Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio, series two (Auburn & Buffalo: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1854)

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SUNSHINE AND YOUNG MOTHERS.

FOLLY. For girls to expect to be happy without marriage. Every woman was made for a mother, consequently, babies are as necessary to their "peace of mind," as health. If you wish to look at melancholy and indigestion, look at an old maid. If you would take a peep at sunshine, look in the face of a young mother.

"Young mothers and sunshine"! They are worn to fiddle strings before they are twenty-five! When an old lover turns up, he thinks he sees his grandmother, instead of the dear little Mary who used to make him feel as if he should crawl out of the toes of his boots! Yes! my mind is quite made up about matrimony; it's a one-sided partnership.

"Husband" gets up in the morning, and pays his devoirs to the looking-glass; curls his find head of hair; puts on an immaculate shirt bosom; ties and excruciating cravat; sprinkles his handkerchief with cologne; stows away a French roll, an egg, and a cup of coffee; gets into the omnibus, looks at the pretty girls, and makes love between the pauses of business during the forenoon generally. Wife must "hermetically seal" the windows and exclude all the fresh air, (because the baby had "the snuffles" in the night;) and sits gasping down to the table more dead than alive, to finish her breakfast. Tommy turns a cup of hot coffee down his bosom; Juliana has torn off the strings of her school bonnet; James "wants his geography covered;" Eliza can't find her satchel; the butcher wants to

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know if she'd like a joint of mutton; the milkman would like his money; the iceman wants to speak to her "just a minute;" the baby swallows a bean; husband sends the boy home from the store to say his partner will dine with him; the cook leaves "all flying," to go to her "sister's dead baby's wake," and husband's thin coat must be ironed before noon.

"Sunshine and young mothers!" Where's my smelling bottle?

UNCLE BEN'S ATTACK OF SPRING FEVER, AND HOW HE GOT CURED.

"It is not possible that you have been insane enough to go to housekeeping in the country, for the summer? Oh, you ought to hear my experience," and Uncle Ben wiped the perspiration from his forehead, at the very thought.

Yes, I tried it once, with city habits and a city wife: got rabid with the dog days, and nothing could cure me but a nibble of green grass. There was Susan, you know, who never was off a brick pavement in her life, and did n't know the difference between a cheese and a grindstone.

Well, we ripped up our carpets, and tore down our curtains, and packed up our crockery, and nailed down our pictures, and eat dust for a week, and then we emigrated to Daisy Ville.

Could I throw up a window or fasten back a blind in that house, without sacrificing my suspenders and waistband button? No, sir! Were not the walls full of Red Rovers? Did n't the door fly open at every wind gust? Did n't the roof leak like the mischief? Was not the chimney leased to a pack of swallows? Was not the well a half a mile from the house?

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Oh, you need n't laugh. Instead of the comfortable naps to which I had been accustomed, I had to sleep with one eye open all night, lest I should n't get into the city in time. I had to be all night, lest I should n't get into the city in time. I had to be shaving in the morning before a rooster in the barn-yard had stirred a feather; swallowed my coffee and toast by steam, and then, still masticating, made for the front door. There stood Peter with my horse and gig,--for I detest your cars and omnibuses. On the floor of the chaise was a huge basket in which to bring home material for the next day's dinner; on the seat was a dress of my wife's to be left "without fail" at Miss Sewing Silk's, to have the forty-seventh hook moved one-sixth of a degree higher up on the back. Then there was a package of shawls from Tom Fools & Co., to be returned, and a pair of shoes to carry to Lapstone, who was to select another pair for me to bring out at night; and a demijohn to be filled with Sherry. Well, I whipped up Bucephalus, left my sleeping wife and babies, and started for town; cogitating over an intricate business snarl, which bade defiance to any straightening process. I had n't gone half a mile before an old maid (I hate old maids) stopped me to know if I was going into town, and if I was, if I would n't take her in, as the omnibusses made her sick. She said she was niece to Squire Dandelion, and "had a few chores to do a shopping." So I took her in, or rather, she took me in, (but she did n't do it but once--for I bought a sulkey next day!) Well, it came night, and I was hungry as a Hottentot, for I never could dine, as your married widowers pro tem do, at eating-houses, where one gravy answers for flesh, fish and fowl, and the pudding-sauce is as black as the

