The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how much
has happened since these events I was describing. Those two young
people would insist on having their own way about their own affairs,
notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted that
the age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young lady
should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long before
Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland engineer,
directing some of the vast constructions of his native State,——where he
was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline that famous Russian
offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in a few years. Iris does
not write verse often, nowadays, but she sometimes draws. The last sketch
of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of two children, a boy and
girl, the youngest holding a silver goblet, like the one she held that
evening when I——I was so struck with her statue-like beauty. If in the
later summer months you find the grass marked with footsteps around a
grave on Copp’s Hill, and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that
Iris is here on her annual visit to the home of her childhood and that
excellent lady whose only fault was, that Nature had written out her list
of virtues on ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out the lines.
One thing more I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, I was
attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat
youthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a stout
baby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone seats,
with an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at once
recognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He was
delighted to see me, introduced me to “Madam,” and would have the lusty
infant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at.
Now, then,——he said to the two-year-old,——show the gentleman how you
hit from the shoulder.——Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist
straight into my eye, to his father’s intense satisfaction.
Fust-rate little chap,——said the papa.——Chip of the old block. Regl’r
little Johnny, you know.
I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and
pushing about one of “them little articles” he had seemed to want so
much, that I took my “punishment” at the hands of the infant pugilist
with great equanimity.——And how is the old boarding-house? I asked.
A 1, he answered. Painted and papered as good as new. Gahs in all the
rooms up to the sky-parlors. Old woman’s layin’ up money, they say. Means
to send Ben Franklin to college.——Just then the first bell rang for
church, and my friend, who, I understand, has become a most exemplary
member of society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin’, and
told the young one to “shake dada,” which he did with his closed fist,
in a somewhat menacing manner. And so the young man John, as we used to
call him, took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed the small
pugilist before him homewards, followed, in a somewhat leisurely way, by
his pleasant-looking lady-companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile after
him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]