{A treble clef with the key signature of E major, in 3/4 time. “Umgh” is a 16th-note low E in the first measure, and “-umgh” in the second measure is a three-beat E, with a fermata above it.}
“An andantescherzando?” exclaimed my grandfather, on seeing the notation; “how is that?”
“’Tis because mine Uncle Richard hath neglected the study of thorough bass; hence he warbleth his native wood-notes wild,” quoth Charley.
But to return to the scene in the Hall. And I beg that the reader will place himself entirely in my hands, while I endeavor to make him realize every feature of that scene,—for it really occurred just as he will find it recorded.
Figure to yourselves, then, my countless readers and admirers, first the Hall itself, with its lofty ceiling and its spacious, well-waxed floor of heart-pine so nicely joined that it was a sound-board in itself. At one end of the room stood a piano; at the other was a vast open fireplace, in which, supported by tall and glistening andirons, there glowed a noble fire of hickory logs five feet long. The furniture in the room was peculiar, consisting of a square table of exceeding lightness, and chairs that you might toss in the air with your little finger,—all with a view to the least possible weight upon the floor,—though I must say that they were often the means of bringing heavy weights in contact with it. Add to these a lounge of slenderest proportions, upon which my grandfather loved to recline, pipe in mouth, whenever any music was going forward; and you have all the furniture that the room possessed. Of other objects there were absolutely none upon the floor, except four cases containing the instruments needful to a string quartet; and these stood each in its own corner, as though on ill terms. The old gentleman had banished from the Hall even his collection of music, great piles of which were stowed away in the adjoining room; for he insisted that its weight would mar the resonance of the Hall. It remains but to add that upon the walls no painting or engraving was allowed. Their smooth finish showed no crack,—so that the Herr used to say that the hall, if strung, would have been a very goot feedle for Bolyphemoos, or some oder of dem chiant singers to blay on.
So much for the Hall, around which, on the Christmas Eve in question, were grouped nearly all my grandfather’sslaves old enough to be out on so cold a night, reinforced by many of Charley’s.
And I am not so sure that the outsiders were not having a merrier time than the insiders. For every now and then, throughout the evening, my grandfather might have been seen passing glasses of toddy or eggnog to one or another of the favorite old servants, as he observed them in the throng; and Charley and I saw that the rest had no cause to feel slighted. All had their share,—if not of toddy, at least of that without which all toddy is a delusion and a shadow. Then the sound of Jones’s fiddle could not be kept within-doors, and such of them as despaired of forcing their way through the masses around the windows and doors had formed rings, where, by the light of the wintry moon, the champion dancers of the two farms exhibited to admiring throngs what they knew about the double-shuffle and the break-down; and the solid earth resounded beneath the rhythm of their brogans. To me, I remember, they seemed happy, at the time; which goes to show how little I knew about happiness,—and I believe that they too were under the same delusion; but their early educations had been neglected.
Happy or wretched, however, let them form a frame, as it were, for the picture I would conjure up for my reader. The first note drawn forth by the Don had arrested their attention, and there was a rush for every spot from which a view could be had of the performer. See them, therefore, a few of the older ones just inside the door, the less fortunate craning their necks behind, and upon their faces that rapt attention which is an inspiration to an artist. See those others who, huddled upon boxes and barrels piled beneath the windows, are flattening their noses, one might almost say, against the lower panes. At the library door stood one or two tidy house-maids. Uncle Dick, alone, stood near the roaring fire, he assuming that his services were required.
“Hi! what dat?” exclaimed a youngster, when the strange sound first broke upon his ear; for he could not see the Don from where he stood.
“Heish, boy!” broke in a senior, in stern rebuke; “Don’t you see ’tis de new gent’mun a-playin’ on the fiddle?” And silence reigned again,—a silence broken, from time to time, by a low, rippling chuckle of intense delight, and illumined, one might say, by the whites of an hundred pairs of wondering eyes.
And now let us glance at the dozen gentlemen who sat within, beginning with my dear old grandfather.
At the first long-drawn, sonorous note he had sprung to his feet; and there he stood, with both hands raised and extended as though he commanded silence. And his countenance! never had I seen it look so beautiful! A happy smile lit up his noble face, and he seemed to say as he looked from Charley to me, and from me to Charley, “At last!” And Charley stood leaning against a corner of the mantel-piece, with his arms folded, replying to his friend with sympathetic glances. It was plain to see that he was happy in his old friend’s happiness, but there was a droll twinkle in his eyes that even he could not suppress, though he bit his lip. What it meant I could not, of course, divine.
It was a treat to behold the Herr on this occasion. With his forearm resting on the table, his fingers toying with the stem of his goblet, he leaned back in his chair and smiled, through his gold-rimmed spectacles, with a look of profound Germanic content and good nature. Not once did he remove his benignant eyes from the Don, not even when he raised his half-full glass to his lips and drained it to the last drop. Even then he watched, out of the corner of his eye, the fantastic caperings of the bow and the labyrinthine wanderings of the performer’s fingers; and slowly replacing his glass upon the table, stroked his long and straggling beard so softly that he seemed to fear that the sparse hairs would mar the music by their rattling.
One word will suffice for the jolly, fat, middle-aged gentleman. He sat with his mouth wide open, tilting back in one of my grandfather’s skeleton chairs.
Now, that was not safe.
But there is one face that I shall not attempt to describe,—that of young Jones, the University man, uponwhom it flashed, like a revelation, that he had been, without knowing it, fiddling away for hours in the presence of an artist. It naturally occurred to Billy that a huge joke had been perpetrated at his expense; and after the first few notes, he tried to nerve himself to meet the explosion of laughter that he momentarily expected. But his furtive glances from side to side detected no one looking his way,—no symptom of a joke, in fact,—so that the flush of confusion began to recede, supplanted by a glow of enthusiasm. I leave it to the reader, then, to imagine the play of expression on the countenance of this big, manly fellow,—rejoicing in his strength, and brimful of rollicking humor, loving a joke even at his own expense, as he stood there before the Don; at one time carried away by the impetuosity of the performer, at another flushing up to his eyes when he reflected that, if no one else had served him that turn, he, at least, had made a fool of himself.
This is tableau No. 1, but, for clearness’ sake, let me retouch its outlines.
