woman in general, and your sister Kitty in particular? I own up to
being very naughty, and on my knees I ask your pardon for not having
written all these days. I cannot tell you, as you invariably do me,
that I have had nothing to write; for my time has been more fully
occupied than usual. Tuesday night was Miss Carroll's party; and I
wasn't home till--really not early, but late, in the morning. That
party very nearly made me late to breakfast. Mr. Davenport was my
'devotedest,' and has called since, which Alice and I think very
remarkable. My dear Meg, he's the queerest man! He has the most
dejected expression, as if life were the most terrible bore. One would
think he had been all through with it before, and didn't enjoy it the
first time. He seems to have an exceedingly well-developed taste for
grief, and talks in the saddest way about things in general. I think
lately his object in life has been to make me think he has some
dreadful hidden sorrow. I know he hasn't, by his way; and I talk more
nonsense to him in an hour than I ever did to any one else in a day. I
cannot help 'taking rises' out of him, as we used to say at school.
But he dances well, and knows every thing apparently; and he is ever
so much more entertaining to me than the people who are just like
every one else. Wednesday he sent me the most exquisite bouquet: it
came while Alice and I were out walking. It was raining a little; but
we were tired of the house, and went ever so far, having the most
delightful talk. You ought to have seen Alice; for the mist gave her
more color than usual, and she looked like a beauty, as she is. Oh how
I want you to know her, Maggie! I never have said a word hardly about
the delightful visit I am having here. Alice's mother, you know, died
so long ago that she doesn't remember her at all; and she lived with
her aunt till she was old enough for school, and her father travelled
and boarded. Now he has taken this delightful house, and she is
mistress of it. How she knows the first thing about housekeeping, I
cannot imagine! But she certainly succeeds admirably. There never was
a girl who had her own way so thoroughly: but her way is always very
sensible; and, though she has had the most remarkable chance for
becoming a spoiled child, she is the farthest from it. However, I will
not expatiate. Thursday night Mr. Thornton gave a whist-party; and--do
you think! one of the gentlemen was my Mr. Bruce. I dare say you are
making the most awful face, Maggie, but I _will_ tell you about him;
and why you scold me so I cannot imagine, for I think it is very
exciting; and I know there is some good reason for his conduct, for he
is a perfect gentleman, every one says; and my only fear is, that I
shall never find out about it. I am constantly expecting to hear he is
gone: I heard he was to sail last Monday positively. I should feel
horridly. When Alice and I found Mr. Thornton had invited him, we laid
a bet whether he would accept; but I was right. Mr. Thornton's
invitations are seldom refused; but I don't think that was his motive.
I won the bet. Yes, he really came, and that wretch of an Alice had
the audacity to seat us side by side at supper. He was perfectly
polite, but talked very little. I caught him watching me ever and ever
so many times; and Alice declares he is in love with me. I wish he
would tell me what is the matter with me, for I like him more and
more; but don't tell mamma. I have scarcely mentioned him, because I
know papa would tell me not to take any notice of him,--and I cannot
help it. It is so nice I have you to tell about him. The only queer
thing that happened was, in the course of the supper I was saying
something to Mr. Dent, who was on my left, about Boston, in answer to
some question. Mr. Bruce said, 'Did you ever live in Boston, Miss
Tennant?' I answered that our family had always lived there, and I
meant to; I had been away at school, however, most of the time for
four years. 'Oh!' said he, and began to ask me something else, and
stopped suddenly. I wish he had gone on, though perhaps it was only
about some Boston people whom he met abroad. He never has been in this
country before, you know. And he went on talking with Mr. Bowler, who
sat just beyond him, and I found Mr. Dent was talking with
Mr. Thornton; so I was left to myself, and was busy for a while over
my oysters. I listened to Mr. Bowler and Mr. Bruce, talking about
Mr. John Keith's marriage with his mother's nursery-maid, whom he had
very sensibly fallen in love with. Mr. Bowler was saying that he had
met her, and that she was remarkably ladylike, and did her teacher,
whoever she might be, great credit. Mr. Bruce looked up, and saw I was
listening,--everybody has been interested in the affair,--and said,
'Oh, yes! I have known several instances of persons, having naturally
a great deal of refinement, being taken from a low position when quite
grown up, with their tastes and habits apparently firmly established;
and, upon their being educated, one could scarcely tell that they had
not always been used to the society they were in.' He appealed to me
to know if I had not known such cases. I answered that I never had
seen any such person myself, but that I had not the least doubt of its
being possible. He looked at me a moment, and then said, carelessly as
he could, 'Of course you haven't.' And it seemed to me he emphasized
the 'you' just the least bit. One might have inferred I was just such
a person myself. My dear little sister, what an enormous letter this
is. Forgive me if you are bored; and love me dearly, as I do you.
