MY DEAR CAROLINE,--Lent came so frightfully early this year, that I
was very much afraid my new bonnet _à l’Imperatrice_ would not be
out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time,
and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus,
who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first
Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so
unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite
vexed. But, whenever she turned away, I ran my eyes over the whole
congregation, and would you believe that, almost without an exception,
people had their old things? However, I suppose they forgot how soon
Lent was coming. As I was passing out of church, Mrs. Croesus brushed
by me:
“Ah!” said she, “good morning. Why bless me! you’ve got that pretty
hat I saw at Lawson’s. Well, now, it’s really quite pretty; Lawson has
some taste left yet; what a lovely sermon the Doctor gave us. By the
by, did you know that Mrs. Gnu had actually bought the blue velvet?
It’s too bad, because I wanted to cover my prayer-book with blue, and
she sits so near, the effect of my book will be quite spoiled. Dear
me! there she is beckoning to me; good-bye, do come and see us;
Tuesdays, you know. Well, Lawson really does very well.”
I was so mad with the old thing, that I could not help catching her by
her mantle and holding on while I whispered loud enough for everybody
to hear:
“Mrs. Croesus, you see I have just got my bonnet from Paris. It’s made
after the Empress’s. If you would like to have yours made over in the
fashion, dear Mrs. Croesus, I shall be so glad to lend you mine.”
“No, thank you, dear,” said she, “Lawson won’t do for me. Bye-bye.”
And so she slipped out, and, I’ve no doubt, told Mrs. Gnu that she had
seen my bonnet at Lawson’s. Isn’t it too bad? Then she is so
abominably cool. Somehow, when I am talking with Mrs. Croesus, who
has all her own things made at home, I don’t feel as if mine came from
Paris at all. She has such a way of looking at you, that it’s quite
dreadful. She seems to be saying in her mind, “La! now, well done,
little dear.” And I think that kind of mental reservation (I think
that’s what they call it) is an insupportable impertinence. However, I
don’t care, do you?
I’ve so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. The
great thing is the livery, but I want to come regularly up to that,
and forget nothing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time how to
have my prayer-book bound. Finally, after thinking about it a great
deal, I concluded to have it done in pale blue velvet, with gold
clasps, and a gold cross upon the side. To be sure, it’s nothing very
new. But what _is_ new now-a-days? Sally Shrimp has had hers done
in emerald, and I know Mrs. Croesus will have crimson for hers, and
those people who sits next us in church (I wonder who they are; it’s
very unpleasant to sit next to people you don’t know; and, positively,
that girl, the dark-haired one with large eyes, carries the same muff
she did last year; it’s big enough for a family) have a kind of brown
morocco binding. I must tell you one reason why I fixed upon the
pale-blue. You know that aristocratic-looking young man, in white
cravat and black pantaloons and waistcoat, whom we saw at Saratoga a
year ago, and who always had such a beautiful sanctimonious look, and
such small white hands; well, he is a minister, as we supposed, “an
unworthy candidate, and unprofitable husbandman,” as he calls himself
in that delicious voice of his. He has been quite taken up among
us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was hope of his
being settled as colleague to the Doctor, only Mr. Potiphar (who can
be stubborn, you know) insisted that the Rev. Cream Cheese, though a
very good young man, he didn’t doubt, was addicted to candlesticks. I
suppose that’s something awful. But, could you believe anything awful
of him? I asked Mr. Potiphar what he meant by saying such things.
“I mean,” said he, “that he’s a Puseyite, and I’ve no idea of being
tied to the apron-strings of the Scarlet Woman.”
Dear Caroline, who _is_ the Scarlet Woman? Dearest, tell me,
upon your honor, if you have ever heard any scandal of Mr. Potiphar?
“What is it about candlesticks?” said I to Mr. Potiphar. “Perhaps
Mr. Cheese finds gas too bright for his eyes; and that’s his
misfortune, not his fault.
“Polly,” said Mr. Potiphar, who _will_ call me Polly, although it
sounds so very vulgar, “please not to meddle with things you don’t
understand. You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as you
choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit of my church.”
The same day Mr. Cheese happened in about lunch-time, and I asked him
if his eyes were really weak.