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cook's complexion. So I went round on an empty stomach, hunting up my expressman parcels, and wending my way to the stable with arms and pockets running over. When I got home, found my wife in despair, no tacks in the house to nail down carpets, and not one to be had at the store in the village; the cook had deserted because she could n't do without "her city privileges," (meaning Jonathan Jones, the "dry dirt" man); and the chambermaid, a buxom country girl with fire red hair, was spinning round the crockery (a la Blitz) because she "could n't eat with the family."

Then Charley was taken with the croup in the night, and in my fright I put my feet into my coat sleeves, and my arms into my pants, and put on one of my wife's ruffles instead of a dicky, and rode three miles in a pelting rain, for some "goose grease" for his throat.

Then we never found out till cherries, and strawberries, and peaches were ripe, how many friends (?) we had. There was a horse hitched at every rail in the fence, so long as there was anything left to eat on a tree in the farm; but if my wife went in town shopping, and called on any of them, they were "out, or engaged;"--or if at home, had "just done dinner, and were going to ride."

Then there was no school in the neighborhood for the children, and they were out in the barn-yard feeding the pigs with lump sugar, and chasing the hens off the nest to see what was the prospect for eggs, and making little boats of their shoes, and sailing them in the pond, and milking the cow in the middle of the day, &c.

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Then if I dressed in the morning in linen coat, thin pants, and straw hat, I'd be sure to find the wind "dead east" when I got into the city; or if I put on broadcloth and fixins to match, it would be hotter than Shadrach's furnace, all day--while the dense morning fog would extract the starch from my dicky and shirt-bosom, till they looked very like a collapsed flapjack.

Then our meeting-house was a good two miles distant, and we had to walk, or stay at home; because my factotum (Peter) would n't stay on the farm without he could have the horse Sundays to go to Mill Village to see his affianced Nancy. Then the old farmers leaned on my stone wall, and laughed till the tears came into their eyes, to see "the city gentleman's" experiments in horticulture, as they passed by "to meetin'."

Well, sir, before summer was over, my wife and I looked as jaded as omnibus horses--she with chance "help" and floods of city company, and I with my arduous duties as express man for my own family in particular, and the neighbors in general.

And now here we are--"No. 9 Kossuth square." Can reach anything we want, by putting our hands out the front windows. If, as the poet says, "man made the town," all I've got to say is--he understood his business!

THE AGED MINISTER VOTED A DISMISSION.

Your minister is "superannuated," is he? Well, call a parish meeting, and vote him a dismission; hint that his usefulness is gone; that he is given to repetition; that he puts his hearers to sleep. Turn him adrift, like a blind horse, or a lame house dog. Never mind that he has grown gray in your thankless service--that he has smiled upon your infants at the baptismal font, given them lovingly away in marriage to their heart's chosen, and wept with you when Death's shadow darkened your door. Never mind that he has laid aside his pen, and listened many a time, and oft, with courteous grace to your tedious, prosy conversations, when his moments were like gold dust; never mind that he has patiently and uncomplainingly accepted at your hands, the smallest pittance that would sustain life, because "the Master" whispered in his ear, "Tarry here till I come." Never mind that the wife of his youth, whom he won from a home of luxury, is broken down with privation and fatigue, and your thousand unnecessary demands upon her strength, patience, and time. Never mind that his children, at an early age, were exiled from the parsonage roof, because there was not "bread enough and to spare," in their father's

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house. Never mind that his library consists only of a Bible, a Concordance, and a Dictionary; and that to the luxury of a religious newspaper, he has been long years a stranger. Never mind that his wardrobe would be spurned by many a mechanic in our cities; never mind that he has "risen early and sat up late," and tilled the ground with weary limbs, for earthly "manna," while his glorious intellect lay in fetters--for you. Never mind all that; call a parish meeting, and vote him "superannuated." Don't spare him the starting tear of sensibility, or the flush of wounded pride, by delicately offering to settle a colleague, that your aged pastor may rest on his staff in grateful, gray-haired independence. No! turn the old patriarch out; give him time to go to the moss-grown church-yard, and say farewell to his unconscious dead, and then give "the right hand of fellowship' to some beardless, pedantic, noisy college boy, who will save your sexton the trouble of pounding the pulpit cushions; and who will tell you and the Almighty, in his prayers, all the political news of the week.

