she hardly knew what to do with
herself. But in old Mr. Hicks' spinning-room she was in her
element; the great unfurnished chamber is cool and shady, and
across its ample floor Persis has paced back and forth, at her light
labour, till she has acquired an elastic grace of motion which
dancing-masters often try in vain to teach. Indeed, I faney that
few of my fair readers know the real advantages of a thorough
acquaintance with the spinning-wheel; the expanded chest, the
well developed bust, the firm, springing step which belong to this
healthiest and most graceful of all in-door employments. And
let me whisper to some of my pretty, mincing, pit-a-pat friends,
that an easy and elastic step is no trifling point in the estimation
of those who know what real elegance is, independently of stupid
fashions. Many a young lady can manage the curve of the wrist
prescribed by the French prints, and let her shoulders fall so low
that one can hardly help trembling for the consequences, yet her
dresses. But we must not indulge in impertinent digressions.
Spinning differs from other feminine labours, inasmuch as its
profits are dependent on the superior skill or industry of the spinner.
Let a poor girl sew ever so steadily, she can earn but little
addition to her miserable per diem; but in spinning there is, by ancient
custom, a measure to the day's work; and a good hand may
by extra exertion accomplish this twice in a June day. So poor
Persis worked incessantly when she could be spared from home,
encouraged by the thought that all she could accomplish over and
above her “run and a half” was so much clear gain. A gain
in home comforts, sweet Persis! but a terrible loss elsewhere.
The loss of caste was, however, less an evil to the Allens,
because their home troubles had hitherto prevented their mingling
much with the people about them, and so, they had not yet fully
adopted the public sentiment. But they learned to know all about
it in time.
There is one white and green house in the village, and that,
where paint is still so rare, is by good right the Palazzo Pitti of
our bounds. It is shown to the passing traveller as a proof of the
civilization of the country, and elicits not a few remarks from the
farmers who pass it slowly in their huge wagons. It is worth
looking at, too, for even its outer decorations are a masterpiece
of taste. The siding is plain white to be sure; but the frames
of doors and windows, the cornices, the “corner-boards” and the
piazza railing are all bright green. The sashes are in black—
rather prison-like but vastly “genteel”—and the front door is in
an elaborate mahogany style, with more “curly-wurlies” than
usual. Within doors, a taste no less gorgeous is evident, for the
wood-work is all of the brightest blue—probably in imitation of
lapis-lazuli.
In this favoured and much-envied dwelling resides a lady who
is considered by the public in general, and herself in particular,
as the very cream of our aristocracy.
Mrs. Burnet is a fair and plump dame, whose age can only be
guessed by considering a grown-up son. Not a wrinkle mars
her smooth brow; not a gray hair mingles with the smooth brown
tresses that are laid so demurely on either temple. Her countenance
strictest rule of propriety; and the tones which convey them to
the ear are of so silvery a softness that one can hardly think the
most yielding of all substances could melt between those correct
lips. (This paraphrase is the result of much laborious thought.)
But in the full brown eye above them there lurks—what shall we
call it?—to say the least, a latent power which is felt through all
those silvery tones, and in spite of all that winning softness. The
initiated are exceedingly careful how they rouse this sleeping
power; for in those singular tones—to convey which to the reader
would require music-paper and some skill at annotation—things
are sometimes said which other people might say passionately or
sharply, but which Mrs. Burnet knows how to make the more
bitter by sweetness.
