University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
IN WHICH WE ATTEND THE GREAT SEWING-UNION AT PTOLEMY.

Never before had the little society of Ptolemy known so
animated a season. For an inland town, the place could not at
any time be called dull, and, indeed, impressed the stranger
with a character of exuberant life, on being compared with
other towns in the neighborhood. Mulligansville on the east,
Anacreon on the north, and Atauga City on the west, all fierce
rivals of nearly equal size, groaned over the ungodly cheerfulness
of its population, and held up their hands whenever its
name was mentioned. But, at the particular time whereof we
write—November, 1852—the ordinarily mild flow of life in
Ptolemy was unusually quickened by the formation of the great
Sewing-Union. This was a new social phenomenon, which
many persons looked upon as a long stride in the direction of
the Millennium. If, however, you should desire an opposite
view, you have but to mention the subject to any Mulligansvillain,
any Anacreontic, or any Atauga citizen. The simple
fact is, that the various sewing-circles of Ptolemy—three in
number, and working for very different ends—had agreed to
hold their meetings at the same time and place, and labor in
company. It was a social arrangement which substituted one

large gathering, all the more lively and interesting from its
mixed constitution, in place of three small and somewhat
monotonous circles. The plan was a very sensible one, and it
must be said, to the credit of Ptolemy, that there are very few
communities of equal size in the country where it could have
been carried into effect.

First, the number of members being taken as the test of relative
importance, there was the Ladies' Sewing-Circle, for raising
a fund to assist in supporting a Mission at Jutnapore. It was
drawn mainly from the congregation of the Rev. Lemuel Styles.
Four spinsters connected with this circle had a direct interest
in four children of the converted Telugu parents. There was
a little brown Eliza Clancy, an Ann Parrott, and a Sophia
Stevenson, in that distant Indian sheepfold; while the remaining
spinster, Miss Ruhaney Goodwin, boasted of a (spiritual)
son, to whom she had given the name of her deceased brother,
Elisha. These ladies were pleasantly occupied in making
three mousseline-de-laine frocks, an embroidered jacket, and
four half-dozens of pocket handkerchiefs for their little Telugu
children, and their withered bosoms were penetrated with a
secret thrill of the lost maternal instinct, which they only
dared to indulge in connection with such pious and charitable
labors.

The second Circle was composed of ladies belonging to the
Cimmerian church, who proposed getting up a village fair,
the profits of which should go towards the repair of the Parsonage,
now sadly dilapidated. Mrs. Waldo, the clergyman's
wife, was at the head of this enterprise. Her ambition was
limited to a new roof and some repairs in the plastering, and
there was a good prospect that the Circle would succeed in
raising the necessary sum. This, however, was chiefly owing
to Mrs. Waldo's personal popularity. Ptolemy was too small
a place, and the Cimmerians too insignificant a sect, for the
Church, out of its own resources, to accomplish much for its
shepherd.

Lastly, there was the Sewing-Circle for the Anti-Slavery

Fair, which was limited to five or six families. For the previous
ten years, this little community, strong in the faith, had
prepared and forwarded their annual contribution, not discouraged
by the fact that the circulation of their beloved
special organ did not increase at the Ptolemy Post-Office, nor
that their petitions to Congress were always referred, and
never acted upon. They had outlived the early persecution, and
could no longer consider themselves martyrs. The epithets
“Infidel!” “Fanatic!” and “Amalgamationist!” had been hurled
at them until their enemies had ceased, out of sheer weariness,
and they were a little surprised at finding that their importance
diminished in proportion as their neighbors became
tolerant. The most earnest and enthusiastic of the little band
were Gulielma Thurston, a Quaker widow, and her daughter
Hannah; Mrs. Merryfield, the wife of a neighboring farmer,
and Seth Wattles, a tailor in the village. Notwithstanding
the smallness of this circle, its members, with one exception,
were bright, clear-minded, cheerful women, and as the suspicions
of their infidelity had gradually been allayed (mainly by
their aptness in Biblical quotation), no serious objection was
made to their admittance into the Union.

