"Hold on, my friend, hold on! I really can't stand this any longer.
You greatly underrate fashionable ladies. They seem to you silly,
false and unworthy; but many of them are not a hundredth part as
false and silly as their dress and conversation. Many of these
ladies who now seem so preposterous and absurd, will, when married,
and fairly settled down, cast off this burlesque, and become sober,
solid women."
"But, as they all dress and talk exactly alike, how am I to tell
which is which and who is who?"
"Well, well, I must leave you; I have an engagement."
On my rounds I kept thinking what a perfect couple Miss Dinsmore and
Mr. Finlay would make! I determined, without saying a word to
either, to give them an opportunity to see each other. Fortunately
for my plan, Miss Dinsmore had just begun to make her rounds early
in the morning, and on foot. I advised Mr. Finlay to take an early
ride, and that he might have company, I invited him to go with me in
my early morning round. I took him through Miss Dinsmore's parish,
and, as I had calculated, we met her with a basket on her arm. I
drew up to make some inquiries about several poor and sick ones, for
whom we were both interested. Just before we started on, I said,
"Mr. Finlay, this is my friend, Miss Dinsmore." Five mornings in
succession we rode in the same direction, and every morning but one
we met Miss Dinsmore. I was pleased to notice that, as we approached
one particular neighborhood, my friend became a little wandering in
his conversation, and used his eyes with a marked earnestness.
It struck me as very curious that, although Finlay protracted the
conversation more and more each morning on meeting Miss Dinsmore,
making many inquiries about her proteges, and showing a singular
interest in her work, he did not allude to her during the subsequent
part of the ride, nor at any other time.
After a week or so, he said, when I called for him, that he was
getting so well, he thought it his duty to attend to business. The
very next day, when calling upon the poor widow, to whom I had first
sent Miss Dinsmore, she asked, as I was about to leave,--
"Doctor, who was that gentleman that came here with Miss Swan
yesterday? He seemed a very nice man." (I will here state that, to
save the feelings of her fashionable friends, Miss Dinsmore
introduced herself as Miss Swan to all her beneficiaries.)
"What kind of a looking man was he?" I asked.
"A large, tall man, with a black beard, and he carried his right
hand in a sling. He carried Miss Swan's basket in his other hand."
"Well," I said, "I suppose it's some friend of hers."
"Oh!" exclaimed the poor widow, "I trembled for fear that it might
be some one who was going to marry her, and take her away from me.
If that dear, blessed angel should be taken away from me, I am sure
I should die."
"Never you fear; I think I know all about him."
So, so, Mr. Charles Finlay, Esq., you are knocking all my plans into
"pi." I had got it fixed in my mind that I should invite you to
spend an evening at my house, and then I would invite Miss Dinsmore
to drop in on some pretence, and so on, and so on, and in less than
half a year, I should have you head over ears in love, and then all
your lives you would think of me as the occasion of all your
happiness; and here you are, just off a sick bed, with only one
hand, carrying round a big provision basket before breakfast, at
Miss Dinsmore's very heels. So, so, Mr. Charles Finlay, Esq.
Little Charley Finlay, during an attack of scarlatina, had a
convulsion. The fond parents urged me, as a special favor, to remain
during the night with them. As there was nothing to do but to wait
while the little one slept, we fell into a pleasant talk about old
times; and then I told them the part which I had played in their
first acquaintance, and the hearty laughs I had had over that tall,
black-whiskered porter, with one arm in a sling, following a quiet
lady, with a basket of provisions. And, although they had been so
very quiet about it all, and, although said porter had followed said
quiet lady about among the hovels every day for two or three months,
and, although both lady and porter saw me frequently, and always
kept profoundly mum about things, that I presumed I had heard all
about their doings and sayings among their parishoners, almost every
day, from the time I took the porter in my carriage down Marble
Street, one fine morning, on purpose to get him a situation, up to
the time when said black-whiskered porter came into my office one
evening, and revealed unto me as follows--
"My friend, do you remember that Miss Dinsmore, to whom you
introduced me one morning, down in the mud in Marble Street?"
"Let me see; was she a tall blonde?"
"Yes, that's the one."
"Oh, certainly, I remember her very well. Where is she now, I
wonder? (I had had an interview with her that very afternoon.)
And then the tall porter told me, with glistening eyes, that I would
receive, the very next day, an invitation card or cards inviting me
to attend, etc., etc. He was delighted at my surprise and
astonishment.
Notwithstanding the occasion of our long night-watch, the mother
declared she would, as soon as Charley was well, box my ears, while
she did not forget, the next time she had occasion to rise to attend
to our little patient, to take a seat by the side of her noble
husband, and assure him, by a fond pressure of the hand, that the
memories were all very precious to her.
Moral. Young women who desire the company and assistance of black-
whiskered porters, should go down Marble Street early in the
morning, with a basket of provisions for the widow Ramsey.