University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Old maids, at times, have singular notions of metaphysics,
and why should they not; since the remark
is equally applicable to some able professors, who
receive large salaries to declaim in colleges.

Penelope Singleton, early imbibed the idea that
there was no family as free from alloy as the Singletons
on this side of the Atlantic. There was
not a tradesman or mechanic to be found even
among the most distant branches of the genealogical
tree. All the Singletons were either gentlemen or
ladies;—born to consume, not to produce. Ornamental,
but not useful. Panoplied with these notions, Miss
Penelope was unapproached, and unapproachable.

Her brother, Reginald Singleton, of Singleton Hall,
was the magnus Apollo of the family. Every family
has its magnus Apollo. There is a white bird in all
flocks, no matter how black the rest may be. Reginald
had been a colonel in the
militia, before it
was customary to appear on parade armed with
corn-stocks and broom-sticks, and as he had been

called colonel time out of mind, it was generally
believed that he had served under Washington.
This opinion he deemed it unnecessary to rectify,
and whenever the question was too closely pressed,
he would evade it by saying, “it was unpleasant to
talk about the services he had rendered his country.”
Like the rest of the family, the colonel was
a great stickler for gentility, and that he might maintain
his pretensions to the last, he died one day with
a fit of the gout in his stomach. There needs no
other proof that he was a gentleman; for as Galen
sagely remarks, the gout is the most aristocratic of
all diseases, and Galen was tolerable authority before
panaceas and catholicons came in fashion.

The colonel, like non-productives generally, died
involved. He had made a nice calculation that
Singleton Hall would supply his wants for a certain
number of years, and when that time elapsed the
accuracy of his arithmetic was fully tested. The
colonel died, having spent his last dollar, and his
property was found to be mortgaged for its full
value. It requires talents of no ordinary grade to
make a calculation of this description; for if he had
accidentally slipped a figure, and the gout in his
stomach had not come to his relief, at the precise
moment his resources had left him, it is no difficult
matter to conceive how the colonel would have been
astonished. It is the lot of many to play their part
through life with credit, but few have the knack to
time a happy exit, and that to the ambitious is all
important, for we are remembered only as we were
when we died, and not as when we lived.

The colonel, besides a host of creditors, left two
daughters to mourn his loss. The elder, whose
name was Isabel, was about twenty, and her sister
Mary two years younger. They were both lovely
girls, though the elder had been partially deprived
of reason for several years. The girls at the time
of our story resided in Singleton Hall, a splendid
mansion on the banks of the Delaware, without any
other means of support than the interest of what

their father owed. Many live in a similar manner
and keep their coaches.

The time having arrived when aunt Penelope felt
that she was about to be gathered to her fathers, she
prepared to set her house in order; and though she
had herself done but little to perpetuate the Singleton
family, she imagined that the world would come
to an end, should it become extinct. What would
after ages do without them! No; Mary must be
married “to give the world assurance of a man.”
But who was worthy to receive the hand of the sole
heir of all the pride of the Singletons! No one but
a Singleton! Fortunately Mary had a cousin Arthur,
a lieutenant in the navy, otherwise her worthy
aunt would have condemned her to the Malthusian
life she had led herself.

Arthur was fixed upon for this important duty.
But he was at sea, and as the young couple had not
seen each other for four years, possibly in this world
of disappointments something might occur to thwart
her latest wishes. Accordingly, she framed her will
in such a way as she imagined would bring about
what she most desired. If there was any thing on
earth to be relied upon, it was the generosity of the
Singletons. There was not a selfish bone in the
body of one of them. Taking this position for
granted, she bequeathed all her fortune to Arthur
and Mary, but the one who should first refuse to
accept the other in marriage should be entitled to the
whole legacy. This was working by the rule of
contraries, but then she knew that neither would be
so selfish as to refuse for the purpose of enriching
himself.

There was a certain Mr. Jenkins living in the
vicinity of Singleton Hall. Joseph Jenkins, a cotton
spinner, who was as full of motion and bustle as
one of his own jennies. He belonged to that class
of men who appear to have been sent into the world
for no other purpose than to spin cotton, and make
money. He possessed the charm of Midas, and he
cared not a rush for high tariff or low tariff, for

whatever he touched was promptly converted into
gold. Your undistinguished Joseph Jenkins is the
right fellow to travel prosperously through this dirty
world. Your high sounding Mortimers and Fitzhughs,
too frequently sink dejected by the way-side;
but who ever heard of a Jenkins, Smith or Jones
sticking in the mire. And if such an accident should
chance to befall them, they have the consolation of
not being identified in the myriads of the same cognomen,
and shortly you see them brushing the dirt
from their heels, and travelling on as spruce and
impudently as ever. The name of Jones or Smith
is about as convenient an inheritance as a man's
godfather can bestow upon him.

Joseph Jenkins was a good fellow in the main.
He was as industrious as a brewer's horse, and at
the same time as liberal as a prince. Colonel Singleton
was charmed with his company, for Jenkins
lent him money freely, without examining too closely
into the security, and the cotten spinner was equally
charmed with the company of the colonel, as it afforded
him frequent opportunities of seeing the
fair face of Mary. And many a long yarn he spun
with her, until she began to look upon him with
much favour in spite of his plebeian calling.