A large room, with a roaring fire at one end, and doors open, Virginia fashion. In the doors and windows a background—or blackground—of colored brethren and sisters, exhibiting a breathless delight, all their teeth, and the largest surface, functionary practicable, of the whites of their eyes. Within, stands my grandfather, on tiptoe, with outstretched arms, which wave gently up and down, as, from time to time, snatches of rhythm drop out of the chaos of chords and runs that are pouring from his Guarnerius. Next the jolly fat middle-aged gentleman, tilting back, open-mouthed, in one of Mr. Whacker’s phantom chairs, and rather near the fire. Then Mr. William Jones himself, who just at this moment has compressed his lips, and resolved that he will smash his fiddle and break his bow just so soon as he reaches No. 28, East Lawn, U. V. Then there is the Herr Waldteufel, smiling through clouded glasses, but not darkly. Then—to omit half a dozen gentlemen—there was the inscrutable Charley, leaning, with a certain subdued twinkle in his eyes, against one end of the mantel-piece, while near the other stood, in respectfulattitude, Uncle Dick, his hands clasped in front of his portly person, his bald head bent low, his left ear towards the music, his eyes fixed askance upon the fire to his right.
Midst this scene of perfect stillness stood the Don,—his body swaying to and fro. The old Guarnerius seemed to be waking from its long slumber, and, as if conscious that once more a master held it, to be warming to its work. The music grew madder. At last there came some fierce chords, then a furious fortissimo chromatic scale of two or three octaves, with a sudden and fantastic finish of fairy-like harmonics,—the snarling of a tiger, one might say, echoed by the slender pipings of a phantom cicada:
{The same clef is shown again.}
It was a match to the mine, that umgh-umgh eulogistic, and the explosion was tremendous; for my grandfather’s toddy-bowl, though wide and deep, was now nearly empty. In an instant every man was on his feet, cheering at the top of his voice. Such hats as were available, seized without regard to ownership, were frantically whirling in the air; tumblers went round in dizzy circles; centrifugal toddy was splashing in every direction; while the rear ranks of the colored cohorts were scrambling over the backs of those in front, to catch a glimpse of the scene. In the midst of it all, the honest Herr was to be seen rushing to and fro, lustily shouting out some proposition as to the health of the stranger. He was brandishing his goblet, which he had managed to fill, notwithstanding the confusion, and offering to chink glasses with any and all comers, when, as ill luck would have it, he ran into oneof the students as enthusiastic as himself, and the twain suddenly found themselves holding in their hands nothing but the stems of their goblets.
“Ah, mein freund,” said he, with a glance at his soaked shirt-front, “vot for a poonch vas dat!”
“Very good, very good!” cried the student, with a rousing slap on his shoulder; for a vague feeling came over the young man that one of the Herr’s puns was lurking somewhere in the mist.
But the most striking figure in tableau No. 2 was that of my grandfather. As soon as Uncle Dick’s applauding grunt had broken the spell that held the company, and while all were cheering lustily, he rushed up to the Don, and placed his hands in an impressive way on his shoulders. The cheering suddenly ceased, and all listened intently save the Herr and his student, who, having found fresh tumblers, were busy scooping up the last of the punch.
“My friend,” said my grandfather, “Charley and I are but two in this big house,”—and there was a simple pathos in his manner and tones.—“Won’t you live with us—for good?”
Tremendous applause greeted this rather thorough-going invitation; and tableau No. 2 dissolved in confusion; in the midst of which stood the Don, bowing and laughing, and wisely holding high above his head the precious violin.
“Ah, dere spoke de Barrone!” quoth the Herr, balancing himself, and clinking half-filled glasses with his student.
“Good for Uncle Tom!” echoed the latter.
“So!” chimed in the Herr, blinking at the ceiling through the bottom of his tumbler.
“I am in downright earnest, I assure you,” urged Mr. Whacker, on remarking the pleased merriment of the Don. “Eh, Charley?”
“So say we all of us!” said Charley, with jovial earnestness, and shaking, with great cordiality, the stranger’s right hand, whence I had removed the bow.
Uncle Dick now came to the fore again. Uncle Richard was a humorist, and, with all the tact of hisrace, knew perfectly well, how, while preserving a severe decorum of form, to make his little hit. So now, turning to Aunt Polly, with a look on his face of childlike simplicity, beneath which lurked a studied unconsciousness, he asked, in the most artless stage-whisper,—
“Polly, whar’s Marse William Jones?” And rising on his toes and letting his under jaw drop, as one will when peering over the heads of a crowd in search of a friend’s face, he ran his eyes, with a kind of unobtrusive curiosity, over group after group, till they met Marse William’s; then instantly dropped them as if he simply desired to be assured that his Marse William was there. ’Twas perfect art, and the effect electric. In an instant all eyes were fixed on Billy. Uproarious laughter burst forth from the company, in the midst of which the students made a rush for the unhappy fiddler. He had hardly one second’s time given him to decide what to do; but before his friends reached him he had bowed himself, and, with one leap, sprung far under the table, where he lay flat upon the floor, with his face buried in his hands, convulsed with almost hysterical laughter.
“Haul him out! haul him out!” rose on all sides, and—
But just here I must permit myself a philosophical reflection, the truth of which will be readily acknowledged by all publicans and sinners, and such other disreputable persons as, in company with those like-minded with themselves, have looked upon the wine when it was red. It is this: That fun is literally intoxicating, At a wine-party of young men, for example, all things will go on smoothly for hours. Conversation is going forward pleasantly, or speeches heard with decorum. A pleasant exhilaration is to be observed, but nothing more. Then there will arise, by chance, some one, who, we will say, shall sing a capital new comic song, calling on the company to join in the chorus. At the close of that song you shall wonder what has happened to everybody. Why does your right-hand neighbor throw his arm across your shoulder and call you old boy? What sudden and inexplicable thirst is this thathas seized upon the man on your left, that he should be calling for champagne so lustily? What is that little fellow, at the other end of the table, doing there, standing up in his chair, and waving his glass? What strange glow is this that has flashed throughyourframe, bearing along with it the conviction that you are all glorious fellows and having a glorious time?
“Haul him out! haul him out!” And instantly the students dived, pell-mell, under the table. It would be simply impossible to describe the scene that followed. Under the table there was an inextricably entangled mass of vigorous young fellows, some on their heads, others on their backs, with their heels in the air, tugging away with might and main at each other’s arms and legs; for safety, as to the Greeks at Salamis, had arisen for Jones from the very numbers of his foes. Meantime the table danced and bumped over the floor, rocking and tossing above this human earthquake; while around it there arose such peals of uproarious laughter as one could not expect to hear twice in a life-time.