THE FATAL MARRIAGE.

A very pretty girl was Lucy Lee. Don't ask me to describe her; stars, and gems, and flowers, have long since been exhausted in depicting heroines. Suffice it to say, Lucy was as pretty a little fairy as ever stepped foot in a slipper or twisted a ringlet.

Of course, Lucy knew she was pretty; else why did the gentlemen stare at her so? Why did Harry Graham send her so many bouquets? Why did Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones try to sit each other out in an evening call? Why were picnics and fairs postponed, if she were engaged or ill? Why did so many young men request an introduction? Why did all the serenaders come beneath her window? Why was a pew or omnibus never full when she appeared at the door? And last, though not least, why did all the women imitate and hate her so?

We will do Miss Lucy the justice to say, that she bore her blushing honors very meekly. She never flaunted her conquest in the faces of less attractive feminines; no, Lucy was the farthest remove from a coquette; but kind words and bright smiles were as natural to her as fragrance to flowers, or music to birds. She never tried to win hearts; and between you and me, I think that's the way she did it.

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Grave discussions were often held about Lucy's future husband; the old maids scornfully asserting that "beauties generally pick up a crooked stick at last," while the younger ones cared very little whom she married, if she only were married and out of their way. Meanwhile, Lucy smiled at her own happy thoughts, and sat at her little window on pleasant, summer evenings, watching for Harry, (poor Harry,) who, when he came, was at a loss to know if she had ever given her little heart one flutter, so merrily did she laugh and chat with him. Skillful little Lucy, it was very right you should n't let him peep into your heart till he had opened a window in his own.

Lucy's papa did n't approve of late hours or lovers; moonlight he considered but another name for rheumatism; at nine o'clock, precisely, he rung the bell each evening for family prayers; and when the Bible came in lovers were expected to go out: in case they were obtuse,--chairs set back against the wall, or an extra lamp blown out, or the fire taken apart, were hints sufficiently broad to be understood; and they generally answered the purpose. Miss Lucy's little lamp, glowing immediately after from her bed-room window, gave the finale to the "Mede and Persian" order of Mr. Lee's family arrangements.

Still, Lee house was not a hermitage, by any means. More white cravats and black coats passed over "Deacon" Lee's threshold, than into any hotel in Yankeedom. Little Lucy's mother, too, was a modern Samaritan, never weary of experimenting on their dyspeptic and bronchial affections; while Lucy herself (bless her kind heart) knew full well that two-thirds of

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them had large families, empty purses, and more Judases and Paul Prys than "Aarons and Hurs" in their congregations.

Among the habitués of Lee house, none were so acceptable to Lucy's father, as Mr. Ezekiel Clark, a bachelor of fifty, an ex-minister, and now an agent for some "Benevolent Society." Ezekiel had an immensely solemn face; and behind this convenient mask he was enabled to carry out, undetected, various little plans, ostensibly for the "society's" benefit, but privately--for his own personal aggrandizement. When Ezekiel's opinion was asked, he crossed his hands and feet, and fastened his eyes upon the wall, in an attitude of the deepest abstraction, while his questioner stood on one leg, awaiting, with the most intense anxiety, the decision of such an oracular Solomon. Well, not to weary you, the long and short of it was, that Solomon was a stupid fool, who spent his time trying to humbug the religious public in general, and Deacon Lee in particular, into the belief that had he been consulted before this world was made, he could have suggested great and manifold improvements. As to Deacon Lee, no cat ever tossed a poor mouse more dexterously than he played with the deacon's free will; all the while very demurely pocketing the spoils in the shape of "donations" to the "society," with which he appeased his washerwoman and tailor, and transported himself across the country, on trips to Newport, Saratoga, &c., &c.