Our veracious history commences in the month of
May, in the year 18—. The colonel and his sister
Penelope had resolved themselves into their primitive
elements, and notwithstanding the large space
they had occupied in their passage through this
world, they now remained perfectly quiet in a very
narrow compass, and in spite of their pride, their
possessions were upon an equality with the meanest
of their neighbours. Death is your only true radical;
he reduces all to the same level; a heap of
ashes;—nothing more! We occasionally meet with
men, loth to believe this fact, though solemnly proclaimed
every Sabbath from the pulpit.

It was the smiling month of May; the fields had
put on their livery of green; the blue birds were
singing on the budding trees, and old Delaware

rolled as freely and as majestically as though he had
never been subject to ice-bound fetters. Phœbus was
spurring his fiery footed steeds over the Jersey hills,
with such speed, as though he had over slept his time in
the rosy arms of Tethys, or in common parlance, it
was about two hours after sun rise, when a gallant, well
mounted, and gay as a bird in spring, rode up to the
lofty piazza in front of Singleton Hall. He dismounted,
deliberately fastened his fine bay hackney
to a post, there planted for the purpose, set his dress
in order, and then knocked at the door, with an air
that spoke, as plainly as a knock could speak, that he
was confident of receiving a cordial welcome. Having
waited some time and no one appearing, he repeated
the knock, rather impatiently, when an old
negro man unlocked the door, opened it, and stood
in the door-way. He was dressed in a drab frock-coat,
of the fashion of that described in the celebrated
ballad of Old Grimes; the cuffs and collar of which
were of tarnished scarlet, as an evidence that he belonged
to a family of distinction. There is nothing
like your negro in livery, for settling the true caste
of a family, from Maine to Georgia.

“Good morning, Cato; charming morning this,”
said the gentleman, as the old black stood in the
door-way.

“Fine day, Massa Jenkins,” replied Cato, for the
new comer was no other than the veritable Joseph
Jenkins, of cotton spinning celebrity.

“Is your Mistress stirring yet, Cato?”

“Yes, sar. She rises with the lark, every morning,
sar. We study to preserve our health at Singleton
Hall, sar.”

“That's right, Cato. There is no wealth like
health. The sun seldom catches me with my nightcap
on. We were not born to sleep out our existence.
Now, Cato, announce my arrival to Miss
Singleton, for I must be at the factory again in a
couple of hours. Business, business, you know,
must be attended to. Eh! Cato.”

“Yes, sar. And you had better lose no time, sar,
for you cannot see my young mistress, sar.”

“Cannot see her!” exclaimed Jenkins, “I, her
friend, lover—almost husband! to be denied an
interview! Come, come, old ebony, you are jesting.”

“No joke, sar. Miss Isabel charged me to give
you your dismissal in as polite a manner as possible.”

“My dismissal!” exclaimed Jenkins, starting like
a young tragedian in the ghost scene in Hamlet—
“My dismissal!”

“Yes, sar; no joke, sar,” continued Cato, with
philosophic phlegm, “as you will perceive by this
letter, written by Miss Singleton's own little white
hand. We do every thing according to etiquette at
Singleton Hall, sar.”

Cato handed Jenkins a letter, at the same time
slightly bending his erect body, and shaking his
curly gray head, which he considered the only legitimate
aristocratical bow, being modelled upon that
of his master, the colonel. Jenkins received the
letter, and with some agitation breaking the seal,
read as follows:

“It is plain; plain as noon day!” ejaculated
Jenkins.

“Very true, sar. Nothing could be plainer,”
responded Cato, bowing. “There is no mistake at
Singleton Hall, sar.”

“Here is a pretty piece of caprice! It was but
yesterday she partook of all my joy, and now—no
matter! Let those explain woman who can; for my
part, I would sooner attempt to unravel the riddle
of the Sphynx, or find out the philosopher's stone.”

“It would be an easier task, sar,” replied Cato.
“I am now sixty, and never attempted to unravel a
woman in my life; and strange to say, the older I
grow, the less am I inclined to undertake it.”

Jenkins heard nothing of the interruption of Cato,
for his mind was engrossed with reflections which
arose in too rapid succession even to give them utterance.
What was it had created this sudden revolution
in his matrimonial prospects? Had family
pride, which, according to his notions, was “vox et
preterea nihil,” made his bank stock, spinning-jennies,
cotton stuff, and rail-road scrip kick the
beam? Had she taken a sudden dislike to his person?—or
had some one made a more advantageous
offer? Had he been slandered?—or had he done
any thing to offend her delicacy? Various queries
of this kind arose in the mind of Mr. Jenkins, not
one of which could he answer satisfactorily; but on
one point he was perfectly satisfied, and that was
that he had been very shabbily treated, for it occurred
to Mr. Jenkins that he had already lent more money
on Singleton Hall than he ever expected to see
again, and its inmates had for years past, in all cases
of emergency, first applied to him for advice, and
never failed to receive assistance. Such reflections,
in a moment of irritation, might have occurred to a
less matter of fact mind than that of Mr. Jenkins,
and the obligation might have been cancelled by
giving them utterance; for it is somewhere laid
down, that as soon as you advert to a favour conferred
you deserve to be repaid with ingratitude—a
cheap and common mode, by the way, of repaying
an obligation—but Mr. Jenkins did nothing of the
kind; he kept his thoughts between his teeth, walked
silently and deliberately to the post where he had
hitched his horse, mounted, and retraced his steps
at a brisk canter.

“Good morning, sar, and a pleasant ride to you,”
exclaimed Cato, bowing; but Mr. Jenkins returned
no answer, and Cato entered the house and closed
the door.