The proposition to unite the Circles came originally, we
believe, from Mrs. Waldo, whose sectarian bias always gave
way before the social instincts of her nature. The difficulty
of carrying it into execution was much lessened by the fact
that all the families were already acquainted, and that, fortunately,
there was no important enmity existing between any
two of them. Besides, there is a natural instinct in women
which leads them to sew in flocks and enliven their labor by
the discussion of patterns, stuffs, and prices. The Union, with
from twenty-five to forty members in attendance, was found
to be greatly more animated and attractive than either of the
Circles, separately, had been. Whether more work was
accomplished, is a doubtful question; but, if not, it made
little difference in the end. The naked Telugus would not
suffer from a scantier supply of clothing; the Cimmerians

would charge outrageous prices for useless articles, in any
case: nor would The Slavery Annihilator perish for want of
support, if fewer pen-wipers, and book-marks, inscribed with
appropriate texts, came from Ptolemy.

The Sewing-Union was therefore pronounced a great social
success, and found especial favor in the eyes of the gentlemen,
who were allowed to attend “after tea,” with the understanding
that they would contribute something to either of the
three groups, according to their inclinations. Mrs. Waldo, by
general acquiescence, exercised a matronly supervision over
the company, putting down any rising controversy with a
gentle pat of her full, soft hand, and preventing, with cheerful
tyranny, the continual tendency of the gentlemen to interrupt
the work of the unmarried ladies. She was the oleaginous
solvent, in which the hard yelk of the Mission Fund, the vinegar
of the Cimmerians, and the mustard of the Abolitionists
lost their repellant qualities and blended into a smooth social
compound. She had a very sweet, mellow, rounded voice,
and a laugh as comforting to hear as the crackling of a wood-fire
on the open hearth. Her greatest charm, however, was
her complete unconsciousness of her true value. The people
of Ptolemy, equally unconscious of this subduing and harmonizing
quality which she possessed, and seeing their lionesses
and lambs sewing peaceably together, congratulated themselves
on their own millennial promise. Of course everybody
was satisfied—even the clergymen in Mulligansville and
Anacreon, who attacked the Union from their pulpits, secretly
thankful for such a near example of falling from the stiff,
narrow, and carefully-enclosed ways of grace.

It was the third meeting of the Union, and nearly all the
members were present. Their session was held at the house
of Mr. Hamilton Bue, Agent of the “Saratoga Mutual” for
the town of Ptolemy, and one of the Directors of the Bank at
Tiberius, the county-seat. Mrs. Hamilton Bue was interested
in the contribution for the mission at Jutnapore, and the Rev.
Lemuel Styles, pastor of the principal church in the village,

had been specially invited to come “before tea,” for the purpose
of asking a blessing on the bountiful table of the hostess.
The parlor, large as it was (for Ptolemy), had been somewhat
overcrowded during the afternoon; therefore, anticipating a
large arrival of gentlemen in the evening, Mrs. Bue had the
tables transferred from the sitting-room to the kitchen, locked
the hall door, and thus produced a suite of three apartments,
counting the hall itself as one. The guests were admitted at
the side-entrance, commonly used by the family. Two or
three additional lamps had been borrowed, and the general
aspect of things was so bright and cheerful that Mr. Styles
whispered to Mrs. Hamilton Bue: “Really, I am afraid this
looks a little like levity.”

“But it's trying to the eyes to sew with a dim light,” said
she; “and we want to do a good deal for The Fund this evening.”

“Ah! that, indeed!” he ejaculated, smiling blandly as he
contemplated Miss Eliza Clancy and Miss Ann Parrott, who
were comparing the dresses for their little brown namesakes.

“I think it looks better to be gored,” said the former.

“Well—I don't know but what it does, with that figure,”
remarked Miss Parrott, “but my Ann's a slim, growing girl,
and when you've tucks—and I'm making two of 'em—it
seems better to pleat.”

“How will this do, Miss Eliza?” asked Mrs. Waldo, coming
up at the moment with a heavy knitted snood of crimson
wool, which she carefully adjusted over her own abundant
black hair. The effect was good, it cannot be denied. The
contrast of colors was so pleasing that the pattern of the
snood became quite a subordinate affair.

“Upon my word, very pretty!” said the lady appealed to.