His favorite plan was yet to be carried out; which was no more or less than a modest request for the deacon's pretty daughter, Lucy, in marriage. Mr. Lee rubbed his chin, and said, "Lucy was nothing but a foolish little girl" but Ezekiel

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overruled it, by remarking that that was so much the more reason she should have a husband some years her senior, with some knowledge of the world, qualified to check and advise her; to all of which, after an extra pinch of snuff, and another look into Ezekiel's oracular face, Deacon Lee assented.

Poor little Lucy! Ezekiel knew very well that her father's word was law, and when Mr. Lee announced him as her future husband, she knew she was just as much Mrs. Ezekiel Clark, as if the bridal ring had been already slipped on her fairy finger. She sighed heavily, to be sure, and patted her little foot nervously, and when she handed him his tea, thought he looked older than ever; while Ezekiel swallowed one cup after another, till his eyes snapped and glowed like a panther's in ambush. That night poor Lucy pressed her lips to a faded rose, the gift of Harry Graham; then, cried herself to sleep!

Unbounded was the indignation of Lucy's admirers, when the sanctimonious Ezekiel was announced as the expectant bridegroom. Harry Graham took the first steamer for Europe, railling at "woman's fickleness." (Consistent Harry! when never a word of love had passed his moustached lip.)

Shall I tell you how Ezekiel was transformed into the most ridiculous of lovers? how his self-conceit translated Lucy's indifference into maiden coyness? how he looked often in the glass and thought he was not so very old after all? how he advised Lucy to tuck away all her bright curls, because they "looked so childish?" how he named to her papa an "early marriage day,"--not that he felt nervous about losing his prize--

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oh, no (?)--but because "the society's business required his undivided attention."

Well; Lucy, in obedience to her father's orders, stood up in her snow-white robe, and vowed "to love and cherish" a man just her father's age, with whom she had not the slightest congeniality of taste or feeling. But papa had said it was an excellent match, and Lucy never gainsayed papa; still, her long lashes drooped heavily over her blue eyes, and her hand trembled, and her cheek grew deathly pale, as Ezekiel handed her to the carriage that whirled them rapidly away.

Shall I tell you how long months and years dragged wearily on? how Lucy saw through her husband's mask of hypocrisy and self-conceit? how to indifference succeeded disgust? how Harry Graham returned from Europe, with a fair young English bride? how Lucy grew nervous and hysterical? how Ezekiel soon wearied of his sick wife, and left her in one of those tombs for the wretched, an insane hospital? and how she wasted, day by day--then died, with only a hired nurse to close those weary blue eyes?

In a quiet corner of the old churchyard where Lucy sleeps, a silver-haired old man, each night a dew-fall, paces to and fro, with remorseless tread, as if by that weary vigil he would fain atone to the unconscious sleeper, for turning her sweet young life to bitterness.

FRANCES SARGEANT OSGOOD.

So sang the dying poetess. The "eternal gates" have closed upon her. Those dark, soul-lit eyes beam upon us no more. "June" has come again, with its "sweet roses," its birds, its zephyrs, its flowers and fragrance. It is such a day as her passionate heart would have reveled in--a day of Eden-like freshness and beauty. I will gather some fair, sweet flowers, and visit her grave.

"Show me Mrs. Fanny Osgood's monument, please," said I to the rough gardener, who was spading the turf in Mount Auburn.

"In Orange Avenue, Ma'am," he replied, respectfully indicating, with a wave of the hand, the path I was to pursue.

Tears started to my eyes, as I trod reverently down the quiet path. The little birds she loved so well, were skimming confidingly and joyously along before me, and singing as merrily as if my heart echoed back their gleeful songs.

I approached the enclosure, as the gardener had directed me. There were five graves. In which slept the poetess? for there was not even a headstone! The flush of indignant feeling

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mounted to my temples; the warm tears started from my eyes. She was forgotten! Sweet, gifted Fanny! in her own family burial place she was forgotten! The stranger from a distance, who had worshiped her genius, might in vain make a pilgrimage to do her honor. I, who had personally known and loved her, had not even the poor consolation of decking the bosom of her grave with the flowers I had gathered; I could not kiss the turf beneath which she is reposing; I could not drop a tear on the sod, 'neath which her remains are mouldering back to their native dust. I could not tell, (though I so longed to know,) in which of the little graves--for there were several--slept her "dear May," her "pure Ellen;" the little, timid, household doves, who folded their weary wings when the parent bird was stricken down, by the aim of the unerring Archer.