Alice sent her love before she went to sleep, where I shall follow her
directly. She has been sweetly unconscious of the perplexing Mr. Bruce
for at least an hour. I'll tell you every thing else that has happened
in my next letter; and do you write very soon to your naughty sister
"KITTY."
[In the next three or four letters, there is hardly enough mention of
Mr. Bruce for me to copy them all out. He seems to be growing more and
more agreeable, in spite of his evident determination to the contrary;
and as for Miss Kitty, her letters show very plainly what her feelings
were toward him; and here is the last of the letters which Miss
Margaret Tennant brought, which explains the whole matter, to the
great satisfaction of all concerned:--]
"Maggy, my cross young sister,--I declare, I'm muddled, as the
chambermaid used to say at school. I have fallen into a chronic state
of laughter, I'm dying to tell Alice, and have sent for her; but she
has callers, and I will begin this very minute to tell you. It is the
middle of the morning, but I am just down: I was up very late last
night; and oh, we had such fun! Just to think how poor Mr. Bruce and I
have puzzled our brains about each other! It is all out now, and I'm
so greatly relieved. I never knew how much I cared about it till now.
I didn't stop to date my letter, but to-day is Thursday; and Monday
morning, as you already know, Aunt Kate came home, to my great
delight, though I was broken-hearted to leave Alice's, where I have
had such a charming time. Uncle Rob's mother is very much better; and
aunty doesn't think she will have to go back, and says I must finish
my visit. But I cannot stop to write about that. I came back here in
the afternoon; and, Tuesday morning, who should appear but uncle Rob
from Savannah, two weeks before we expected him. That night, when he
came home to dinner, he said with great glee, 'Kate, I saw young Bruce
down town to-day, whom I met in London, and liked so very much. I have
invited him to dine with us to-morrow. He is a capital young fellow;
and I'm glad we have this young niece to help us entertain him. Have
you never met him, Kitty? I'm not going to ask any one else, so I can
have him all to myself. I want to ask him about my friends in London;
and he tells me he has some letters and messages for me, with which he
called at my office, probably just after I went South.' So he rattled
on,--you know how fast he talks,--and presently Aunt Kate introduced
some other subject, and I wasn't obliged to tell the state of affairs
between us. I supposed, of course, Mr. Bruce would treat me in a
proper and becoming manner in my uncle's house; and I thought--which
proved true--that he might not know I was uncle's niece; and that it
might help the matter a little. Oh, it is too funny, Meg! How you will
laugh! About dinner-time Mr. Bruce came in with Uncle Rob, and he
looked so astonished to see me there; and before uncle Rob had time to
get any farther in the introduction than 'Mr. Bruce,' he said, 'Oh,
yes! I have met Miss Tennant very often. Is Miss Thornton with you?'
Uncle said, 'Kitty, why haven't you told me?' Mr. Bruce looked more
surprised when uncle called me 'Kitty;' and, after that, he got more
and more involved, as he saw me whisper to aunty, and take some work
from a little cabinet, and act as if I belonged here. I explained to
Uncle Rob that he had talked so fast the night before, that he didn't
give me time to say I knew Mr. Bruce. We didn't wait long for dinner;
and the way it was all explained was by my saying, 'Uncle Rob, if you
please, I'll have some pepper.' Mr. Bruce started, and really was
pale. He looked at me and at Uncle Rob and aunty. I never saw such an
expression on any one's face. 'Will you allow me to ask what may seem
a very impertinent question?' said he, 'are you Mr. Hunter's niece,
Miss Tennant?'--'No,' I answered, 'but I'm Mrs. Hunter's.'--'Oh!' said
he, 'I'm inexpressibly relieved: and yet I'm sure it was you; I cannot
have been mistaken. There never could be another person so exactly
like you, and I remember your face perfectly.' Here he blushed
furiously; and, I regret to say, I did too. 'It's a dreadful question
to have to ask Mrs. Robert Hunter's niece, and I beg you not to be
offended with me; but was it you, or your wraith, who waited upon the
table at a house where I dined, just a year ago, in Boston? I haven't
the faintest idea what the name was. It was a gentleman to whom I had
letters from my father, who had some business with him. He was
exceedingly kind to me, and his house was charming; and he had such a
pretty little daughter,'--hear that, Meg!--'and I have remembered the
table-girl ever since. It cannot have been you; for I have heard you
say you were always away at school, except in the summer; and yet I am
so sure of your face and figure and hair and every thing about you,
only you have lost a strong brogue you had then. Not you, of course,
but the person I saw. I have been so foolishly sure about it, and
supposed some one had become interested in you, as I was at the
time,'--here he blushed again,--'and had educated you where you met
Miss Thornton, and that you had a vast deal of tact, and were deluding
her and her friends. I have treated you dreadfully, and Miss Alice
too; and only the other night I had the most supreme contempt for you,
because you were apparently so innocent concerning young women being
raised above their station, and all that sort of thing. It would come
over me once in a while that you could not be carrying this all out,
and I didn't believe in my previous idea at all; and yet the face is
the same. I am as much in the dark as ever,' said the poor man
solemnly.