“Pity you haven't knit it for yourself, it suits you so well,”
Miss Parrott observed.

“I'd rather take it to stop the leak in my best bed-room,”
Mrs. Waldo gayly rejoined, stealing a furtive glance at her

head in the mirror over the mantel-piece. “Oh, Miss Thurston,
will you let us see your album-cover?”

Hannah Thurston had caught sight of a quiet nook in the
hall, behind the staircase, and was on her way to secure possession
of it. She had found the warmth of the sitting-room
intolerable, and the noise of many tongues began to be distracting
to her sensitive Quaker ear. She paused at once, and
in answer to Mrs. Waldo's request unfolded an oblong piece
of warm brown cloth, upon which a group of fern-leaves,
embroidered with green silk, was growing into shape. The
thready stems and frail, diminishing fronds were worked
with an exquisite truth to nature.

“It is not much more than the outline, as yet,” she remarked,
as she displayed the embroidery before the eager
eyes of Mrs. Waldo and the two spinsters.

The former, who possessed a natural though uncultivated
sense of beauty, was greatly delighted. “Why it's perfectly
lovely!” she exclaimed: “if I was younger, I'd get you to
teach me how you do it. You must be sure and let me see
the book when it's finished.”

“I don't see why my Eliza couldn't make me one of the
flowers around Jutnapore,” said Miss Clancy. “I'll mention
it in my next letter to Miss Boerum—the missionary's wife,
you know. It would be such a nice thing for me to remember
her by.”

Meanwhile the gentlemen began to drop in. Mr. Merryfield
arrived, in company with the Hon. Zeno Harder, member of
the Legislature for Atauga county. Then followed the Rev.
Mr. Waldo, a small, brisk man, with gray eyes, a short nose,
set out from his face at a sharper angle than is usual with
noses, and a mouth in which the Lord had placed a set of
teeth belonging to a man of twice his size—for which reason his
lips could not entirely close over them. His face thus received
an expression of perpetual hunger. The air of isolation, common
to clergymen of those small and insignificant sects which
seem to exist by sheer force of obstinacy, was not very perceptible

in him. It had been neutralized, if not suppressed,
by the force of a strong animal temperament. On that side
of his nature, there was no isolation.

A number of young fellows—bashful hobbledehoys, or
over-assured men of two or three and twenty, with rigorously
fashionable shirt-collars—now made their appearance and
distributed themselves through Mrs. Hamilton Bue's rooms.
In the rising noise of conversation the more timid ventured to
use their tongues, and the company soon became so animated
that all of Mrs. Waldo's authority was necessary, to prevent
the younger ladies from neglecting their tasks. The Cimmerians,
as a point of etiquette, were installed in the parlor,
which also accommodated a number of the workers for the
Mission Fund, the remainder being gathered in the sitting-room,
where Mr. Styles and Mr. Waldo carried on an exceedingly
guarded and decorous conversation. Hannah Thurston
had secured her coveted nook behind the staircase in the
hall, where she was joined by Mrs. Merryfield and Miss Sophia
Stevenson. Mrs. Waldo, also, kept a chair at the same table,
for the purpose of watching the expanding fern-leaves in the
intervals of her commandership. Seth Wattles tilted his chair
in a corner, eager for an opportunity to usurp the conversation.

Seth was an awkward, ungainly person, whose clothes were
a continual satire on his professional skill. The first impression
which the man made, was the want of compact form.
His clay seemed to have been modelled by a bungling apprentice,
and imperfectly baked afterwards. The face was
long and lumpy in outline, without a proper coherence between
the features—the forehead being sloping and contracted
at the temples, the skull running backwards in a high, narrow
ridge. Thick hair, of a faded brown color, parted a little on
one side, was brushed behind his ears, where it hung in stiff
half-curls upon a broad, falling shirt-collar, which revealed his
neck down to the crest of the breast-bone. His eyes were
opaque gray, prominent, and devoid of expression. His nose

was long and coarsely constructed, with blunt end and thick
nostrils, and his lips, though short, of that peculiar, shapeless formation,
which prevents a clear line of division between them.
Heavy, and of a pale purplish-red color, they seemed to run
together at the inner edges. His hands were large and hanging,
and all his joints apparently knobby and loose. His skin
had that appearance of oily clamminess which belongs to such
an organization. Men of this character seem to be made of
sticks and putty. There is no nerve, no elasticity, no keen,
alert, impressible life in any part of their bodies.