This lady's household consisted usually of only two members
beside herself—a serving-maid with a flat white face and a threatening
beard—for Mrs. Burnet had an instinctive dislike of youth
and beauty—and a young man toward whom nature had been more
bounteous, but whom fortune had so neglected that he was fain to
“do chores” for his board at Mrs. Burnet's, while he picked a
very scanty education out of the village school. This poor youth,
Cyprian Amory, was the nephew of the great lady, but only the
gloom of her glory fell on him; for his mother had made an
imprudent marriage, and her orphan boy was a heavy burthen to
Mrs. Burnet's pride. She could not quite make an outcast of her
sister's son, but she revenged the mortification which his poverty
occasioned her, by rendering his situation as odious as possible;
taking care always to represent him as an object of charity,
although his services were such as would have earned ungrudged
bread any where else. Cyprian was of a mild and quiet temper,
and being unfitted by delicate health for the labour of farming,
he was intent on preparing himself for that poorest of all drudgery,
the teaching of a district school. So he bore all in a silence
which his aunt ascribed to stupidity, but which a few friends that
he loved, and whose love consoled him, considered the result of a
patience and resignation almost saintly.
Besides Cyprian and the flat-faced serving-maid, Mrs. Burnet's
whom more, presently.
Mrs. Burnet's establishment was at no great distance from the
humble dwelling of William Allen; indeed the two gardens
joined at their farther extremity. And at that corner the wide
difference between the two was not so evident, for the fruit-trees
hid the splendid white and green mansion, while the roses and
lilies which adorned Mr. Allen's garden had evidently never
heard of our aristocracy, since they bloomed with a provoking
splendour which Mrs. Burnet's did not always exhibit. That
lady's general plan was so thrifty, that her grounds were largely
devoted to corn and potatoes; and she did not remember to pay
much attention to flowers, unless she longed for their decorative
powers on some great occasion.
Such an occasion had arrived; for George Burnet had just come
home after finishing what he called his “law studies;” studies
which we rather think were comprised in six months' “sharp
practice,” as clerk to a gentleman who had quitted the shoemaker's
bench for the law, on the supposition that the art of pettifogging
would prove a stepping-stone to a bench of more dignity.
This gentleman's neophyte, Mr. George Burnet, was such a youth
as the only son of a doting mother is apt to be—wilful, conceited
and very hard to please; in short, not voted particularly agreeable
for any qualities of his own, but much reverenced as the
heir-presumptive of the white and green house, and also on
account of his aristocratic pretensions—his father having once
been elected to the legislature. He was fully sensible of his
advantages, and not a little apt to boast of his expectations; was
good-natured when he was pleased, and very kind where he took
a fancy—in short, one of those people who intend well, or at
least intend no ill, but are never to be depended on for a day.
Mr. George Burnet came home in high spirits, determined to
enjoy to the uttermost the interval between the finish of his preparation
and the opening of sharp practice on his own account. He
was extravagantly fond of dancing, and his mother had always
promised him a grand party when he should have got through his
studies, on the express condition, however, that he was to return
immediately to business, and not stay to hunt and fish and serenade
and the party was now to come off.
The preparations for this great event had for some time been
foreshadowed in the active brain of Mrs. Burnet; and George's
“freedom suit” was duly bespoken, and two violins secured,
long before the arrival of the graduate. But, as the appointed
day drew nigh, who shall tell of the hopes and fears, the consultations
and the arguments, which were expended on and over the
list of favoured guests. Enough to say that it was almost the
ditto of those familiar to the town-bred getters-up of splendid hospitality,
(!) and that the principle of the whole thing was precisely
the same, though set forth and put in practice in homelier guise.
Who will do to invite? Who may be left out? Who will look
best? Whose presence will reflect most honour on the entertainers?
Whose enmity will be least formidable among those
who ought to be excluded on account of want of caste, or want of
savoir faire? George Burnet and his lady mother found it hard
to agree in their estimate of the guests; George insisting upon
all the pretty girls, and these, for the most part, portionless belles,
being the last to be selected by Mrs. Burnet.
“Mary Stevens,” said George.
“Poh! She goes out sewing!” said Mrs. Burnet.
“I don't care for that,” said the dutiful son, “she has rosy
cheeks, and I'll have her.”
“There's Mary Drinkwater, I shall ask, of course,” observed
Mrs. Burnet.
“Squint-eyed!” said George.