"All this time I was pinching my fingers under the table to keep from
laughing; but when he stopped, looking to me for a solution of all his
troubles, with that ridiculously perplexed face, and I saw uncle Rob's
and aunt Kitty's faces, it _would_ come, and I fairly shrieked, and
rushed from the table into the library, and threw myself into an
easy-chair; and I truly never laughed so in my life. I believe I had
hysterics at last, and they came in in dismay. _Don't_ you know what
it was, Margaret? _Don't_ you remember the day, last Easter vacation,
when Ann had gone down to Salem with her sister, and papa had four
strange gentlemen to dine with him, and I put on one of Ann's aprons,
and waited on the table for fun? I think it was idiotic in me not to
have recognized Mr. Bruce before. Only think how much it would have
saved us! He was the handsome young Englishman who went to the
drawing-room with you and mamma, instead of the library, and then went
away early. You remember all about him now, don't you? I went back to
the dining-room, and told the whole story from beginning to end, and
if we didn't enjoy ourselves over it! Poor uncle Rob made himself ill
with the extent of his laughter, and Mr. Bruce and I are the best of
friends. Did you ever know any thing funnier to happen at
Mrs. Walkintwo's? If you did, do write me. How I shall enjoy telling
papa and mamma! There's Alice coming. Good-by, my dear. But wasn't he
a goose?"
"Knowing," said Miss Margaret, "that Kitty has been Mrs. Bruce for
nearly thirty years, you can imagine what followed. Mr. Bruce made
full amends for his rudeness, and after a while it came to their
having long walks and talks together. Uncle Rob approved the match;
and, when it was time for her to come home, Mr. Bruce wisely concluded
to sail from Boston, and to serve as escort to Aunt Kate and Kitty. So
he was all ready to ask papa's consent when he arrived, and it was
readily given. He became his father's American partner, and they were
married in a year or so, and settled down in the house we left
to-night; for Kitty was always loyal to Boston, like the true Tennant
that she is. And they have always been the happiest couple in the
world, and Kitty's little personification of the absent Ann turned out
more happily than her reluctant mamma had any idea of.
"And now," said Miss Margaret, "the storm and the story are both over.
It's nearly twelve, and the fire is low. Suppose we go up stairs."
MISS SYDNEY'S FLOWERS.
However sensible it may have been considered by other people, it
certainly was a disagreeable piece of news to Miss Sydney, that the
city authorities had decided to open a new street from St. Mary Street
to Jefferson. It seemed a most unwarrantable thing to her that they
had a right to buy her property against her will. It was so provoking,
that, after so much annoyance from the noise of St. Mary Street during
the last dozen years, she must submit to having another public
thoroughfare at the side of her house also. If it had only been at the
other side, she would not have minded it particularly; for she rarely
sat in her drawing-room, which was at the left of the hall. On the
right was the library, stately, dismal, and apt to be musty in damp
weather; and it would take many bright people, and a blazing
wood-fire, and a great deal of sunshine, to make it pleasant. Behind
this was the dining-room, which was really bright and sunny, and which
opened by wide glass doors into a conservatory. The rattle and clatter
of St. Mary Street was not at all troublesome here; and by little and
little Miss Sydney had gathered her favorite possessions from other
parts of the house, and taken one end of it for her sitting-room. The
most comfortable chairs had found their way here, and a luxurious
great sofa which had once been in the library, as well as the bookcase
which held her favorite books.