Leaving the ladies of the Fund to hear Mrs. Boerum's last
letter describing the condition of her school at Jutnapore, and
the Cimmerians to consult about the arrangements for their
Fair, we will join this group in the hall. Mrs. Waldo had
just taken her seat for the seventh time, saying: “Well, I
never shall get any thing done, at this rate!”—when her attention
was arrested by hearing Hannah Thurston say, in answer
to some remark of Mrs. Merryfield:

“It is too cheerful a place, not to be the home of cheerful
and agreeable people.”

“Oh, you are speaking of Lakeside, are you not?” she
asked.

“Yes, they say it's sold,” said Mrs. Merryfield; “have you
heard of it?”

“I believe Mr. Waldo mentioned it at dinner. It's a Mr.
Woodbury, or some such name. And rich. He was related,
in some way, to the Dennisons. He's expected immediately.
I'm glad of it, for I want to put him under contribution. Oh,
how beautiful! Did you first copy the pattern from the
leaves, Hannah, or do you keep it in your head?”

“Woodbury? Related to the Dennisons?” mused Mrs.
Merryfield. “Bless me! It can't be little Maxwell—Max.
we always called him, that used to be there summers—well,
nigh twenty years ago, at least. But you were not here
then, Mrs. Waldo—nor you, neither, Hannah. I heard afterwards
that he went to Calcutty. I remember him very

well—a smart, curly-headed youngster, but knowed nothing
about farming. Him and my poor Absalom”—here she
smothered a rising sigh—“used to be a good deal with
other.”

An unusual stir in the sitting-room interrupted the conversation.

There were exclamations—noises of moving chairs—indistinct
phrases—and presently the strong voice of the Hon.
Zeno Harder was heard: “Very happy to make your acquaintance,
Sir—very happy!” Mrs. Waldo slipped to the
door and peeped in, telegraphing her observations in whispers
to the little party behind the stairs. “There's Mr.
Hammond—the lawyer, you know, from Tiberius, and another
gentleman—a stranger. Tall and sunburnt, with a moustache
—but I like his looks. Ah!” Here she darted back to her
seat. “Would you believe it?—the very man we were talking
about—Mr. Woodbury!”

In accordance with the usages of Ptolemy society, the new-comers
were taken in charge by the host, and formally introduced
to every person present. In a few minutes the round
of the sitting-room was completed and the party entered the
hall. Miss Thurston, looking up with a natural curiosity, encountered
a pair of earnest brown eyes, which happened, at
the moment, to rest mechanically upon her. Mr. Hamilton
Bue advanced and performed his office. The stranger bowed
with easy self-possession and a genial air, which asserted his
determination to enjoy the society. Mrs. Waldo, who was no
respecter of persons—in fact, she often declared that she
would not be afraid of Daniel Webster—cordially gave him
her hand, exclaiming: “We were this minute talking of you,
Mr. Woodbury! And I wished you were here, that I might
levy a contribution for our Sewing-Circle. But you're going
to be a neighbor, and so I'll ask it in earnest, next
time.”

“Why not now?” said the gentleman, taking out his
purse. “First thoughts are often best, and you know the

proverb about short settlements. Pray accept this, as a token
that you do not consider me a stranger.”

“Oh, thank you!” she cried, as she took the bank-note;
“but” (hesitatingly) “is this a donation to our Society, or
must I divide it with the others?” The peculiar tone in
which the question was put rendered but one answer possible.
No man could have uttered it with such artful emphasis.

The constitution of the Sewing-Union was explained, and
Mr. Woodbury purchased a universal popularity by equal
contributions to the three Circles. Had he been less impulsive—less
kindly inclined to create, at once, a warm atmosphere
around his future home—he would not have given so
much. The consequences of his generosity were not long in
exhibiting themselves. Two days afterwards, the Seventh-Day
Baptists, at Atauga City, waited on him for a subscription
towards the building of their new church; and even the
ladies of Mulligansville so far conquered their antipathy to
the Ptolemy district, as to apply for aid to the Mission at
Pulo-Bizam, in the Ladrone Islands, which was a subject of
their especial care.