“No matter for that,” was the reply, “she's got a farm of her
own. I hope you'll be very civil to her.”
“Mother,” said George Burnet, “I wouldn't marry Polly
Drinkwater if there wasn't another girl in the world!”
“I haven't asked you to marry her; though, for that matter,
it is just as easy to love a rich girl as a poor one,” said Mrs.
Burnet. “But, George, it is high time for you to have done with
nonsense, and behave like a man. Mary Drinkwater is, after
all—”
“Hush! mother,” said George, politely laying his hand on his
There's Jane Lawton is a nice girl.”
“But her mother's a fright,” said Mrs. Burnet.
“Leave her out, then,” said George.
“No, no; if you ask Jane, we must have the old folks.”
“Lump 'em, then,” said George; “and who has Phebe Penniman
got tacked to her?”
“Nobody, thank fortune!” said his mother; “her old lame
grandmother can't go out; but Phebe 'll come in a shilling
calico.”
“I don't care what she comes in,” said the youth, “if she only
brings those pretty bright eyes of hers with her; and Phebe's a
good hearty girl, too; she can dance all night. But who was
that splendid looking girl that was with her this morning? By
George! I never saw such a step!”
“That was Persis Allen,” said Mrs. Burnet; “a new family
that moved in after you went away. But I will not have her, so
that's settled! She's as proud as a peacock, for all she goes out
to spin by the day at old Hicks's. I won't have her, though I
long for some of those lilies to dress the supper-table with. I
can't get the lilies without asking her, but I'd rather go without.”
“But she's a screamer of a girl,” persisted Master George;
“I'd rather have her than all the rest.”
“But you won't have her, though,” said Mrs. Burnet; and
George, seeing her so determined, let the matter drop, a sure sign
that he was determined, too.
But all his strategy was vain. No surprise, no coaxing, no
pouting, had the least effect upon Mrs. Burnet. The Allen family
had pertinaciously omitted all that courting which, we regret
to say, follows wealth and power even to the wilds; and they had,
moreover, found occasion, more than once, to resent certain impertinences
which Mrs. Burnet was in the habit of offering to her
poorer neighbours. So the lady was inexorable; and, strong in
her smooth bitterness, she carried her point. Persis was left out.
But, on the eve of the great day, when the preparations were
in great forwardness, those dazzling lilies were again mentioned;
and George, who was never much hampered by the restraints of
good breeding, declared he would get the lilies without inviting the
fence, by moonlight, and made directly for the spot rendered
lovely by the choicest flowers of our poor Persis. This was the
neighbourhood of a little arbour, over the rustic framework of
which a luxuriant wild-grape had been trained, to shade a soft
bank covered with abundant mosses. The overpowering perfume
of the lilies, called forth in double measure by the dew, guided
our adventurer directly to their place, even before they became
visible in the moonlight; and he was about to rifle the bed, when
his eye was caught by as white an object in the arbour. George's
conscience whispered that it was a “sperrit;” but, after the first
moment's start, he could not resist venturing a little nearer; and
there was Persis Allen, fast asleep on her mossy couch, her fair
forehead upward toward the sky, a book still open on her lap, and
a lily fallen at her feet, fit emblem of her own purity and beauty.
Mr. George Burnet stood entranced. He had seen no such
personification of beauty and romance in the whole course of his
law-studies. He ventured nearer,—nearer still—until he could
distinguish the lightest curl waved by the evening breeze, and
even the satin smoothness of the skin beneath. But while he
still gazed, the sleeping beauty stirred—opened her eyes—uttered
a slight exclamation, as if not quite sure that what she saw was
real—and our gallant youth darted off, as much frightened as if
the opening of those eyes had threatened literal instead of only
figurative death. The young girl did not scream, although she
ought, in propriety, to have done so. She had no presentiment
that she was to be made a heroine of; and, in truth, men of all
sorts are too plenty, and too unceremonious, at the West, to excite
much alarm. So, concluding that the intruder had been only
some neighbouring marauder in search of her father's fine raspberries,
she picked up her bonnet, and walked quietly into the
house.