“Mein Gott!” gasped the Herr, falling up against the piano, and wiping his streaming eyes, “mein Gott, how many funs!”
But the scene did not last half so long as I have been in painting it. It was the middle-aged fat gentleman that, in the twinkling of an eye, put an end to all this tumultuous laughter, or, at any rate, drew its brunt upon himself.
The M. A. F. G., as above stated, was tilting back in one of my grandfather’s slender chairs, in front of the fire, balancing himself on tiptoe, and rocking to and fro with uncontrollable laughter. In front of him a student was backing out from under the table, all doubled up, his head not yet free from its edge, and tugging away manfully at the leg of a comrade. Suddenly the foot he held resigned its boot to his keeping. The M. A. F. G. could hardly tell, afterwards, what it was that, like a battering-ram of old, smote him at the junction of vest and trousers; but it would seem to have been that student’s head. Up flew his heels,crash went the chair, and, quicker than thought, he was sprawling upon his back in the midst of that roaring hickory fire. A dozen hands seized and dragged him forth. Jones and his fiddle were forgotten; and he and his young friends emerged from under the table to join in the shouts of laughter that greeted the M. A. F. G., as he capered briskly about, brushing the coals and ashes from his broad back, and belabored by his friends, who were assisting him in saving his coat.
“Tausendteufels! vot for a shbree!” And the Herr sank exhausted upon the piano-stool.[1]
[1]It will doubtless surprise the reader to be informed that this whole scene actually occurred, substantially as I have described it,—even the last seemingly extravagant detail having been witnessed, not invented, by the author.
[1]
It will doubtless surprise the reader to be informed that this whole scene actually occurred, substantially as I have described it,—even the last seemingly extravagant detail having been witnessed, not invented, by the author.
“Christmas gift! young ladies, Christmas gift!” chirped Aunt Phœbe, bustling briskly, in her resplendent bandanna, into the room, and courtesying and bowing, and bowing and courtesying in turn, to the two fair heads that lay deep-nestled in their pillows.
“Christmas gift!” modestly echoed the handmaiden Milly, her sable daughter, modestly bringing up the rear and showing all her ivories.
I don’t think the relations between Virginia master and Virginia slave ever appeared in a gentler or more attractive aspect than on Christmas mornings. The way the older and more privileged domestics had of bursting into your room at the most unearthly hour, shouting “Christmas gift! Christmas gift!” beaming with smiles and brimful of good nature, was enough to warm the heart of a Cimon.
“Well, Aunt Phœbe,” said one of the drowsy beauties, “you have caught us.”
“Gracious, is it daybreak yet?” yawned hazel-eyed Alice. “I am s-o-o-o sleepy!” And turning over inbed with a toss, she closed her eyes and pouted as though she had much to endure.
“Daybreak?Daybreak?Why, Lor’, chile, ain’t Polly done put on her bread to bake? Git up, git up, you lazy things! Don’t you know all de beaux is up and dressed, and a-settin’ round, ’most a-dyin’ for to see you?”
“Poor things, are they?” mumbled Alice against her pillow.
“To-be-sho, to-be-sho dey is,” reiterated Aunt Phœbe; though, as a veracious historian, I must let the reader know that it was a pious fraud on the old lady’s part, inspired by solicitude for the reputation of the Elmington breakfast; for not one of the sinners had stirred.
“I believe,” added Aunt Phœbe, observing that Mary’s eyes were open,—“I believe,” said she, going up to Alice and looking down upon her with an admiring smile, “dat dis is de sleepyheadedest one of ’em all.”
Alice gave a little grunt, if the expression be parliamentary.
“Makin’ ’ten’ she ’sleep now,” said Aunt Phœbe, casting knowing nods and winks at Mary.
“When she is awake, Aunt Phœbe, she is wide enough awake for you, isn’t she?”
“Lor’ bless you, honey, I b’lieve you; she cert’n’y do beat all.” And the floor trembled beneath the good old soul’s adipose chuckle. “She is a pretty chile, too, she is mum,” continued the old lady, assuming, with her arms akimbo, a critical attitude. Mary rose on her elbow to observe Alice’s countenance. Her lips began to twitch, slightly, under this double gaze.
“And I ain’t de onliest one as thinks so, neither,” added she, tossing back her head with a look of triumphant sagacity.
“Who is it? who is it?” And Mary rose and sat up in bed.
“Nebber mind, nebber mind!” replied she, with diplomatic reserve. “Nebber mind; Phœbe ain’t been livin’ in this world so long for nothin’. De ole nigger got eyes in her head, and she can see out’n ’em, too; you b’lieve she can, my honeys.”
“Oh, do tell me, that’s a good Aunt Phœbe!”
“Though she ain’t got no specs on her nose.” And the good soul threw herself back and gave vent to a very audible h’yah, h’yah, h’yah.
“Is—it—Uncle—Tom?” droned out Alice, in an almost inarticulate murmur.
“Now jess listen at dat chile! Ole marster! She know better! She know who ’tis I’se ’spressin’ ’bout f’ all she a-layin’ d’yar squinched up in dat bed, making out she ’sleep. D’yar now, what I tell you!” exclaimed she, as Alice sprang suddenly up in bed, her eyes sparkling, her color high, her dishevelled hair in a golden foam about her temples.
“’Sleep, was she! h’yah, h’yah, h’yah! Well, to-be-sho, talk ’bout de young gent’men cert’n’y were de wakinest-up talk for a young lady dat eber dis ole nigger did see. To-be-sho! To-be-sho! Lord a’ mussy!” added she, rocking to and fro and clapping on her knees with both hands, as Alice, with a light bound, sprang into the middle of the floor. “Ef I didn’t fotch her clean out o’ bed!” And the hilarious old domestic wiped the tears from her eyes with a corner of her check apron. “Well, now, and whatisshe up to?” added she, as Alice ran nimbly across the room and opened a closet.
“Aunt Phœbe,” said Alice, advancing with all the solemnity of a presentation orator, “permit me to offer you, as a slight testimonial of my unbounded esteem, this trivial memento. Within this package is a dress, selected especially for you with the greatest care, at the most fashionable store in Richmond. Wear it, and rest assured that the dress will not become you more than you will become the dress.” And after executing, with her tiny little feet, a variety of droll capers, all the while maintaining a look of preternatural solemnity, she placed the package in the arms of the amazed Phœbe, with a tragic extension of her right arm, immediately thereafter dropping one of the most elaborately grotesque courtesies ever seen off the comic stage.