The house had been built by Miss Sydney's grandfather, and in his day
it had seemed nearly out of the city: now there was only one other
house left near it; for one by one the quiet, aristocratic old street
had seen its residences give place to shops and warehouses, and Miss
Sydney herself had scornfully refused many offers of many thousand
dollars for her home. It was so changed! It made her so sad to think
of the dear old times, and to see the houses torn down, or the
small-paned windows and old-fashioned front-doors replaced with French
plate-glass to display better the wares which were to take the places
of the quaint furniture and well-known faces of her friends! But Miss
Sydney was an old woman, and her friends had diminished sadly. "It
seems to me that my invitations are all for funerals in these days,"
said she to her venerable maid Hannah, who had helped her dress for
her parties fifty years before. She had given up society little by
little. Her friends had died, or she had allowed herself to drift away
from them, while the acquaintances from whom she might have filled
their places were only acquaintances still. She was the last of her
own family, and, for years before her father died, he had lived mainly
in his library, avoiding society and caring for nothing but books; and
this, of course, was a check upon his daughter's enjoyment of
visitors. Being left to herself, she finally became content with her
own society, and since his death, which followed a long illness, she
had refused all invitations; and with the exception of the interchange
of occasional ceremonious calls with perhaps a dozen families, and her
pretty constant attendance at church, you rarely were reminded of her
existence. And I must tell the truth: it was not easy to be intimate
with her. She was a good woman in a negative kind of way. One never
heard of any thing wrong she had done; and if she chose to live alone,
and have nothing to do with people, why, it was her own affair. You
never seemed to know her any better after a long talk. She had a very
fine, courteous way of receiving her guests,--a way of making you feel
at your ease more than you imagined you should when with her,--and a
stately kind of tact that avoided skilfully much mention of
personalities on either side. But mere hospitality is not attractive,
for it may be given grudgingly, or, as in her case, from mere habit;
for Miss Sydney would never consciously be rude to any one in her own
house--or out of it, for that matter. She very rarely came in contact
with children; she was not a person likely to be chosen for a
confidante by a young girl; she was so cold and reserved, the elder
ladies said. She never asked a question about the winter fashions,
except of her dressmaker, and she never met with reverses in
housekeeping affairs, and these two facts rendered her unsympathetic
to many. She was fond of reading, and enjoyed heartily the pleasant
people she met in books. She appreciated their good qualities, their
thoughtfulness, kindness, wit, or sentiment; but the thought never
suggested itself to her mind that there were living people not far
away, who could give her all this, and more.
If calling were not a regulation of society, if one only went to see
the persons one really cared for, I am afraid Miss Sydney would soon
have been quite forgotten. Her character would puzzle many people. She
put no visible hinderance in your way; for I do not think she was
consciously reserved and cold. She was thoroughly well-bred, rich, and
in her way charitable; that is, she gave liberally to public
subscriptions which came under her notice, and to church
contributions. But she got on, somehow, without having friends; and,
though the loss of one had always been a real grief, she learned
without much trouble the way of living the lonely, comfortable, but
very selfish life, and the way of being the woman I have tried to
describe. There were occasional days when she was tired of herself,
and life seemed an empty, formal, heartless discipline. Her wisest
acquaintances pitied her loneliness; and busy, unselfish people
wondered how she could be deaf to the teachings of her good clergyman,
and blind to all the chances of usefulness and happiness which the
world afforded her; and others still envied her, and wondered to whom
she meant to leave all her money.
I began by telling you of the new street. It was suggested that it
should bear the name of Sydney; but the authorities decided finally to
compliment the country's chief magistrate, and call it Grant Place.
Miss Sydney did not like the sound of it. Her family had always been
indifferent to politics, and indeed the kite of the Sydneys had flown
for many years high above the winds that affect commonplace people.
The new way from Jefferson Street to St. Mary was a great convenience,
and it seemed to our friend that all the noisiest vehicles in the city
had a preference for going back and forth under her windows. You see
she did not suspect, what afterward became so evident, that there was
to be a way opened into her own heart also, and that she should
confess one day, long after, that she might have died a selfish old
woman, and not have left one sorry face behind her, if it had not been
for the cutting of Grant Place.
The side of her conservatory was now close upon the sidewalk, and this
certainly was not agreeable. She could not think of putting on her big
gardening-apron, and going in to work among her dear plants any more,
with all the world staring in at her as it went by. John the coachman,
who had charge of the greenhouse, was at first very indignant; but,
after he found that his flowers were noticed and admired, his anger
was turned into an ardent desire to merit admiration, and he kept his
finest plants next the street. It was a good thing for the greenhouse,
because it had never been so carefully tended; and plant after plant
was forced into luxuriant foliage and blossom. He and Miss Sydney had
planned at first to have close wire screens made to match those in the
dining-room; but now, when she spoke of his hurrying the workmen, whom
she supposed had long since been ordered to make them, John said,
"Indeed, mum, it would be the ruin of the plants shutting out the
light; and they would all be rusted with the showerings I gives them
every day." And Miss Sydney smiled, and said no more.