Meanwhile, our scared swain had reached his own maternal
mansion; and, coming empty-handed, was closely questioned,
and not a little laughed at when he recounted the failure of his
adventure.
“But, hold on a little till I tell ye!” interposed Master George:
“If she hadn't been there I'd have got 'em easy enough; but the
made my heart beat so that I could hardly see. But, by George!
what a girl! Mother! I must and will have that girl at my
party, and so there's an end of it.”
“How can you be so vulgar, George?” replied his mother.
“Vulgar or not,” persisted he, “if she don't come, I don't!
I'll go and spend the evening with her, instead of those dowdies.”
“George,” said Mrs. Burnet, “you always were an obstinate
boy, but I was in hopes you had more sense now.”
“So I have,” said the dutiful youth, “and that's the reason I
want my own way. Come, mother, get your bonnet and shawl,
and let's go over and invite that pretty—what's her name? and
then we'll ask her for the flowers.”
And George at length carried his point, and dragged his mother
over to William Allen's.
“Persis, dear,” said Mrs. Burnet, in her most seducing and
mellifluent tones, as soon as the requisite salutations were over,
“will you come and spend the evening to-morrow? We shall
have a number of young people—”
“And fiddles,” interposed George, in way of parenthesis.
Persis murmured something in reply, but Mrs. Burnet proceeded
without waiting for an answer.
“And, if you can't come, you will at least give me a few of
your beautiful flowers to dress my supper-table. I must have
some of those lilies. You have so many that I am sure you can
spare me some.”
“Oh yes, certainly,” Persis said; “you shall have the lilies
in welcome.”
“But you'll come,” said George, whose eyes had devoured the
beautiful face with no measured stare all this time; “you'll
come, won't you?”
“I—I don't know—I'll ask mother,” said Persis.
“Well! I'll send for the flowers in the morning,” said Mrs.
Burnet, hurrying away quite unceremoniously.
George was very reluctant to be dragged off without a promise
from Persis, but he was obliged to be content with the advantage
he had gained. He felt that the tone of his mother's invitation
had not been what it should be, but he hoped his own urgency
not likely to be contemned by any of the village damsels. We
must confess, it occasioned no little flutter in the innocent heart
of Persis; but she was, as we have said, prematurely sober and
self-restrained, and sought good advice before she ventured to decide
on a point so important. She did not even think “What
shall I wear?” perhaps the scantiness of her wardrobe saved her
the trouble. She only said to her parents, “Had I better go?”
They were naturally disposed to think Persis might safely follow
her own inclination in the matter; and the young girl had
as naturally been inclined to what all young people love. But
the next morning, when Persis went as usual to her spinning, she
mentioned the whole affair to old Mr. Hicks and his good sister;
the visit of the evening before, the hasty tone of the mother as
contrasted with the urgency of the son; and also, for we must
own that Persis, like many a simple country damsel, had a quick
perception of the ludicrous—the odd way Mrs. Burnet had of
coupling her request for the lilies so closely with the invitation for
the evening.
“Just like her!” said Aunt Hetty, “she's the coldest-heartedest
crittur that ever spoke.”
“She is a proud, unfeeling woman,” said old Mr. Hicks, “and,
if you'll take my advice, my dear, you'll keep clear of the Burnets
altogether. George is always crazy after some pretty face
or another, and it's no credit to a young girl like you to have his
acquaintance. If he or his mother should meet you in the street,
at B—, they wouldn't know you at all. Don't go, Persis.”
At this advice from the plain-spoken old man, Persis blushed
deeply, and the vision of the grand party, which had begun to
loom large in her imagination, faded away almost entirely. She
had so much respect for farmer Hicks, who was known as the
oldest settler and universally looked up to by the neighbours, that
she resolved at once to follow his advice, and decline the tempting
invitation. Besides, in a cooler view, an instinctive self-respect
whispered that Mrs. Burnet's manner was any thing but
what it should have been, and that the only urgency had been on
the part of the young man. So she told her good old friend that
she would not go to Mrs. Burnet's.