Though allied by no tie of blood to the gifted creature, who, somewhere, lay sleeping there, I felt the flush of shame mount to my temples, to turn away and leave her dust so unhonored. Oh, God! to be so soon forgotten by all the world!--How can even earth look so glad, when such a warm, passionate heart lies cold and pulseless? Poor, gifted, forgotten Fanny! She "still lives" in my heart; and, Reader, glance your eyes over these touching lines, "written during her last illness," and tell me, Shall she not also live in thine?

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     Yes! take them first, my Father!  Let my doves
Fold their white wings in Heaven safe on thy breast,
Ere I am called away!  I dare not leave
Their young hearts here, their innocent, thoughtless hearts!
Ah! how the shadowy train of future ills
Comes sweeping down life's vista, as I gaze?
My May! my careless, ardent-tempered May;
My frank and frolic child! in whose blue eyes
Wild joy and passionate woe alternate rise;
Whose cheek, the morning in her soul illumes;
Whose little, loving heart, a word, a glance,
Can sway to grief or glee; who leaves her play,
And puts up her sweet mouth and dimpled arms
Each moment, for a kiss, and softly asks,
With her clear, flute-like voice, "Do you love me?"
Ah! let me stay! Ah! let me still be by,
To answer her, and meet her warm caress!
For, I away, how oft, in this rough world,
That earnest question will be asked in vain!
How oft that eager, passionate, petted heart
Will shrink abashed and chilled, to learn, at length,
The hateful, withering lesson of distrust!
Ah! let her nestle still upon this breast,
In which each shade that dims her darling face
Is felt and answered, as the lake reflects
The clouds that cross yon smiling Heaven[]

                              And thou,
My modest Ellen! tender, thoughtful, true,
Thy soul attuned to all sweet harmonies;
My pure, proud, noble Ellen! with thy gifts
Of genius, grace and loveliness half-hidden
'Neath the soft vail of innate modesty:

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How will the world's wild discord reach thy heart,
To startle and appal!  Thy generous scorn
Of all things base and mean--thy quick, keen taste,
Dainty and delicate--thy instinctive fear
Of those unworthy of a soul so pure,
Thy rare, unchildlike dignity of mien,
All--they will all bring pain to thee, my child.

     And oh! if ever their grace and goodness meet
Cold looks and careless greetings, how will all
The latent evil yet undisciplined
In their young, timid soul forgiveness find?
Forgiveness and forbearance, and soft chidings,
Which I, their mother, learn'd of love, to give.
Ah! let me stay! albeit my heart is weary,
Weary and worn, tired of its own sad beat,
That finds no echo in this busy world
Which cannot pause to answer--tired, alike,
Of joy and sorrow--of the day and night!
Ah! take them FIRST, my Father! and then me;
And for their sakes--for their sweet sakes, my Father!
Let me find rest beside them, at thy feet.

BEST THINGS.

I have a horror of "best" things, come they in the shape of shoes, garments, bonnets or rooms. In such a harness my soul peers restlessly out, asking "if I be I." I'm puzzled to find myself. I become stiff and formal and artificial as my surroundings.

But of all the best things, spare me the infliction of a "best room." Out upon a carpet too fine to tread upon, books too dainty to handle, sofas that but mock your weary limbs, and curtains that dare not face a ray of sunlight!

Had I a house, there should be no "best room" in it. No upholsterer should exorcise comfort, or children, from my door-sill. The free, fresh air should be welcome to play through it; the bright, glad sunshine to lighten and warm it; while fresh mantel-flowers should woo us visits from humming-bird and drowsy bee.

For pictures, I'd look from out my windows, upon a landscape painted by the Great Master--ever fresh, ever varied, and never marred by envious "cross lights;" now, wreathed in morning's silvery mist; now, basking in noon's broad beam; now, flushed with sunset's golden glow; now, sleeping in dreamy moonlight.