“Lord a’ mussy, what kind o’ funny lingo is—”
Squeak! squeak! Bang! bang! And two girls,but partially dressed, tumbled tumultuously into the room, shrieking and slamming the door after them.
The chemists tell us that if you separate two gases by a membrane, they will insist upon mingling; and, not knowing why this takes place, they have christened the process endosmose and exosmose. Sociology furnishes a noteworthy parallelism in the endosmose and exosmose of girls dressing for breakfast in a country house. You may stow as many as you will into as many rooms as you choose, but every one of them will find her way into every other room before her toilet is complete; and, by the end of a week, the raiment of each will be impartially distributed throughout the several chambers allotted to their sex. Their movements on these occasions are peculiar. “Whereisthat other stocking of mine? Oh, I know!” And she approaches the door of her room, opens it a couple of inches, and warily reconnoitres with eye and ear. Seizing an opportune moment when the coast is clear, she darts like a meteor across the hall, and into a neighboring room—
“I say, girls, have any of you seen a stray stocking?” etc., etc.
And so, upon the present occasion, a pair of beauties unadorned came bounding into the room, breaking in upon Alice’s impromptu tableau. This, however, they had not time to remark; but wheeling round, as soon as they were safe within the door, they opened it an inch or two, stuck their several noses into the opening, and uttered to some person in the hall a few words of saucy triumph. Mr. Whacker had, in fact, stepped into the hall just as they were crossing it; and, seeing them, had given chase. Having made a few mocking faces at the old gentleman, and shut the door with another slam and another pair of pretty shrieks when he made as though he would follow them, they turned to their friends.
“Did you hear it, girls?” began one of the intruders.
“Hear what?”
“The music.”
“The music? What music?”
“What! did you, too, sleep through it all?”
“What! was there a serenade, and you did not wake us? It was really mean of you!”
Ifouchis masculine,really meanis feminine.
“Bless you, we heard never a note of it ourselves!”
“A note of what? Who heard it, and what was there to hear? What enigma is this?”
“Why, hasn’t Aunt Phœbe told you?”
“Told us what? What is there to tell, Aunt Phœbe, and why have you not told us already?”
“Bless your sweet souls un you, I ain’t had time,” said old Phœbe, bowing and courtesying all round; while Milly grinned ungainly in her wake.
“You see, I jess stepped in on dese two young ladies fust, and cotched ’em Christmas gift, and very nice presents they had, all ready and awaitin’ for ole Phœbe,”—and she courtesied to each,—“and for Milly, too, bless their sweet souls un ’em, jess like dey knowed Phœbe was a-comin’ to cotch ’em,—bless de pretty little honeys!—and so says I, says I to myself, says I, I’ll jess step in and catch dese two fust; and so, I creeps up to de door, I did, soft as a cat, I did, and turns de knob, easy-like, and I flings open de door and ‘Christmas gift’ says I, jess so, says I, and dey had de most loveliest presents all wrapped up and a-waiting for Phœbe, jess as I tell you, and for Milly too, and I dunno what Milly gwine do wid all de things she done got, and dey is all nice and one ain’t no prettier dan de others, and Phœbe is uncommon obleeged to one and all,”—and she gave a duck in front of each,—“and Milly too. Gal, what you a-standin’ dere for, wid your fingers in your mouth, like somebody ain’t got no sense? Ain’t you gwine to make no motion? Is dat de way I done fotch you up, and you b’long to de quality, too? Dese young niggers is too much—too much for Phœbe!”
It would be going too far, perhaps, to say that Milly blushed; but she managed to look abashed, and contrived to appease her mother by sundry uncouth wrigglings, meant to express her thanks.
“Howsomedever, as I was sayin’, year in and year out ole marster have had a heap o’ young ladiesa-spendin’ Christmas at Elmin’ton,—fust one Christmas and den another; but ef ever Phœbe saw more lovelier—”
“Oh, Aunt Phœbe!”
“Fo’ de Lord, I hope de crabs may eat me ef tain’t so, jess as I tell you. Why, Lor’ bless my soul, ain’t I hear all the young gent’men say de same?” [general satisfaction.] “On course I has! I wish I may drop dead if I don’t b’lieve ole marster must a’ picked Richmond over pretty close.”
The merriment elicited by this remark gave such pause to the old lady’s eloquence that Alice was enabled to put in a word.
“But, Aunt Phœbe, tell me about the serenade?”
Phœbe looked puzzled.
“Tell us about the gentlemen’s serenade last night?”
“Lor’, chile, ole marster don’t have none o’ dem high-fangled Richmond doin’s ’bout him; thar warn’t nothin’ but apple-toddy and eggnog.”
“But the music, Aunt Phœbe?” persisted Alice, repressing a smile.
“De music!” ejaculated Phœbe; “de music! Didn’t you hear it through de window? You didn’t?” And she clasped her hands, shut her eyes, and began rocking to and fro, her head nodding all the while with certain peculiar little jerks, “Umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!—umgh-umgh!” This inexplicable dumb-show she kept up some time. “Don’t talk, chillun; don’t talk—umgh-umgh!—don’t talk,—I axed Dick dis mornin’, says I, Dick, says I, huckum, you reckon, nobody never told ole marster as how Mr. Smith drawed sich a bow, says I?”
“Mr.Smith!” exclaimed Alice, looking at the two girls with amazement in her wide eyes.
The two girls nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Smith was de very one. Phœbe never did hear de like, never in her born days. Sich a scrapin’ and a scratchin’, and sich a runnin’ up and down a fiddle, Phœbe never did see, though she thought shehadseen fiddlers in her time.”
And she went on and gave such an account of theperformance as you would not find in any musical journal. What did she know, poor soul, about technique, for example,—or breadth of phrasing, for the matter of that?
“Mr. Smith!” reiterated Alice, with stark incredulity.
“Dat was de very one!”
Alice looked from one to another of the girls.
“Did you ever!” looked they in turn.
“I thought I should a’ died a-laughin’ at young Marse Billy Jones. When I seed him and all dem young gent’men a-scufflin’ and a-bumpin’ under dat table, oh, Lord, says I, how long! But when Marse Raleigh, he upsot into de fire, thinks I to myself, my legs surely is gwine for to gin way under me!—but Marse Charley, he cert’n’y do beat all. I reckon all you young mistisses was a-thinkin’ he had done gone and cut he finger when he let de knife fall and went for a rag? I be bound you did; but Lor’ me, nobody don’t never know what Marse Charley is up to. Dey tell me as how he knowed all along ’bout Mr. Smith playin’ on de fiddle; but he never let on even to ole marster; and I heard ’em all a-questionin’ him ’bout it; but Marse Charley, he jess laugh and laugh, sort o’ easy-like, and never tell ’em nothin’.”
