Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.

Certainly – matrimony is an invention of – . Well, no matter who invented it. I’m going to try it. Where’s my blue coat with the bright, brass buttons? The woman has yet to be born who can resist that; and my buff vest and neck-tie, too: may I be shot if I don’t offer them both to the little Widow Pardiggle this very night. “Pardiggle!” Phœbus! what a name for such a rose-bud. I’ll re-christen her by the euphonious name of Smith. She’ll have me, of course. She wants a husband – I want a wife: there’s one point already in which we perfectly agree. I hate preliminaries. I suppose it is unnecessary for me to begin with the amatory alphabet. With a widow, I suppose you can skip the rudiments. Say what you’ve got to say in a fraction of a second. Women grow as mischievous as Satan if they think you are afraid of them. Do I look as if I were afraid? Just examine the growth of my whiskers. The Bearded Lady couldn’t hold a candle to them, (though I wonder she don’t to her own.) Afraid? h-m-m! I feel as if I could conquer Asia. What the mischief ails this cravat? It must be the cold that makes my hand tremble so: there – that’ll do: that’s quite an inspiration. Brummel himself couldn’t go beyond that. Now for the widow; bless her little round face! I’m immensely obliged to old Pardiggle for giving her a quit claim. I’ll make her as happy as a little robin. Do you think I’d bring a tear into her lovely blue eye? Do you think I’d sit after tea, with my back to her, and my feet upon the mantel, staring up chimney for three hours together? Do you think I’d leave her blessed little side, to dangle round oyster-saloons and theatres? Do I look like a man to let a woman flatten her pretty little nose against the window-pane night after night, trying to see me reel up street? No. Mr. and Mrs. Adam were not more beautified in their nuptial-bower, than I shall be with the Widow Pardiggle.

Refused by a widow! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well; there’s one comfort: nobody’ll ever believe it. She is not so very pretty after all: her eyes are too small, and her hands are rough and red-dy: – not so very ready either, confound the gipsy. What amazing pretty shoulders she has! Well, who cares?

“If she be not fair for me,What care I how fair she be?”

Ten to one, she’d have set up that wretch of a Pardiggle for my model. Who wants to be Pardiggle 2nd? I am glad she didn’t have me. I mean – I’m glad I didn’t have her!

LOVE AND DUTY

The moon looked down upon no fairer sight than Effie May, as she lay sleeping on her little couch, that fair summer night. So thought her mother, as she glided gently in, to give her a silent, good-night blessing. The bright flush of youth, and hope was on her cheek. Her long dark hair lay in masses about her neck and shoulders; a smile played upon the red lips, and the mother bent low to catch the indistinct murmur. She starts, at the whispered name, as if a serpent had stung her; and as the little snowy hand is tossed restlessly upon the coverlid, she sees, glittering in the moonbeams, on that childish finger, the golden signet of betrothal. Sleep sought in vain to woo the eyes of the mother that night. Reproachfully she asked herself, “How could I have been so blind? (but then Effie has seemed to me only a child!) But he! oh, no; the wine-cup will be my child’s rival; it must not be.” Effie was wilful, and Mrs. May knew she must be cautiously dealt with; but she knew, also, that no mother need despair, who possesses the affection of her child.

Effie’s violet eyes opened to greet the first ray of the morning sun, as he peeped into her room. She stood at the little mirror, gathering up, with those small hands, the rich tresses so impatient of confinement. How could she fail to know that she was fair? – she read it in every face she met; but there was one (and she was hastening to meet him) whose eye had noted, with a lover’s pride, every shining ringlet, and azure vein, and flitting blush; his words were soft and low, and skillfully chosen, and sweeter than music to her ear; and so she tied, with a careless grace, the little straw hat under her dimpled chin; and fresh, and sweet, and guileless, as the daisy that bent beneath her foot, she tripped lightly on to the old trysting place by the willows.

Stay! a hand is laid lightly upon her arm, and the pleading voice of a mother arrests that springing step.

“Effie dear, sit down with me on this old garden seat; give up your walk for this morning; I slept but indifferently last night, and morning finds me languid and depressed.”

A shadow passed over Effie’s face; the little cherry lips pouted, and a rebellious feeling was busy at her heart; but one look in her mother’s pale face decided her, and, untying the strings of her hat, she leaned her head caressingly upon her mother’s shoulder.

“You are ill, dear mother; you are troubled;” and she looked inquiringly up into her face.

“Listen to me, Effie, I have a story to tell you of myself: When I was about your age, I formed an acquaintance with a young man, by the name of Adolph. He had been but a short time in the village, but long enough to win the hearts of half the young girls, from their rustic admirers. Handsome, frank and social, he found himself everywhere a favorite. He would sit by me for hours, reading our favorite authors; and side by side, we rambled through all the lovely paths with which our village abounded. My parents knew nothing to his disadvantage, and were equally charmed as myself with his cultivated refinement of manner, and the indefinable interest with which he invested every topic, grave or gay, which it suited his mood to discuss. Before I knew it, my heart was no longer in my own keeping. One afternoon, he called to accompany me upon a little excursion, we had planned together. As he came up the gravel walk, I noticed that his fine hair was in disorder: a pang, keen as death, shot through my heart, when he approached me, with reeling, unsteady step, and stammering tongue. I could not speak. The chill of death gathered round my heart. I fainted. When I recovered, he was gone, and my mother’s face was bending over me, moist with tears. Her woman’s heart knew all that was passing in mine. She pressed her lips to my forehead, and only said, ‘God strengthen you to choose the right, my child.’