The lilies went, however, and formed the crowning decoration
of the feast, dividing the public eye with the splendid “pediment”
of maccaroons which had been brought with great care and solicitude
from B—. The entire gentility of the neighbouring
village was collected. There was the lawyer's lady, and the
clergyman's lady, and the storekeeper's lady, all drest as primly
as possible, and looking as solemn as the occasion required.
Then, there was Mrs. Millbank, the tailor's lady, a very “genteel”
woman, and she wore an elegant black bombazine, with
pink satin bows on the shoulders, and a flounce half a yard deep.
Mrs. Perine, the harness-maker's lady, was in plain white, but
she wore a scarf of rainbow hues, and a most superb and towering
head-dress of black feathers and pale blue roses. Miss Adriance,
the school-ma'am, was invited, because she was “genteel”
and wore spectacles, though her calling was scarcely the thing
for a select party; and she honoured the occasion by appearing
in a green merino, and a mob-cap, full trimmed with yellow ribbons.
But it would require the accuracy of a court-circular to
describe the costume of every star that twinkled in Mrs. Burnet's
parlour on that distinguished evening. We can but observe that
the eyes were brighter than the candles, and the conversation
much less blue than the cerulean mantelpiece. The very beaux
were inspired, and, instead of sneaking into corners, or getting
behind the door, they came boldly forward, talked and laughed
among themselves, and looked sideways at the girls, with most
unwonted assurance.
George, arrayed in the “freedom suit”—solemn black, of
course, as became his profession—made the agreeable to his male
guests after the most approved style—shaking hands heartily, and
asking them to “take something to drink.” But the festivities
had reached no great height, when the youthful heir, scanning
closely the tittering circle, missed the bright mistress of the lilies,
and, finding or making an opportunity to speak to his mamma,
asked if “the Allen girl” had not come.
“No, my dear,” said the honey-voiced Mrs. Burnet, “I dare
say she couldn't get her frock washed in time, or she would have
been here.”
As the lady turned away, with a gentle titter at her own wit,
her young hopeful vanished by the nearest door.
“Where's your girl?” said he a few moments after, addressing
Mr. Allen.
“Gone to bed,” was the cool reply.
“Why! isn't she coming to our 'us?”
“Not this night, I think,” replied her father, very composedly
for, be it known, that the ceremonies of acceptance and apology
are not in vogue among us—every body exercising his democratic
privilege of going or staying away, without rendering account to
any one.
“Why! that beats all!” exclaimed Mr. George, in considerable
vexation. “Why didn't she come?”
“Well—I believe she didn't want to,” said Mr. Allen.
“I don't believe that,” muttered George, and, going out of the
door, he looked up at the only upper window.
“Halloo! Persis—I say, Persis!”
No answer.
“Persis Allen; what's the matter with you?”
Dead silence; and poor George, casting a wrathful look at the
papa quietly smoking his pipe in the kitchen, went his way back
to the party, resolving to pay the most provoking attention to Miss
Drinkwater, by way of revenging himself on Fate and Persis
Allen.
The party went off in the usual style—that is to say, dull and
stiff at first, chattering and warm secondly, and then, after due
attention to the vivers, coming to an uproarious finale. Mr.
George, early excited by drinking with his “dear five hundred
friends,” more or less, became quite stupid before the company
departed; and, when the last shawl had left the entry-table, and
the second supply of tallow candles began to burn low in the
sockets, Mrs. Burnet was obliged to call in the strong arm of
Huldy from the kitchen to get Mr. George up to bed.
The next day, it became too evident that the freedom-party had
cost Mr. George Burnet a violent fever. He awoke out of a long
sleep with an agonizing pain in his head, and a pulse going at
railroad speed. Before evening medical aid had been summoned,
heads and vials shaken, and a cot put into George's room for Mrs.