The introduction of a new element into a society so purely
local as that of Ptolemy, is generally felt as a constraint.
Where the stranger is a man of evident cultivation, whose superiority,
in various respects, is instinctively felt, but would be
indignantly disclaimed if any one dared to assert it, there is,
especially, a covert fear of his judgment. His eye and ear are
supposed to be intensely alert and critical: conversation becomes
subdued and formal at his approach: the romping youths
and maidens subside into decorous and tedious common-places,
until the first chill of his presence is overcome. Mr. Woodbury
had tact enough to perceive and dissipate this impression.
His habitual manners were slightly touched with reserve, but
no man could unbend more easily and gracefully. To the few
who remembered him as “Little Max.”—among them Mrs.
Merryfield—he manifested the cordial warmth of an old
friend, and laughed with a delight which came from the

heart, at their mention of certain boyish mishaps which marked
his summers at Lakeside. The laborers for the Mission
Fund were rejoiced to learn that, though he had never been at
Jutnapore, yet he had once seen Mr. Boerum, on that gentleman's
arrival at Calcutta. (“What a pity he did'nt go to
Jutnapore! He might have told me about my Eliza,” remarked
Miss Clancy, aside.) In short, the ice between Mr.
Woodbury and the rest of the company was broken so quickly
that even the formation of the first thin crust was scarcely
perceived. His introduction to Ptolemy society was—in the
social technology of Boston—“a success.”

Again the clacking of tongues rose high and shrill, lessening
only for a few minutes after the distribution of wedges of
molasses-cake, offered by Mrs. Hamilton Bue's black-mitted
hands. Mr. Hamilton Bue followed in her wake with a jingling
tray, covered with glasses of lemonade, which the ladies
sipped delicately. The four spinsters, observing that Mrs.
Lemuel Styles drank but the half of her glass, replaced theirs
also half-filled, though it went to their hearts to do so. The
needles now stood at ease, no longer marching, with even
stitch, over their parade-grounds of silk, or cotton, or mousseline-de-laine.
One straggler after another fell out of the
ranks, until it was finally declared that “we have done enough
for this evening.” Then came singing, commencing with
“From Greenland's Icy Mountains,” in which half the company
joined. Miss Sophia Stevenson, who had a good voice,
with—it must be admitted—an occasional tendency to sharps,
led the hymn; but the parts were unequally distributed,
which Mr. Woodbury perceiving, he struck in with a rich
baritone voice. This acquisition was immediately noticed,
and, at the conclusion of the hymn, Mrs. Waldo requested
that he would favor them with a solo.

“I prefer to listen,” he answered. “I know none but the
old, old songs, which you all have heard. But you are welcome
to one of them, if you will first let me hear something
newer and fresher.” Unconsciously, he had hit the custom

of Ptolemy, never to sing until somebody else has first sung,
to encourage you. The difficulty is, to find the encourager.

Mrs. Waldo seized upon Seth Wattles, who, nothing loth,
commenced in a gritty bass voice:

“What in the world is the song about?” whispered Mr.
Woodbury.

“It's the Lament of the Indian Hunter,” said Mrs. Waldo:
“he always sings it. Now comes the chorus: it's queer:
listen!”

Thereupon, from the cavernous throat of the singer, issued
a series of howls in the minor key, something in this wise:

“Yo-ho—yo-ho! Yo-HO-O—yo-HO-ho-ho-ho!”

“After this,” thought Woodbury, “they can bear to hear
an old song, though a thousand times repeated.” And being
again pressed, he gave simply, without any attempt at brilliancy
of execution: “The Harp of Tara.”

There was profound silence, as his voice, strung with true
masculine fibre, rang through the rooms. Generally, the least
intellectual persons sing with the truest and most touching expression,
because voice and intellect are rarely combined: but
Maxwell Woodbury's fine organ had not been given to him at
the expense of his brain. It was a lucky chance of nature. His
hearers did not really know how admirably he interpreted that
sigh of the Irish heart, but they were pleased, and not niggardly
in their expressions of delight.