The street was opened late in October, and, soon after, cold weather
began in real earnest. Down in that business part of the city it was
the strangest, sweetest surprise to come suddenly upon the long line
of blooming plants and tall green lily-leaves under a roof festooned
with roses and trailing vines. For the first two or three weeks,
almost everybody stopped, if only for a moment. Few of Miss Sydney's
own friends even had ever seen her greenhouse; for they were almost
invariably received in the drawing-room. Gentlemen stopped the thought
of business affairs, and went on down the street with a fresher,
happier feeling. And the tired shop-girls lingered longest. Many a man
and woman thought of some sick person to whom a little handful of the
green leaves and bright blossoms, with their coolness and freshness,
would bring so much happiness. And it was found, long months
afterward, that a young man had been turned back from a plan of wicked
mischief by the sight of a tall, green geranium, like one that bloomed
in his mother's sitting-room way up in the country. He had not
thought, for a long time before, of the dear old woman who supposed
her son was turning his wits to good account in the city. But Miss
Sydney did not know how much he wished for a bit to put in his
buttonhole when she indignantly went back to the dining-room to wait
until that impertinent fellow stopped staring in.
II.
It was just about this time that Mrs. Marley made a change in her
place of business. She had sold candy round the corner in Jefferson
Street for a great many years; but she had suffered terribly from
rheumatism all the winter before. She was nicely sheltered from too
much sun in the summer; but the north winds of winter blew straight
toward her; and after much deliberation, and many fears and
questionings as to the propriety of such an act, she had decided to
find another stand. You or I would think at first that it could make
no possible difference where she sat in the street with her goods; but
in fact one has regular customers in that business, as well as in the
largest wholesale enterprise. There was some uncertainty whether these
friends would follow her if she went away. Mrs. Marley's specialty was
molasses-candy; and I am sure, if you ever chanced to eat any of it,
you would look out for the old lady next time you went along the
street. Times seemed very hard this winter. Not that trade had
seriously diminished; but still the outlook was very dark. Mrs. Marley
was old, and had been so for some years, so she was used to that; but
somehow this fall she seemed to be growing very much older all of a
sudden. She found herself very tired at night, and she was apt to lose
her breath if she moved quickly; besides this, the rheumatism tortured
her. She had saved only a few dollars, though she and her sister had
had a comfortable living,--what they had considered comfortable, at
least, though they sometimes had been hungry, and very often cold.
They would surely go to the almshouse sooner or later,--she and her
lame old sister Polly.
It was Polly who made the candy which Mrs. Marley sold. Their two
little rooms were up three flights of stairs; and Polly, being too
lame to go down herself, had not been out of doors in seven years.
There was nothing but roofs and sky to be seen from the windows; and,
as there was a manufactory near, the sky was apt to be darkened by its
smoke. Some of the neighbors dried their clothes on the roofs, and
Polly used to be very familiar with the apparel of the old residents,
and exceedingly interested when a strange family came, and she saw
something new. There was a little bright pink dress that the trig
young French woman opposite used to hang out to dry; and somehow poor
old Polly used always to be brightened and cheered by the sight of it.
Once in a while she caught a glimpse of the child who wore it. She
hardly ever thought now of the outside world when left to herself, and
on the whole she was not discontented. Sister Becky used to have a
great deal to tell her sometimes of an evening. When Mrs. Marley told
her in the spring twilight that the grass in the square was growing
green, and that she had heard a robin, it used to make Polly feel
homesick; for she was apt to think much of her childhood, and she had
been born in the country. She was very deaf, poor soul, and her world
was a very forlorn one. It was nearly always quite silent, it was very
small and smoky out of doors, and very dark and dismal within.
Sometimes it was a hopeless world, because the candy burnt; and if
there had not been her Bible and hymn-book, and a lame pigeon that lit
on the window-sill to be fed every morning, Miss Polly would have
found her time go heavily.
One night Mrs. Marley came into the room with a cheerful face, and
said very loud, "Polly, I've got some news!" Polly knew by her
speaking so loud that she was in good-humor. When any thing
discouraging had happened, Becky spoke low, and then was likely to be
irritated when asked to repeat her remark.