(Watchers are always expected to be very hungry.) In short, it
was a serious case, and excited much interest with the two Galens
of the neighbourhood.
“Midnight!—and not a nose—” from one end of the village to
the other—“snored”—for the screams and ravings of the unfortunate
youth freighted the weary echoes.
“Persis! Persis Allen! why don't she come?” rung in the
night air, so distinctly that the owner of the appellation lay trembling
in her little attic, with the vague dread of distress and impending
disaster. All night long did the heart-rending tones of
the sufferer keep her awake, and it was scarcely daylight when
a messenger from Mrs. Burnet knocked loudly at her father's
door, to entreat Persis to come but for a moment to George's bedside,
hoping that the sight of her might have some effect in soothing
his irritation. She went, though trembling and almost fainting
with fright and agitation, never doubting, in her simplicity,
whether it was proper for her to comply with so unusual a request.
There is a sort of sacred reverence for the sick in those regions,
where there is scarce any reverence for any thing else.
The moment George's delirious brain became aware of the
presence of the pale beauty, he would have sprung from his bed
but for strong arms that held him down. It was indeed surprising
that her image should have taken so firm a hold on his memory
and imagination; but it soon became evident that nothing but
her presence would soothe his more than “midsummer madness.”
So there the poor girl was obliged to sit, her cold hand clasped between
his burning palms, and his wild eyes fixed upon her face,
hour after hour, listening to his raving vows that she and she only
should be his wife, spite of his mother and—a less smooth-looking
personage.
We are not to suppose that Persis was unmoved by the sound
of all these passionate words. Words have a power of their own,
as we have all doubtless experienced, and besides, George Burnet
was rather a handsome young man, and the certain heir of a still
handsomer property. So that we shall not pretend that his protestations,
though made in all the wildness of delirium, fell upon
deaf ears or a stony heart. On the other side of the bed stood
watching with a painful anxiety the changes in the pale face of
Persis, and frequently suggesting something which might tend to
quiet George and relieve her unpleasant situation. At length
George's ravings grew fainter, his grasp gradually slackened, his
eyes closed, and he fell asleep, murmuring blessings on the fair
being who had so kindly soothed his wretchedness. Persis was
removed, half fainting, and it was not until some hours' rest that
she was able to return home, so completely had her nerves been
overwrought by this distressing scene. Yet Mrs. Burnet dismissed
her without the slightest acknowledgment of the sacrifice she
had made to humanity; evidently rejoiced to get rid of so dangerous
a friend.
But there was further trouble in store for the politic mamma.
George's delirium subsided, it is true, but his memory proved
wonderfully tenacious of the subject of his ravings. As he gained
strength his natural willfulness showed itself, and a determination
to make good all he had said to Persis was but too apparent.
The violence of his disease was not of long duration, but it
had so shattered him that his convalescence was slow; and, during
the weeks of his scarce perceptible amendment, his talk was
continually of his fair neighbour. His mother would not stay in
the room to listen to what so deeply offended her; but Cyprian
was always there, and into his unwilling ear did George pour all
his plans for the future.
“We shan't live here, Cyp,” he would say; “she's too splendid
a creature for the woods, and beside, mother would worry her life
out. Isn't she a sweet creature, Cyp? Stay—what do you go
away for? You shall be my clerk, Cyp, you write so much better
than I do—you shall study law with me—take care of my
business whenever I'm away. I shall be sent to Congress by and
bye, and, while I'm gone to Washington, you'll be head man at
home. Only help me to persuade my mother. Won't she make
a figure at Washington? Such a step! and how she carries her
head!” and he would run on by the hour after this fashion, holding
Cyprian fast till his new found strength would be entirely exhausted,
and he would fall asleep only to wake and renew the
strain.