More songs were called for, and refused. There was the
usual coaxing, and a shocking prevalence of hoarseness, combined
with sudden loss of memory. One young lady commenced
with “Isle” (which she pronounced eye-heel) “of
Beauty,” but broke down at the end of the first verse, and all
the cries of: “Do go on!” “It's so pretty!” could not encourage

her to resume. Finally some one, spying Hannah Thurston,
who had folded up her embroidery and was sitting in a shaded
corner, cried out:

“Oh, Miss Thurston! Give us that song you sang the last
time—that one about the mountains, you know.”

Miss Thurston started, as if aroused out of a profound
revery, while a flitting blush, delicate and transient as the
shadow of a rose tossed upon marble, visited her face. She
had felt and followed, word by word and tone by tone, the
glorious Irish lay. The tragic pathos of the concluding lines—

—thrilled and shook her with its despairing solemnity. What
a depth of betrayed trust, of baffled aspiration, it revealed!
Some dormant sentiment in her own heart leapt up and answered
it, with that quick inner pang, which would be a cry
were it expressed in sound. Yet was the despair which the
melody suggested of a diviner texture than joy. It was that
sadness of the imaginative nature which is half triumph, because
the same illumination which reveals the hopelessness of
its desires reveals also their beauty and their divinity.

The request addressed to her was a shock which recalled
her to herself. It was so warmly seconded that refusal would
have been ungracious, and a true social instinct told her that
her revery, though involuntary, was out of place. She profited
by the little delay which ensued in order to secure silence
—for in our country communities silence always precedes the
song—to recover her full self-possession. There was no tremor
in her voice, which soared, with the words, into a still,
clear ether, in which the pictures of the song stood out
pure, distinct, and sublime. It was one of those lyrics of
Mrs. Hemans, which suggest the trumpet at woman's lips—
shorn of its rough battle-snarl, its fierce notes tenderly muffled,

but a trumpet still. She sang, with the bride of the
Alpine hunter:

It was rather musical declamation, than singing. Her voice,
pure, sweet, and strong, distinctly indicated the melody, instead
of giving it positively, beyond the possibility of a mistaken
semitone. It was a ringing chant of that “upper world”
of the glaciers, where every cry or call is followed by a musical
echo,—where every sound betrays the thin air and the
boundless space. Hannah Thurston sang it with a vision of
Alpine scenery in her brain. She saw, gleaming in the paler
sunshine, beneath the black-blue heaven, the sharp horns of
frosted silver, the hanging ledges of short summer grass, the
tumbled masses of gray rock, and the dust of snow from falling
avalanches. Hence, he who had once seen these things in
their reality, saw them again while listening to her. She knew
not, however, her own dramatic power: it was enough that
she gave pleasure.

Maxwell Woodbury's eyes brightened, as the bleak and
lofty landscapes of the Bernese Oberland rose before him.
Over the dark fir-woods and the blue ice-caverns of the
Rosenlaui glacier, he saw the jagged pyramid of the Wetterhorn,
toppling in the morning sky; and involuntarily asked
himself what was the magic which had started that half-forgotten
picture from the chambers of his memory. How
should this pale, quiet girl who, in a musical sense, was no
singer, and who had assuredly never seen the Alps, have
caught the voice which haunts their desolate glory? But
these were questions which came afterwards. The concluding

verse, expressing only the patience and humility of love in the
valley, blurred the sharp crystal of the first impression and
brought him back to the Sewing-Union without a rude shock
of transition. He cordially thanked the singer—an act rather
unusual in Ptolemy at that time, and hence a grateful surprise
to Hannah Thurston, to whom his words conveyed a more
earnest meaning than was demanded by mere formal courtesy.