“Mr. Frobisher knew what a great musician Mr. Smith was?” asked Alice, her incredulity beginning to give way.
“Jess so, Miss Alice, jess so. Why, Dick says he really do b’lieve into he soul dat Mr. Smith b’longs to a show or somethin’ or other; and what Dick don’t know ’bout dem kind o’ mysteries ain’t worth knowin’. Why, didn’t Dick drive de carriage down to Yorktown when dey give de dinner to Ginrul Laughyet, and hear de brass band play and all? Great musicianer? I b’lieve you! Umgh-umgh! To-be-sho! To-be-sho!”
“Well!” said Alice, dropping down into a chair with a bump. “Well!” repeated she, with emphasis.
“Why, what is the matter?”
“Never mind!” said she, tossing her head as she pulled on a stocking. “I’ll make him pay for it!” sheadded, jerking on the other with a rather superfluous vigor; and then, discontinuing her toilet, she dropped her two hands upon her knees and gazed at vacancy for a moment.
“What is it? What is it?” cried the girls, as they saw, gradually diffusing itself over her flushed countenance, an intensely quizzical smile. For her only answer Alice threw herself into an exceedingly comic attitude of exaggerated stiffness, and began playing upon an imaginary piano, tum-tumming, in the most ludicrous way, a commonplace air much in vogue at the time.
“Oh, what geese we have made of ourselves!” cried the girls.
“Yes,” continued Alice, “here have we, all this time, been playing our little jiggetty-jigs before him, and he affecting not to know Yankee Doodle from Hail Columbia!” And she tossed off a few more bars with inimitable drollery. “Oh, it is too funny!” cried she, springing up, her sense of humor overriding her sense of chagrin; and from that time till the party were ready to descend to the breakfast-room, she was in one of her regular gales, causing the upper regions of the house to resound with incessant peals of laughter.
“Why, you dear, crazy little goose,” said one of the girls at last, “the breakfast-bell rang fifteen minutes ago, and all the rest of us are dressed, and there you are still in a most unpresentable costume.”
“There, then, I’ll be good,” said Alice, cutting short some caper; and instantly assuming the busiest air, she trotted briskly about the room, laying hands first on one article of dress and then on another, contriving, somehow, to combine with a maximum of ostentatious activity a minimum of actual progress in her toilet.
“Here, girls,” said Mary, “I’ll hold her while the rest of you dress her.”
So saying, she seized her, and in a moment the submissive victim was surrounded by as lovely a band of lady’s maids as one could wish to see. First one brought her—but, somehow, there seems to arise likean exhalation, just here, a mysterious haze, impenetrable to my bachelor eyes.
“There now, girls, you need not wait for me. I shall be down in a moment. Go down. No, I won’t have you wait for me! Aunt Phœbe will never forgive you if you let the muffins get cold. Moreover, I wish to add to my toilet, in private, a few killing touches, of which I alone possess the secret. Maidens, retire!” And with outstretched, dimpled arm, she pointed to the door. Thus dismissed, they soon found their way to the breakfast-table; and, as was to be expected, there immediately arose a very animated talk upon the events of the preceding evening.
A Virginia breakfast, in those days, was not wont to be a lugubrious affair; but I think that this was, perhaps, the brightest that I remember. The events of the previous evening were told and retold for the benefit of the ladies. Young Jones was invited to describe the emotions which caused him to dive under the table, the middle-aged fat gentleman got what sympathy was his due, when, just as each girl had, for the twentieth time, exclaimed that it was “really mean,” Alice stood upon the threshold.
No one had heard her approaching footsteps. The charming little actress stood there, her arms akimbo, her head tossed back, her eyes fixed upon the Don with the blackest look she could command. To the salutations of the company, to my grandfather’s request that she be seated, she deigned no reply; and suddenly whisking herself to the side of the table, she poured in upon the Don a still more deadly fusillade of fierce glances at short range; then, as the only unoccupied seat was next his, she advanced to take it, but in the twinkling of an eye her whole manner had changed, thoughwhyit changed I cannot explain, nor she anymore than I, doubtless. I record facts, merely. As she went mincing around the table to reach her seat, she suddenly became converted into a prim and absurdly affected old maid. Her manner of shaking out her napkin would have been alone sufficient to convulse the company. In fact, for a time, all breakfasting, considered as a practical business, came to an end. The very streams of hot muffins, waffles, and buckwheat cakes stood still, in presence of this joyous spirit, as of old the river forgot to flow when Orpheus touched his lyre. I can see her now, it seems to me, nibbling at the merest crumb upon a prong of her fork, sipping her coffee with dainty affectation, ogling the gentlemen with inimitable drollery.
“Ah, Mr. Smith,” said she, suddenly turning to the Don and dropping the rôle she had assumed for one of the most artless simplicity,—“I amsodelighted to hear that you are a musician. Do you know, I had an idea that you knew little of music, and cared less; so that—do you know?—we girls actually feared that our playing bored you? Indeed we did!” she added, with emphasis, and looking up into his face with an ingenuous smile. “Didn’t we, girls? But it is such a nice surprise to find you were only pretending to be an ignoramus. Why, it was only yesterday morning that I was explaining to you the difference between the major and the minor keys!—and you knew all the time!” And she gave a delicious, childish little laugh. “It is such a comfort to know that you have been appreciating our music all this time. Oh, Mr. Smith!” exclaimed she, infantile glee dancing in her hazel eyes, “I have one piece that I have never played for you. I’ll play it immediately after breakfast. It is called—let me see—” And with eyes upturned and fingers wandering up and down the table, she seemed to search for the title of the composition. “Oh!” cried she, gushingly, and throwing herself forward in front of the Don, and turning her head so as to pour her joyous smile straight into his eyes,—“oh, it is called the Jenny Lind Polka;” and she beamed upon our artist as though awaiting an answering thrill. “What!You neverheard it?No?” (strumming on the table.) “Tump-ee! Jenny tump-ee! Lind polka? Tump-ee, tump-ee, tump-ee, teedle-ee—possible?” (with a look of intense surprise). “Tump-ee, teedle-ee, tump-ee, teedle-ee—No? W-h-y, g-i-r-l-s! Second part: Teedum, teedle-um, tee-dum, teedle-um—you don’t—teedum teedle-um—recognize it? Tee-dum, teedle-um tum, tum, tum—You are quite sure? Tump-ee, tump-ee—Quite? You shall have it immediately after breakfast—tump-ee, tump-ee.” And apparently unable to restrain her impatience, she recommenced the strain, and rattled it off with an ever-increasing brio, till, at last, as though transported with enthusiasm, she pushed back her chair and launched forth into apas seul, tripping round the table, her dress spread out with thumb and forefinger of either hand, the graceful swaying of her lithe figure contrasting comically with the tin-pan tone she contrived to give her voice, and the ludicrous precision of her steps; but, changeful as the surface of a summer lake, she had hardly made the circuit of the table once, when she laid her dimpled cheek upon her rosy fingers, her rosy fingers interlaced upon the shoulder of an imaginary partner, and stilling her own voice, and as though drunk with the music of a mighty orchestra, she floated about the room, with closed eyes, in a kind of swoon.