Matters could not long go on thus. It never entered the head
of either mother or son that Persis Allen would have to be asked
more than once; and Mrs. Burnet only waited her son's more
complete recovery to put an end to his fine dreams. When the
time came for the execution of this her fixed purpose, there was a
scene indeed. George cried and swore alternately, while his
mother, calm as usual, with her lips compressed to a thready thinness,
and that unearthly light in her eye which malicious eyes
will perversely emit when their owner most desires to seem angelically
virtuous, she expressed her unalterable determination to
disinherit him if he persisted in marrying a girl who earned her
living by spinning.
This was a tremendous engine, and wielded with the coolness
so peculiar to Mrs. Burnet, it bore with terrible force upon poor
George, who had been brought up to expect a fortune which was
entirely in his mother's power. But opposition only contributed
to keep alive a determination which would otherwise most probably
have shared the fate of many others which George had made
and broken. He did not venture to defy his mother openly, for,
in his eyes as well as hers, the possession of property was all that
made any essential difference between one man and another. But
there had been nothing in his education which forbade his pursuing
covertly what he had not courage to defend; and Persis was
doomed to be waylaid on all occasions by her impetuous admirer,
till she was almost ready to marry him to get rid of him.
George had now entirely recovered, and his mother insisted on
his returning to his business according to promise. Cyprian took
charge of the village school, and the white and green house presented
a silent and very haughty-looking exterior—Mrs. Burnet
having subsided into her usual aristocratic grandeur, and not
even knowing the poor spinning-girl when she met her. Cyprian
Amory, it is true, though he belonged to the great house, was
troubled with no such shortness of memory—indeed, it would
have been fortunate for him if he had, poor fellow! for why
should he remember Persis? They often encountered at sunset,
when each was returning from the day's task; and it was perhaps
from an idea that Persis' own youth had not passed without its
trials and struggles, that Cyprian was led at times to be rather
was thus that the fair spinning-girl learned that the only chance
to which Cyprian looked for an escape from the horrors of a district-school,
was George's consenting to receive him as a clerk, a
destiny not in itself to be coveted, yet far preferable to its alternative.
Such was the pity and sympathy excited in the gentle
breast of Persis, that she almost wished sometimes that she had
accepted George, since she might then have been of so much service
to poor Cyprian!
But the time came when Cyprian no longer met Persis, as he
sauntered along the road, after shutting up the school-house.
She was bound, day and night almost, to the death-bed of her
kind old friend, farmer Hicks, whose sister, quite infirm, and almost
imbecile, depended on Persis as on a daughter. Inured as
she was to care and to personal sacrifice, the aid of Persis about
the sick-bed was invaluable, and the old man, with his dying
breath, blessed her, and recommended his sister to her kindness.
After he was gone, and his will came to be opened, it was
found that he had left Persis his entire property, with the sole
burthen of a comfortable support for the aged sister, “feeling,”
the will said, “that she could not be in better hands.'
Here was an overturn of affairs! and, at first, it seemed likely
to be the overturn of poor Persis' wits, too; not that she was elated,
but perplexed and embarrassed in the extreme by the surprise,
and by the sudden weight of responsibility. She was to
live in her own house, that the old lady might not be subject to
the pain of a removal; and, as Persis' younger sister was now
able to supply in part her place at home, this was soon arranged;
but other matters presented more formidable difficulties.
We must not pretend that our village maiden had been indifferent
to the addresses of a young gentleman who was considered
by the entire democracy about her to be so much “above” her.
She had a kind and noble heart, but, after all, she was human,
and subject to the influence of caste, as well as the rest of us.
George Burnet, a young “lawyer,” the beau of the country, and
heir of the splendid white and green house and the fine farm appended
to it, would have been irresistible, perhaps, but for a something—an
unexplained, troublesome something, which presented
of the matter. There was drawn, by some magical or invisible
power, on the retina of her mind's eye, a pretty rural scene—a
log-house, plain and small, shaded with trees and surrounded with
gay flowers. In the upper chamber of this humble abode was a
neatly dressed damsel plying the great wheel, and in the little
garden which her window commanded, was a tall, slender young
man, busily tending some well-kept rows of vegetables, and occasionally
casting a glance upward at the window. The damsel
at the wheel was Persis herself, the youth in the garden, her
friend, Cyprian Amory.