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For statuary, fill my house with children--rosy, dimpled, laughing children; now, tossing their sunny ringlets from open brows; now, vailing their merry eyes in slumberous dreams, 'neath snow-white lids; now, sweetly grave, on bended knee, with clasped hands, and lisped words of holy prayer.

Did I say I'd have nothing "best?" Pardon me. Sunday should be the best day of all the seven--not ushered in with ascetic form, or lengthened face, or stiff and rigid manners. Sweetly upon the still Sabbath air should float the matin hymn of happy childhood; blending with early song of birds, and wafted upward, with flowers' incense, to Him whose very name is Love. It should be no day for puzzling the half-developed faith that prompts the innocent lips to say, "Our Father." It should be no day to sit upright on stiff-backed chairs, till the golden sun should set. No; the birds should not be more welcome to warble, the flowers to drink in the air and sunlight, or the trees to toss their lithe limbs, free and fetterless.

"I'm so sorry that to-morrow is Sunday!" From whence does this sad lament issue? From under your roof, oh mistaken but well-meaning Christian parents--from the lips of your child, whom you compel to listen to two or three unintelligible sermons, sandwiched between Sunday schools, and finished off at nightfall by tedious repetitions of creeds and catechisms, till sleep releases your weary victim! No wonder your child shudders, when the minister tells him that "Heaven is one eternal Sabbath."

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Oh, mistaken parent! relax the over-strained bow--prevent the fearful rebound, and make the Sabbath what God designed it, not a weariness, but the "best" and happiest day of all the seven.

THE VESTRY MEETING.

The clock had just struck seven. The sharp-nosed old sexton of the Steeple-Street Church had arranged the lights to his mind, determined the proper latitude and longitude of Bibles and hymn-books, peeped curiously into the little black stove in the corner, and was now admonishing every person who passed in, of the propriety of depositing the "free soil" on his boots upon the entry door-mat.

In they crept, one after another--pale-faced seamstresses, glad of a reprieve; servant girls, who had turned their backs upon unwashed dishes; mothers, whose "crying babies" were astounding the neighbors; old maids, who had nowhere to spend their long evenings; widowers, who felt an especial solicitude lest any of the sisters should be left to return home unprotected; girls and boys, who came because they were bid, and who had no very clear idea of the performances; and last, though not least, "Ma'am Spy, who thought it her duty to see that none of the church-members were missing, and to inquire every Tuesday night, of her friend Miss Prim, if she did n't consider Mrs. Violet a proper subject for church discipline, because she always had money enough to pay her board bills, although her husband had deserted her.

Then there were the four Misses Nipper, who crawled in as if

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the vestry floor were paved with live kittens, and who had never been known, for four years, to vary one minute in their attendance, or to keep awake from the first prayer to the doxology.

Then, there was Mrs. John Emmons, who sang the loudest, and prayed the longest, and wore the most expensive bonnets, of any female member in the church--whose name was on every committee, who instituted the select praying circle for the more aristocratic portion of the parish, and whose pertinacious determination to sit next to her husband at the Tuesday night meeting, was regarded by the uninitiated as a beautiful proof of conjugal devotion; but which, after patient investigation, (between you and me, dear reader,) was found to be for the purpose of arresting his coat-flaps when he popped up to make mental shipwreck of himself by making a speech.

Then, there was Mr. Nobbs, whose remarks were a re-hash of the different religious periodicals of the day, diversified with misapplied texts of Scripture, and delivered with an intonation and gesticulation that would have given Demosthenes fits.

Then, there was Zebedee Falstaff, who accomplished more for the amelioration of the human race (according to his own account) than any man of his aldermanic proportions in the nation, and who delivered (on a hearty supper) a sleepy exhortation on the duties of self-denial and charity, much to the edification of one of his needy relatives, to whose tearful story he had that very day turned a deaf ear.

Then, there was Brother Higgins, who was always "just going" to make a speech, "if brother Thomas had n't so exactly anticipated his sentiments a minute before."

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Then, there was Mrs. Addison Theophilus Shakspeare Milton, full of poetical and religious inspiration, who soared so high in the realms of fancy, that his hearers lost sight of him.