By this time the assembled company had become very
genial and unconstrained. The Rev. Lemuel Styles had entirely
forgotten the levity of Mrs. Bue's illumination, and even indulged
in good-humored badinage (of a perfectly mild and
proper character) with Mrs. Waldo. The others were gathered
into little groups, cheerfully chatting—the young gentlemen
and ladies apart from the married people. Scandal was
sugar-coated, in order to hide its true character: love put on
a bitter and prickly outside, to avoid the observation of others:
all the innocent disguises of Society were in as full operation
as in the ripened atmosphere of great cities.

The nearest approach to a discord was in a somewhat heated
discussion on the subject of Slavery, which grew up between
Seth Wattles and the Hon. Zeno Harder. The latter was
vehement in his denunciation of the Abolitionists, to which
the former replied by quoting the Declaration of Independence.
The two voices—either of them alike unpleasant to a
sensitive ear—finally became loud enough to attract the attention
of Mrs. Waldo, who had a keen scent for opportunities
for the exercise of her authority.

“Come, come!” she cried, placing one hand on Seth's shoulder,
while she threatened the Honorable Zeno with the other:
“this is forbidden ground. The Sewing-Union would never
hold together, if we allowed such things. Besides, what's the
use? You two would talk together all night, I'll warrant, and
be no nearer agreeing in the morning.”

“No,” cried Seth, “because your party politicians ignore
the questions of humanity!”

“And your fanatical abstractionists never look at any thing
in a practical way!” rejoined the Honorable Zeno.

“And both are deficient in a sense of propriety—I shall
have to say, if you don't stop,” was Mrs. Waldo's ready comment.

This little episode had attracted a few spectators, who
were so evidently on Mrs. Waldo's side, that “the Judge,”
as the Hon. Zeno was familiarly called, at once saw the politic
course, and rising magnificently, exclaimed: “Although we
don't advocate Women's Rights, we yield to woman's authority.”
Then, bowing with corpulent condescension, he passed
away. Seth Wattles, having no longer an opponent, was condemned
to silence.

In the mean time, it had been whispered among the company
that the next meeting of the Union would be held at the
Merryfield farm-house, a mile and a half from Ptolemy. This
had been arranged by the prominent ladies, after a good deal
of consultation. Mr. Merryfield still belonged to the congregation
of the Rev. Lemuel Styles, although not in very good
repute. His farm-house was large and spacious, and he was
an excellent “provider,” especially for his guests. Moreover,
he was the only one of the small clan of Abolitionists, who
could conveniently entertain the Union,—so that in him were
discharged all the social obligations which the remaining members
could fairly exact. The four spinsters, indeed, had exchanged
patient glances, as much as to say: “This is a cross
which we must needs bear.” Mr. Merryfield, be it known,
had refused to contribute to Foreign Missions, on the ground
that we had already too many black heathen at home. The
younger persons, nevertheless, were very well satisfied, and
thus the millennial advance of Ptolemy was not interrupted.

The more staid guests had now taken leave, and there was
presently a general movement of departure. The ladies put
on their bonnets and shawls in the best bedroom up-stairs, and
the gentlemen picked out their respective hats and coats from
the miscellaneous heap on the kitchen settee. The hall-door

was unlocked to facilitate egress, and lively groups lingered
on the stairs, in the doorway, and on the piazza. The gentlemen
dodged about to secure their coveted privilege of
escort: now and then a happy young pair slipped away in the
belief that they were unnoticed: there were calls of “Do
come and see us, now!”—last eager whispers of gossip, a great
deal of superfluous female kissing, and the final remarks to
Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Bue: “Good-bye! we've had a nice
time!”—as the company filtered away.

When the last guest had disappeared, Mr. Hamilton Bue
carefully closed and locked the doors, and then remarked to
his wife, who was engaged in putting out the extra lamps:
“Well, Martha, I think we've done very well, though I say it
that shouldn't. Mr. Styles liked your tea, and the cake must
have been pretty good, judging from the way they stowed it
out of sight.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Bue; “I was afraid at one time, there
wouldn't be enough to go round. It's well I made up my
mind, at the last minute, to bake five instead of four. Molasses
is so high.”

“Oh, what's the odds of two shillings more or less,” her
husband consolingly remarked, “when you've got to make a
regular spread? Besides, I guess I'll clear expenses, by persuading
Woodbury to insure his house in our concern. Dennisons
always took the Etna.”