Just at this juncture, there chanced to be standing near the outer dining-room door our friend Zip. Zip—but, as these were Christmas times, let us call him Moses—stood there, with hanging jaw, and rolling his rather popped eyes, first towards his chief, and then in the direction of the table, in manifest perplexity as to the disposition to be made of a plate of waffles he had just brought from the kitchen. Confused by the merriment, he failed to observe the fair Alice bearing down upon him. Away went the waffles over the floor. “That’s the way it goes!” said Alice to the Don, without even a glance at the waffles; “and you have never heard it before?” asked she, resuming her seat by his side. In fact, the most amusing feature of her entire performance was how utterly unconscious she seemedthat any one heard or saw her save the new-found artist. Every word, every look, every gesture seemed designed solely for his edification. I shall not permit myself to describe the deportment of the company while Alice was on her high horse; for Lord Chesterfield has pronounced laughter, save in children, vulgar. And so, I shall declare breakfast over, and allow our merry friends to betake themselves whither fancy impels.
“What kind of a day is it?” inquires one; and the whole party soon find themselves scattered in groups on the southern veranda.
It was one of those enchantingly beautiful winter mornings, never witnessed, perhaps, out of America. The ground was frozen hard; while every tuft of dry grass, every twig in view, bedecked with hoar-frost, danced and flashed and sparkled beneath the dazzling yet hazy sunlight, with the mingled glow of opals and of diamonds. And what an atmosphere! Still, but not stagnant; for behold the dreamy undulations of that slender column of smoke, so peacefully rocking above yonder whitewashed cabin! Cold, not chill; descending into the lungs as a stimulating and refreshing bath; clear, but not colorless; tinted, rather,—nay, transfigured, with the translucent exhalations of nameless gems,—such was the air that floated over lawn and river on that bright Christmas morning.
It was a day too fine to be lost; and a vote being taken, it was decided that a walk should come first. And forth the joyous procession sallied, Alice and young Jones—kindred spirits—taking the lead. Let them go their way, rejoicing in their youth; and, while awaiting their return, I shall, with the consent of the contemporaneous reader, say a word or two about Virginia society, as it was, to that reader of the future for whose edification these slight sketches are drawn; to wit, my great-great-great-etc. grandson.
In my Alice, then, I have endeavored to place before you and future generations a type taken bodily from the joyous, careless life of ante-bellum days. Many of my contemporaries will recognize her and her merry-glancinghazel eyes. My friends—all Richmond, all Virginia, in fact—will know the original of the picture,—each one his own original. But the truth is, in painting the portrait of our jolly little Alice I have aimed at more than representing the features of a charming girl. I have striven to place before you a marked phase of Virginia society,—its freedom. It was this which gave it a charm all its own, and it would be interesting, did it not lead me too far from the path of my narrative, to point out the contrasts it affords to English society. Both eminently aristocratic, it is singular that the former should have been so unshackled, so unconventional, so free, while its prototype is, without doubt, the most uncomfortable, the most stifling tyranny that men and women—and men and women, too, of one of the grandest races of all time—ever voluntarily submitted to. And, strangely enough, Virginia is almost the only one of the United States where anything like a fair type of the mother society has survived. The English gentleman, like the Virginian, has his home in the country; but this is true, in this country it may almost be said, of Virginia gentlemen alone; if, at least, the terms be not understood in a sense too literally geographical. The Southern planter was wont to betake himself to New Orleans in winter, with half his cotton crop in his pocket, reserving the other half for Saratoga and the North when summer came. Charleston was the Mecca of the South Carolinian; while the wealthy citizen of New York, if he had his villa on the Hudson, retired to it rather to avoid than to seek society, or else, still unsated with the joys of city life (the detestation of your true John Bull), even when driven out of town by the dust of summer and the glare of wall and of pavement, he hastens to Newport, there to swelter through the dog-days in all the pomp of full dress and fashionable fooleries. Some stray lord has mentioned in his hearing—or some one who has seen a stray lord—that summer is the London season (none other being possible in that climate), and straight-way he trims his whiskersà lamutton-chop and buys a book of the peerage; nor suspects that the moreclosely you imitate an Englishman the less you resemble him,—one of the strongest characteristics of that great race being their disdainful refusal to imitate any other.
Three o’clock was, in those days, the dinner-hour of the Virginia gentry; but my grandfather and Charley, being but two in family, and not caring to be bothered with three meals a day, had gotten into the habit of dining at five; and so, shortly before that hour, on this Christmas day, all the company, having made their toilets, had assembled in the drawing-room. But, as far back as I can remember, I don’t think that Aunt Polly had ever let us have our Christmas dinner before six. Aunt Polly could never explain this fact to our satisfaction. “Ready,” she once made reply to my boyish impatience, “no, dat tain’t, How you gwine ’spect de fire to cook all dese things quick like a few things? Jess look at dat pot! I set it d’yar to bile and d’yar it sets a-simperin’ and a-simperin’ like people never did want to eat nothin’.”
“In course,” broke in old Dick, with stately profundity, “a rolling stone never gathers no moss.”
“Git out o’ my way, Dick, and lemme lift de led off dat d’yar skillet. Moss! Moss! Who talkin’ ’bout moss, I’d like to know? And all de white folks a-waitin’ for dinner!” And she mopped her face with her sleeve.
“I meant to rubserve,” rejoined Dick, with offended dignity, “dat a watched pot never biles.”
On the present occasion Mrs. Carter gave the company an intimation that they had an hour on their hands.
“Why not adjourn to the hall,” suggested Mr. Whacker, “and while away the time with some music?”