“Not at all,” said he, “why do you ask?”
Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond of candlesticks.
Ah! Caroline, you should have seen him then. He stopped in the midst
of pouring out a glass of Mr. P.’s best old port, and holding the
decanter in one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so
beautifully sad, and said in that sweet low voice:
“Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
church.” Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine off with such
a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his
cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-stitch), that I had no
voice to ask him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did,
however, without my asking him. But when he said in the same low
voice, “A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar,” I was obliged to
run into the drawing room for a moment, to recover myself.
Well, after he had lunched I told him that I wished to take his advice
upon something connected with the church, (for a prayer-book
_is,_ you know, dear,) and he looked so sweetly at me, that,
would you believe it, I almost wished to be a Catholic, and to confess
three or four times a week, and to have him for my confessor. But it’s
very wicked to wish to be a Catholic, and it wasn’t real much, you
know; but somehow I thought so. When I asked him in what velvet he
would advise me to have my prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully
for about twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him. I’m not
sure that I understood much of what he said--how should I?--but it
was very beautiful. Don’t laugh, Carrie, but there was one thing I
did understand, and which, as it came pretty often, quite helped me
through: it was, “Dear Mrs. Potiphar;” you can’t tell how nicely he
says it. He began by telling me that it was very important to consider
all the details and little things about the church. He said they were
all Timbales or Cymbals--or something of that kind; and then he
talked very prettily about the stole, and the violet and scarlet capes
of the cardinals, and purple chasubles, and the lace edge of the
Pope’s little short gown; and--do you know it was very funny--but it
seemed to me, somehow, as if I was talking with Portier or Florine
Lefevre, except that he used such beautiful words. Well, by and by, he
said:--
“Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is so pure and
childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yellow panes
usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your
faith (wouldn’t that be noisy in church?) by binding your prayer-book
in pale blue; the color of skim-milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so
full of pastoral associations.”
Why did he emphasize the word “pastoral?” Do you wonder that I like
Cream Cheese, dear Caroline, when he is so gentle and religious--and
such a pretty religion too! For he is not only well-dressed, and has
such aristocratic hands and feet, in the parlor, but he is so
perfectly gentlemanly in the pulpit. He never raises his voice too
loud, and he has such wavy gestures. Mr. Potiphar says that may be all
very true, but he knows perfectly well that he has a hankering for
artificial flowers, and that, for his part, he prefers the Doctor to
any preacher he ever heard “because,” he says, “I can go quietly to
sleep, confident that he will say nothing that might not be preached
from every well-regulated pulpit; whereas, if we should let Cream
Cheese into the desk, I should have to keep awake to be on the
look-out for some of these new-fangled idolatries: and, Polly
Potiphar, I, for one, am determined to have nothing to do with the
Scarlet Woman.”
Darling Caroline--I don’t care much--but did he ever have anything to
do with a Scarlet Woman?
After he said that about artificial flowers, I ordered from Martelle
the sweetest sprig of _immortelle_ he had in his shop, and sent
it anonymously on St. Valentine’s day. Of course I didn’t wish to do
anything secret from my husband, that might make people talk, so I
wrote--“Rev. Cream Cheese; from his grateful _Skim-milk._” I
marked the last words, and hope he understood that I meant to express
my thanks for his advice about the pale-blue cover. You don’t think it
was too romantice, do you, dear?