This pretty picture had often presented itself to Persis, while
she was still a simple spinning-girl, and it stood very much in the
way of George Burnet's interest. And yet, if Persis could only
marry George, how much might she brighten the lot of her friend,
Cyprian. George would take Cyprian into his office, and, once
on the way, Cyprian might, nay, must, rise to a condition in life
so much better suited to a mind like his. A farmer's life would
never do for that delicate frame, and a school in the country is
only another name for starvation, and not reputable starvation either.
It was such considerations as these that had caused Persis
sometimes to listen to George Burnet, and try to make up her
mind to like him, though she had told him no a thousand times.
It was only a few days after the funeral of old Mr. Hicks, that
the old aunty and her young guardian were still seated at the
tea-table, when they were surprised by a visit from Mrs. Burnet.
That agreeable lady was decked in her sweetest smiles, and paid
her compliments of condolence in the choicest phrase, crowning
all by hoping that as Miss Allen must be quite at leisure she
should have the pleasure of seeing her often—very often. She
was so fond of the society of young people! and now they were
to be such near neighbours, she hoped Persis would be “sociable.”
This visit was followed at no great distance by another, with
the avowed object of pleading George's cause, the match being
now warmly desired by the devoted mother. She had understood,
she said, that there had been an attachment, (she did not say a
mutual one, though her manner implied it,) but Miss Allen must
be aware that nothing could be more imprudent than engagements
there could be no possible objection; and she hoped her dear
Persis would not object to an early day, since poor George would
find it impossible to engage in business until his mind was at
rest.
All this was delivered so volubly that Persis had no opportunity
for a word, but even while Mrs. Burnet was speaking, her mind
had been unconsciously applying all these prudential observations
in another direction. It was a brilliant thought, truly, and it was
marvelous that it had not suggested itself before—that she was an
heiress, and could do as she liked. She had money enough for
two, and Cyprian could hire workmen, and oversee the farm as
old Mr. Hicks had done. All this was concluded in a moment;
and, as a finish to the cogitation, grown worldly wise by suffering,
she considered that if any thing should yet be lacking, she
could still ply the wheel as before, and so make all right.
And, when Mrs. Burnet had exhausted all her eloquence, and
paused for a reply, she got only a plain and somewhat absent negative.
Who shall give the faintest idea of her rage? Who paint the
gleam of that eye, or the sharp thinness of the compressed lips?
Bitter sweet was she at parting, but Persis was so occupied with
her new idea that she felt no embarrassment at having offended the
great lady.
But how to put her plan in Cyprian's head? We can account
for what follows only in one way—the intensity of the thought
which dwelt on him for so long a time must have drawn him to
her side; for he no sooner understood that Mrs. Burnet had been
to see Persis than he found himself irresistibly impelled toward
the old farm-house.
And there, in the parlour, by the great western window, sat Persis;
her head leaning on her hand, her eyes fixed on vacancy,
and her thoughts so absorbing that she did not perceive Cyprian's
entrance until he stood before her. A start—a fluttering blush,
and the magnetic influence was evident to both. Cyprian was
not yet so much of a schoolmaster that he could talk nothing but
grammar; and though you might have found it difficult to parse
what he said to Persis on that occasion, the meaning was, on the
that Cyprian had long loved her, though pride and poverty
would forever have sealed his lips, but for the rumour that
she had decidedly refused a rich lover.
And what did poor George Burnet do? He talked undutifully
to his amiable mamma, and swore he would go and be a Patriot.
Mrs. Burnet took both these things quietly, and George, after all,
had to marry Polly Drinkwater.
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