The company rose with enthusiasm. “Oh, how nice!” And all the girls clapped their hands.
“Mr. Frobisher,” said Jones, dryly, “if your finger be sufficiently healed, suppose you lead off. As for me—I—have a sore throat.”
“Ah, that poor finger!” cried Alice, “how remiss in us girls not to have inquired after its health! How is the dear little thing?”
“I beg your pardon?” inquired Charley, with an innocent look; but his hands had somehow found their way behind his back.
“How is your cut finger?”
“My cut finger?”
“Yes, y-o-u-r c-u-t f-i-n-g-e-r!”
“M-y c-u-t f-i-n-g-e-r?” And he mimicked her imperious little gestures; at the same time looking from face to face with a sort of dazed air.
“Isn’t this a sort of conundrum?”
“No; show me your hand.”
“There,” said he, holding out his right hand,—“there is my hand,—you may h-h-h-h-ave it if you want it.” And immediately, as though he had said more than he had intended, blushed to the roots of his hair.
“Nonsense!” said she, coloring slightly. “Why do you tantalize people so? The other!”
“The other? There they are, both of them.”
“But which is the finger that you cut?”
“Who said I c-c-c-ut my finger?”
“Do you mean to say—” began Jones; but shouts of laughter interrupted his question, and, turning to a group of students, he pursed up his mouth and emitted a long but inaudible whistle. Charley, meanwhile, was assailed with questions by the girls as to what made him suspect that the Don was a musician; but he passed, smiling and silent, towards the western door, and he stood there bowing the ladies out on their way to the Hall.
“Fiend in human shape!” breathed Alice, as she passed out, threatening him with upraised forefinger.
“Do you really think so?” asked he, in a hurried, half-choking whisper,—the idiot!
The enchantress stopped, and slowly turning her head, as she stood with one foot upon the pavement and the other on the step above, turning her head, all gilded and glorious with the mellow rays of the setting sun, gave him one Parthian glance, half saucy, half serious, and bounded forward to overtake her companions. Charley, with his eyes riveted upon her retiring figure, stood motionless till she had disappeared within the Hall. Did he hope—the simpleton—for another look?
The Don and I were lingering on the Hall steps when Charley came up.
“By the way, how on earth did you divine that I played on the violin? You have no objection to telling me?”
“None in the world. There was no divination about the matter. When you were knocked senseless by the runaway horses, I helped to undress you. On removing your coat a paper fell out of the breast-pocket, and I remarked, on picking it up, that it was a sheet of manuscript music.”
“Oh yes, I remember,—a little waltz that I had composed that day.”
“I didn’t know who had compo-po-po-sed it,” replied Charley, dryly, “but I have m-m-m-ade it a rule all m-m-my life never to play before people who went about the country, getting run over, with m-m-m-anu-script m-m-m-u-sic in their pockets.”
“And you would seem,” added the Don, smiling, “never to have mentioned your suspicions?”
“Not to me, certainly,” said I.
“Not to you, nor to Uncle Tom; not even to Jones.”
“Not even to Jones!” repeated the Don, laughing heartily. “Thanks,” added he, suddenly seizing Charley’s hand,—“thanks.” And he sprang lightly into the room.
“Charley, you are a rare one. The idea of your not letting the old man or myself into the secret.”
“W-e-l-l, y-e-s,” said he, abstractedly. He seemed in no hurry to enter the room, holding me back by a firm though unconscious grasp upon my arm. “I say, Jack,” said he, in a confidential tone. And he stopped.
“Well?”
“Isn’t she a stunner?” And he nodded towards a group of girls who stood about the piano.
“Which one?”
He dug me in the ribs and passed into the Hall.
With the assembling of our friends in the Hall on that Christmas afternoon our story enters upon a new phase,—one, too, in which Mary Rolfe will figure more prominently than she has hitherto done. Of her friend Alice—Alice with the merry-glancing hazel eyes—the reader has, I trust, a tolerably clear conception. The picture we have of her is a pleasant one, I think,—a picture drawn not by me, but by herself. But from Mary—shy, reserved, and shrinking as she is—we can expect no such boon. Her portrait must be my work.
And first, I must repeat that she was Alice’s closest friend. When their acquaintance began, it would be hard to say. Their mothers before them were warm friends, and had been so fortunate as to have their homes, after marriage, separated only by one of Richmond’s peaceful streets; so that, even in long clothes, Alice and Mary, introduced by their respective nurses, had contracted such intimacy as might be gained by a reciprocal fumbling of each other’s noses and the poking of pink fingers into blinking eyes. Across this street, a few years later, these little crafts had made voyages innumerable; beneath its branching trees trundled their unsteady hoops, and along its not very crowded sidewalk had swung proudly, hand in hand, one bright October day, going to their first school. And ever since that day they have been going, so to speak, hand in hand. One circumstance, no doubt, that contributed much to binding their hearts together, was the fact that they were only daughters; so that each was, as it were the adopted sister of the other. But what,above all things, as I have suggested elsewhere, rendered a warm friendship between them both possible and lasting, was the singularly sharp contrasts presented by their characters. Two girls more radically unlike in disposition it would be hardly possible to find.
Now, among other traits of Mary’s character, totally lacking in Alice, was one of importance for my purposes, in that it was destined to make her play a considerable rôle amid the scenes to be pictured in the ensuing pages. It was a trait that goes by different names. According to some of her acquaintance,—kindred spirits they were,—Mary was full of enthusiasms, while to others of the hard-headed, practical type, she seemed sentimental. I, as umpire, must compromise by admitting that she was certainly what is called romantic. And I was about to bring in a little cheap philosophy to explain that this was due to the vast amount of novels and poetry with which she had stuffed her head, when I recalled the fact that some of the most clear-headed, energetic, and every way admirable women that I have known devoured every novel that they could lay their hands on. I, therefore, abandon the reflection, uncopyrighted, to such moralizers and others as have leisure to explain things of which they know nothing. But the fact was as I have stated it; Mary was a thoroughly romantic, or, if you will, sentimental young person, though I regret to have to say so. For it will lower her in your estimation, I fear, when I make known to you, by a few illustrations, what I mean by saying she was romantic.