You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing since I see so much of
him: and then it is so appropriate to Lent to be intimate with a
minister. He goes with me to church a great deal; for Mr. Potiphar, of
course, has no time for that, except on Sundays; and it is really
delightful to see such piety. He makes the responses in the most
musical manner; and when he kneels upon entering the pew, he is the
admiration of the whole church. He buries his face entirely in a cloud
of cambric pocket-handkerchief, with his initial embroidered at the
corner; and his hair is beautifully parted down behind, which is very
fortunate, as otherwise it would look so badly, when only half his
head showed. I feel _so_ good when I sit by his side; and when
the Doctor (as Mr. P. says) “blows up” those terrible sinners in
Babylon and the other Bible towns, I always find the Rev. Cream’s eyes
fixed upon me, with so much sweet sadness, that I am very, very sorry
for the naughty people the Doctor talks about. Why did they do so, do
you suppose, dear Caroline? How thankful we ought to be that we live
now with so many churches, and such fine ones, and with such
gentlemanly ministers as Mr. Cheese. And how nicely it’s arranged
that, after dancing and dining for two or three months constantly,
during which, of course, we can only go to church Sundays, there comes
a time for stopping, when we’re tired out, and for going to church
every day, and (as Mr. P. says) “striking a balance;” and thinking
about being good, and all those things. We don’t lose a great deal,
you know. It makes a variety, and we all see each other, just the
same, only we don’t dance. I do think it would be better if we took
our lorgnettes with us, however, for it was only last Wednesday, at
nine o’clock prayers, that I saw Sheena Silke across the church in
their little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had a new
bonnet on; and yet, though I looked at it all the time trying to find
out, prayers were fairly over before I discovered whether it was
really new, or only that old white one made over with a few new
flowers. Now, if I had had my glass, I could have told in a moment,
and shouldn’t have been obliged to lose all the prayers.
But, as I was saying, those poor old people in Babylon and Nineveh!
only think, if they had had the privileges of prayers for six or seven
weeks in Lent, and regular preaching the rest of the year, except, of
course, in the summer--(by the by, I wonder if they all had some kind
of Saratoga or Newport to go to?--I mean to ask Mr. Cheese)--they
might have been good, and all have been happy. It’s quite awful to
hear how eloquent and earnest the Doctor is when he preaches against
Babylon. Mr. P. says he likes to have him “pitch into those old
sinners; it does ‘em so much good;” and then he looks quite
fierce. Mr. Cheese is going to read me a sermon he has written upon
the maidenhood of Lot’s wife. He says that he quotes a great deal of
poetry in it, and that I must _dam_ up the fount of my tears when
he reads it. It was an odd expression for a minister, wasn’t it? and I
was obliged to say, “Mr. Cheese, you forget yourself.” He replied,
“Dear Mrs. Potiphar, I will explain;” and he did so; so that I admired
him more than ever.
Dearest Caroline,--if you should only like him! He asked one day
about you; and when I told him what a dear, good girl you are, he
said: “And her father has worldly possessions, has he not?”
I answered, yes; that your father was very rich. Then he sighed, and
said that he could never marry an heiress unless he clearly saw it to
be his duty. Isn’t it a beautiful resignation?
I had no idea of saying so much about him, but you know it’s proper,
when writing a letter in Lent, to talk about religious matters. And, I
must confess, there is something comfortable in having to do with such
things. Don’t you feel better, when you’ve been dancing all the week,
and dining, and going to the opera, and flirting and flying around, to
go to church on Sundays? I do. It seems, somehow, as if we ought to
go. But I do wish Mrs. Croesus would sit somewhere else than just in
front of us, for her new bonnets and her splendid collars and capes
makes me quite miserable: and then she puts me out of conceit of my
things by talking about Lawson, or somebody, as I told you in the
beginning.
Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets. I had only two spoiled
at my ball, you know, and that was very little. One always expects to
sacrifice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing one’s friends.
That handsome one in the supper room was entirely ruined. Would you
believe that Mr. P. when he went downstairs the next morning, found
our Fred and his cousin hoeing it with their little toes? It was
entirely matted with preserves and things, and the boys said that they
were scraping it clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet was in
the gentlemen’s dressing-room where the punch-bowl was. Young Gauche
Boosey, a very gentlemanly fellow, you know, ran up after polking, and
was so confused with the light and heat that he went quite unsteadily,
and as he was trying to fill a glass with the silver ladle (which is
rather heavy), he somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and down
went the whole thing, table, bowl, punch, and Boosey, and ended my
poor carpet. I was sorry for that, and also for the bowl, which was a
very handsome one, imported from China by my father’s partner--a
wedding gift to me--and for the table, a delicate rosewood stand,
which was a work table of my sister Lucy’s--whom you never knew, and
who died long and long ago. However, I was amply repaid by Boosey’s
drollery afterward. He is a very witty young man, and when he got up
from the floor, saturated with punch (his clothes I mean), he looked
down at the carpet and said:
“Well, I’ve given that such a punch it will want some _lemon-aid_
to recover.”