It was very odd, how universally popular was Aunt Hepsy. She had any number of places to “take tea,” beside a standing invitation from half-a-dozen families, to Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, and to New-Year’s suppers. She had an eligible seat in church, gratis; an inexhaustible bottle of sherry for her often infirmities; fresh pies on family baking days, newspapers for stormy day reading; tickets to menageries, and invitations to picnics.
She always procured lodgings at a cheaper rate than anybody else; had the pleasantest room in the house at that, the warmest seat at table, the strongest cup of coffee, the brownest slice of toast, the latest arrival of buckwheats, the second joint of the turkey, and the only surviving piece of pie. To be sure, she always praised ugly babies, asked old maids why they would be so cruel as to persist in remaining unmarried, entreated hen-pecked husbands to use their powerful influence over their wives to secure to her their custom; begged the newly fledged clergyman to allow her a private perusal of his last Sunday’s able discourse; complimented ambitious Esaus on the luxuriant growth of their very incipient, and microscopically perceptible whiskers; asked dilapidated, rejected widowers, when they intended taking their choice of a wife out of a bevy of rosy girls, and declared to Editors that she might as well try to get along without her looking glass, as without their interesting newspapers.
One day, the little shop was shut up. Nine o’clock came – eleven o’clock, and the shutters were still closed, and Aunt Hepsy so punctual, too! What could it mean? Old Mrs. Brown was ready to have fits because she couldn’t get another skein of yarn to finish her old man’s stockings. Little Pat Dolan had roared himself black in the face, because he couldn’t spend his cent to buy some maple sugar; and the little match girl stood shivering at the corner for a place to warm her poor benumbed fingers, while the disappointed captains stamped their feet on the snow, stuffed their cheeks with quids, and said it was “deuced funny,” and an old maid, opposite, who had long prayed that Aunt Hepsy’s reign might be shortened, laid her skinny forefinger on her hooked nose, and rolled up the whites of her eyes like a chicken with the pip.
It was no great enigma, (at any rate not after you found it out!) Rich old Mr. Potts ventured into Aunt Hepsy’s shop, one day, to buy a watch-ribbon. He was very deaf; so Aunt Hepsy had to come round the counter to wait upon him, and the upshot of it was, that she and Cupid together, hailed him through an ear-trumpet; and all I know about it is, that they have now a legalized right to a mutual pillow and snuff-box, and that the little shop window still remains unopened, while the old maid hisses between her teeth, as Aunt Hepsy rolls by in her carriage, “How do you suppose she did it?”
THOUGHTS AT CHURCH
I have an old-fashioned way of entering church, before the bells begin to chime. I enjoy the quiet, brooding stillness. I love to think of the many words of holy cheer that have fallen there, from heaven-missioned lips, and folded themselves like snow-white wings over the weary heart of despair. I love to think of the sinless little ones, whose pearly temples have here been laved at the baptismal font. I love to think of the weak, yet strong ones, who have tearfully tasted the consecrated cup, on which is written, “Do this in remembrance of me.” I love to think of those self-forgetting, self-exiled, who, counting all things naught for Gethsemane’s dear sake, are treading foreign shores, to say to the soul-fettered Pagan, “Behold the Lamb of God.” I love to think of the loving hearts that at yonder altar have throbbed, side by side, while the holy man of God pronounced “the twain one.” I love to think of the seraph smile of which death itself was powerless to rob the dead saint, over whose upturned face, to which the sunlight lent such mocking glow, the words, “Dust to dust,” fell upon the pained ear of love. I love, as I sit here, to list through the half open vestry door, to the hymning voices of happy Sabbath scholars, sweet as the timid chirp of morn’s first peeping bird. I love to hear their tiny feet, as they patter down the aisle, and mark the earnest gaze of questioning childhood. I love to see the toil-hardened hand of labor brush off the penitential tear. I love – “our minister.” How very sad he looks to-day. Are his parish unsympathetic? Does the laborer’s “hire” come tardily and grudgingly to the overtasked, faithful servant? Do censorious, dissatisfied spirits watch and wait for his halting?
Now he rises and says, slowly – musically, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Why at such sweet, soul-resting words, do his tears overflow? Why has his voice such a heart quiver? Ah! there is a vacant seat in the pastor’s pew. A little golden head, that last Sabbath gladdened our eyes like a gleam of sunlight, lies dreamlessly pillowed beneath the coffin lid: gleeful eyes have lost their brightness: cherry lips are wan and mute, and beneath her sable vail the lonely mother sobs. And so the father’s lip quivers, and for a moment nature triumphs. Then athwart the gloomy cloud flashes the bow of promise. He wipes away the blinding tears, and with an angel smile, and upward glance, he says, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
THE BROTHERS
Close the door. One would scarcely think, in this luxurious atmosphere, that we had left mid-winter behind us. The warm air is heavy with the odor of blossoming greenhouse plants, over whose fragrant clusters a tiny fountain tosses its sparkling spray: bright-winged, sweet-voiced canaries dart, like flashes of sunlight, through the dark green foliage: beautiful are those sculptured infants, cheek to cheek, over whose dimpled limbs the crimson drapery throws such a rosy glow: beautiful is that shrinking Venus, with her pure, chaste brow, and Eve-like grace: lovely those rare old pictures, to the artistic eye: beautiful that recumbent statuette of the peerless, proud “Pauline.”
Hush! tread softly; on yonder couch a gentleman lies sleeping. His crimson velvet cap has fallen back from his broad white forehead; his long curving lashes droop heavily upon his cheek, and his Grecian profile is as faultless as a sculptor’s dream. Pity, that the stain of sensuality should have left so legible an impress there.
A servant enters, bearing a note upon a silver tray. His master languidly opens a pair of large dark eyes, and beckons him to approach. As he breaks the seal, a contemptuous sneer disfigures his handsome lip, and an angry flush mounts to his brow. Motioning the servant away, he crushes the note between his fingers, muttering, – “No – no – as he has made his bed, so let him lie in it.” Then walking once or twice rapidly across the room, he takes up a small volume, and throws himself again upon the velvet couch. He does not turn the leaves, and if you peep over his shoulder, you will see that the book is upside down. His thoughts are far away. He remembers a bright-eyed, open-browed, guileless-hearted brother, whom early orphanage had thrown upon his fraternal care; whose trusting nature he had perverted; whose listening ear he had poisoned with specious sophistries and worldly maxims; whom he had introduced to the wine party, where female virtue was held in derision, and to the “green room,” where the foreign danseuse understood well how to play her part; whom he had initiated into modern follies and dissipations, and then launched upon the Charybdis of fashionable society, without chart, or rudder, or compass, other than his own headstrong passions and unbridled will.
Soon came a rumor, at first vague and undefined, and then voraciously seized upon and circulated by Paul Pry penny-a-liners, (who recked little, in their avidity for a paragraph, of broken-hearted mothers or despairing gray-haired fathers,) of a true heart that had been betrayed, of a disgraced household, of a fair brow that must henceforth walk the earth shame-branded. Then from his avenging pursuers the rash boy fled for refuge to him who had first turned his youthful footsteps aside from truth and honor. He was repulsed with scorn; not because he had wronged his own soul and hers whose star had forever set in night, but because he had not more skilfully and secretly woven the meshes for his victim.
Across the seas, amid the reckless debauchery of God-forgetting Paris, the miserable boy sought oblivion; welcoming with desperate eagerness the syren Pleasure,