It is more necessary for me to do this than would appear to the average contemporary reader. For it is more than likely that the expression, a romantic young female, will be totally unintelligible in your day, or, rather, that it will have an entirely different meaning from that which those words convey to us. You, too, of course, will not be without your romantic virgins,—that is to say, maidens of tender years, who, standing upon the hither brink of that dark and troublous sea called life, and watching the pitching and tossing of the numberless barks that have gone before,—who, seeingsome struggling amid the breakers, others going to pieces on the reefs, still others drifting, dismantled and shattered, upon a shore already thick-strewn with wrecks,—yet love to dream of smooth and sunny paths across that pitiless waste of waters,—if—if only the Ideal Pilot may be found.
Yes, your girls will have their ideals,—but what ideals?
I cannot tell; but very different, doubtless, from ours. We have but to glance at here a page and there a page of the past records of the race, to feel quite sure that woman’s ideal man has varied much in the tide of time. Passing by prehistoric man, lest I wound the susceptibilities of such as claim that he never existed, and coming forward to the days of Homer, we must suppose that the sentimental daughters of the literary gentlemen of that day—the chiefs, to wit, who patronized the blind bard—for rhapsody divine bartering the prosaic but sustaining bacon—we must reckon it as probable that these young women yearned—if yearning were in vogue at that early period—yearned to be led from the parental roof by some Achilles of a youth, tall, broad-chested, agile as a panther, strong as a lion, with thews of steel, soul of adamant, eye of consuming fire. Juvenal, again, if we may pluck a leaf at random, tells us that, in his day, a sentimental married woman who would shriek at a mouse, let us say, was capable of braving the sea in a leaky old hulk, eloping with all that was left of a gladiator after twenty years’ hacking in the arena. And now, making a spring forward into the last quarter of the nineteenth century, we find the ideal of the upper ten dozen of New York society, for example, to be a nice young man who parts his hair and his name in the middle, leads in the “german”[1]and gets all his “things”[2]in London. [And this sufficed till but recently. Of late, however, as I read in the papers, the best society of New York has grown more exacting, and no one need now aspire to be looked upon as a lion—a knight without fear and without reproach—unless,after devoting for some years half his time and all his mind, as it were, to the art, he can “handle the reins” well enough to pass for a real stage-driver. The ’bus-drivers themselves, however, whimsically enough, are not held in half the estimation of their imitators and rivals (just as mock-turtle soup is deemed by many superior to the genuine decoction). They may actually be hired at two dollars a day, more or less, and seem positively glad to get that, being to all outward seeming entirely unconscious of the glamour attaching to their ennobling art.][3]
But to judge by the books they devoured with such eagerness, and the heroes they thought so captivating, the ideals, thirty years ago, of the Virginia young women—I may not speak for others—were very different from any of those above depicted. At that period the influence of Byron’s powerful genius was still plainly discernible in many works of fiction, especially those by female authors. Now, just ascertain cordials lose all their piquancy by being diluted, so the morbid creations of Byron’s unhealthy muse emerged, after passing through the alembic of female fancy, very pale heroes indeed; pale, in truth, in a double sense. For, at one time, I remember, a bloodless countenance was about all that was required to constitute a hero over whom all our girls went mad. The fellow was invariably dismally cold and impassive “in outward seeming;” but the authoress would contrive to suggest to the reader, by a hint here and there, that this coldness was in outward seeming only,—that this stern, haughty possessor of the broad, pallid brow (against which he ever and anon pressed his hand as though in pain) was the clandestine owner of feelings fit to be compared only to a stream of lava,—a cold crust above, concealing a fiery flood beneath; an iceberg, in a word, with a volcano in its bosom. There are no such icebergs, I believe, and it is equally certain that there are no such men; and I used to think, in those days, that if there weresuch, and one of this type were found hanging around a girl, the circumstance would afford her big brother’s boot legitimate occasion for an honorable activity. And I still think that this heroic treatment, as the faculty would term it, would find its justification, at least from a sanitary point of view. For it is to be remarked that in romances infested with this form of hero, there was, among the heroines, a veritable epidemic of brain-fever; whatever that may be. But the young ladies of my acquaintance, assigning jealousy as the source of these ferocious sentiments, could not be brought to my way of thinking; and of all of a certain bevy of girls with whom I associated, I believe that Mary Rolfe was furthest gone in her adoration of these august animals that dwelt apart.
Now, although a romantic temperament has its compensations,—compensations so varied and so valuable that, on the whole, it must be regarded as a blessing,—yet its dangers are as obvious. For of what avail is an Ideal without its Counterpart? Now, it is in searching for and finding this Counterpart that lies the danger to a girl of imaginative turn,—the danger, in plain English, of falling in love without a just and reasonable regard for the loaves and fishes of this prosaic world.
Now, even from the preliminary and partial sketch of the Don already made, you will see (though less clearly than when the drawings shall have been completed and the colors rubbed in) that he was a man likely to make a vivid impression on the imagination of a girl like Mary. I should be sorry, indeed, to have you suppose that such likelihood arose from any resemblance on his part to the type of novel-hero so fascinating to her imagination. And yet he appealed to that imagination most strongly. Of course the mystery surrounding him had much to do with this. Of late she had found herself continually asking herself who he could be. Was he a Virginian? Hardly, else some one would know him. Then, why had he come to Virginia? Was he an English nobleman, travelling incognito? Perhaps! But no! from several observations that he had let drop, he could scarcely be that. He was a gentleman,certainly; but then, what need has a gentleman of mystery? Had he committed any—? Impossible! And so,da capo,—who can he be? More than once she had caught herself stamping her little foot and muttering impatiently, “What is he to me?” But his image kept returning to her mind. The truth is, she was getting what the girls used to call, in those days, “interested,”—a word which means far more with women than with us men. “In love” is what we should call it; but that is an expression which women are chary of using, unless of men. According to their philosophy, it is tacitly assumed that, as it is not the proper thing for a woman to fall in love until she has been asked to, she never does; and I believe this to be true, as a rule. In fact, it seems to me that falling in love, as it is called, is, with women, a purely voluntary act. When entreated to lose their hearts they lose them, should it seem judicious, all things considered, so to do; if not, not. But as in Latin grammar, so in life: there are exceptions to all rules; and while, in nine cases out of ten, women are guided by judgment and reason, men impelled by passion and instinct, in their matrimonial ventures, yet there is, after all, a tenth case (all my readers are tenth cases if they will) where a woman, deluded by her imagination, wrecks her life on breakers that seemed, to others at least, too apparent to need a beacon. Nor are the weaker sisters most liable to blunders of this kind; for it seems to me that I have remarked that gifted women are most apt to throw themselves away on men entirely unworthy of them; led captive by the ideals their own hearts have fashioned; making gods of stocks and stones.