Then, there were some sincere, good-hearted Christians--respectable citizens--worthy heads of families; but whose lips had never been "touched with a live coal from off the altar."

Where was the pastor? Oh, he was there--a slight, fragile, scholar-like looking man, with a fine intellectual face, exquisitely refined tastes and sensibilities, and the meek spirit of "the Master." Had those slender shoulders no cross to bear? When chance sent some fastidious worldling through that vestry door, did it cost him nothing to watch the smile of contempt curl the stranger's lip, as some uneducated, but well-meaning layman, presented with stammering tongue, in ungrammatical phrase, distorted, one-sided, bigoted views of great truths which his eloquent tongue might have made as clear as the noon-day, and as cheering and welcome as heaven's own blessed light, to the yearning, dissatisfied spirit? Oh, is there nothing in religion, when it can so subdue the pride of intellect as to enable its professor to disregard the stammering tongue, and sit meekly at the feet of the ignorant disciple because he is a disciple?

A BROADWAY SHOP REVERIE.

Forty dollars for a pocket-handkerchief! My dear woman! you need a straight-jacket, even though you may be the fortunate owner of a dropsical purse.

I won't allude to the legitimate use of a pocket-handkerchief, I won't speak of the sad hearts that "forty dollars," in the hands of some philanthropist, might lighten; I won't speak of the "crows' feet" that will be penciled on your fair face, when your laundress carelessly sticks the point of her remorseless smoothing iron through the flimsy fabric, or the constant espionage you must keep over your treasure, in omnibuses, or when promenading; but I will ask you how many of the lords of creation, for whose especial benefit you array yourself, will know whether that cobweb rag fluttering in your hand cost forty dollars, or forty cents?

Pout if you like, and toss your head, and say that you "don't dress to please the gentlemen." I don't hesitate to tell you (at this distance from your finger nails) that is a downright--mistake! and that the enormous sums most women expend for articles, the cost of which few, save shop-keepers and butterfly feminines, know, is both astounding and ridiculous.

True, you have the sublime gratification of flourishing your

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forty-dollar handkerchief, of sporting your twenty-dollar "Hoiton collar," or of flaunting your thousand-dollar shawl, before the envious and admiring eyes of some weak sister, who has made the possible possession of the article in question a profound and lifetime study; you may pass, too, along the crowded paveé, laboring under the hallucination, that every passer-by appreciates your dry-goods value. Not a bit of it! Yonder is a group of gentlemen. You pass them in your promenade; they glance carelessly at your tout-ensemble, but their eyes rest admiring on a figure close behind you. It will chagrin you to learn that this locomotive loadstone has on a seventy-five cent hat of simple straw--a dress of lawn, one shilling per yard--a twenty-five cent collar, and a shawl of the most unpretending price and fabric.

All these items you take in at a glance, as you turn upon her your aristocratic eye of feminine criticism to extract, if possible, the talismanic secret of her magnetism. What is it? Let me tell you. Nature, willful dame, has an aristocracy of her own, and in one of her independent freaks has so daintily fashioned your rival's limbs, that the meanest garb could not mar a grace, nor the costliest fabric add one. Compassionating her slender purse, nature has also added an artistic eye, which accepts or rejects fabrics and colors with unerring taste; hence her apparel is always well chosen and harmonious, producing the effect of a rich toilet at the cost of "a mere song;" and as she sweeps majestically past, one understands why Dr. Johnson pronounced a woman to be "perfectly dressed when one could never remember what she wore."

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Now, I grant you, it is very provoking to be eclipsed by a star without a name--moving out of the sphere of "upper-ten"-dom--a woman who never wore a "camel's hair shawl," or owned a diamond in her life; after the expense you have incurred, too, and the fees you have paid to Madame Pompadour and Stewart for the first choice of their Parisian fooleries. It is harrowing to the sensibilities. I appreciate the awkwardness of your position; still, my compassion jogs my invention vainly for a remedy--unless, indeed, you consent to crush such democratic presumption, by labelling the astounding price of the dry-goods upon your aristocratic back.

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