“I could not look upon her sorrowful eyes, or the pleading face of my gray-haired father, and trust myself again to the witchery of that voice and smile. A letter came to me; I dared not read it. (Alas! my heart pleaded too eloquently, even then, for his return.) I returned it unopened; my father and mother devoted themselves to lighten the load that lay upon my heart; but the perfume of a flower, a remembered strain of music, a struggling moonbeam, would bring back old memories, with a crushing bitterness that swept all before it for the moment. But my father’s aged hand lingered on my head with a blessing, and my mother’s voice had the sweetness of an angel’s, as it fell upon my ear!

“Time passed on, and I had conquered myself. Your father saw me, and proposed for my hand; my parents left me free to choose, and Effie dear, are we not happy?”

“Oh, mother,” said Effie, (then looking sorrowfully in her face,) “did you never see Adolph again?”

“Do you remember, my child, the summer evening we sat upon the piazza, when a dusty, travel-stained man came up the steps, and begged for ‘a supper?’ Do you recollect his bloated, disfigured face? Effie, that was Adolph!”

“Not that wreck of a man, mother?” said Effie, (covering her eyes with her hands, as if to shut him out from her sight.)

“Yes; that was all that remained of that glorious intellect, and that form made after God’s own image. I looked around upon my happy home, then upon your noble father – then – upon him, and,” (taking Effie’s little hand and pointing to the ring that encircled it,) “in your ear, my daughter, I now breathe my mother’s prayer for me – ‘God help you to choose the right!’”

The bright head of Effie sank upon her mother’s breast, and with a gush of tears she drew the golden circlet from her finger, and placed it in her mother’s hand.

“God bless you, my child,” said the happy mother, as she led her back to their quiet home.

A FALSE PROVERB

I wonder who but the “father of lies,” originated this proverb, “Help yourself and then everybody else will help you.” Is it not as true as the book of Job that it’s just driving the nails into your own coffin, to let anybody know you want help! Is not a “seedy” hat, a threadbare coat, or patched dress, an effectual shower-bath on old friendships? Have not people a mortal horror of a sad face and a pitiful story? Don’t they on hearing it, instinctively poke their purses into the farthest, most remote corner of their pockets? Don’t they rap their warm garments round their well-fed persons, and advise you, in a saintly tone, “to trust in Providence?” Are they not always “engaged” ever after, when you call to see them? Are they not near-sighted when you meet them in the street? – and don’t they turn short corners to get out of your way? “Help yourself,” – of course you will, (if you have any spirit;) – but when sickness comes, or dark days, and your wits and nerves are both exhausted, don’t place any dependence on this lying proverb! – or you will find yourself decidedly humbugged. And then, when your heart is so soft that anybody could knock you down with a feather, get into the darkest hole you can find, and cry it out! Then crawl out, bathe your eyes till they shine again, and if you have one nice garment left, out with it, put it on! turn your shawl on the brightest side; put your best and prettiest foot foremost; tie on your go-to-meetin’ bonnet, and smile under it, if it half kills you; and see how complaisant the world will be when – you ask nothing of it!

But if (as there are exceptions to all rules,) you should chance to stumble upon a true friend (when you can only render thanks as an equivalent for kindness) “make a note on’t,” as “Captain Cuttle” says, for it don’t happen but once in a life-time!

A MODEL HUSBAND

“Mrs. Perry, a young Bloomer, has eloped from Monson, Massachusetts, with Levins Clough. When her husband found she was determined to go, he gave her one hundred dollars to start with.”

Magnanimous Perry! Had I been your spouse, I should have handed that “one hundred dollar bill” to Mr. Levins Clough, as a healing plaster for his disappointed affections – encircled your neck with my repentant arms, and returned to your home. Then, I’d mend every rip in your coat, gloves, vest, pants, and stockings, from that remorseful hour, till the millennial day. I’d hand you your cigar-case and slippers, put away your cane, hang up your coat and hat, trim your beard and whiskers, and wink at your sherry cobblers, whisky punches, and mint juleps. I’d help you get a “ten strike” at ninepins. I’d give you a “night key,” and be perfectly oblivious what time in the small hours you tumbled into the front entry. I’d pet all your stupid relatives, and help your country friends to “beat down” the city shopkeepers. I’d frown at all offers of “pin money.” I’d let you “smoke” in my face till I was as brown as a herring, and my eyes looked as if they were bound with pink tape; and I’d invite that pretty widow Delilah Wilkins to dinner, and run out to do some shopping, and stay away till tea-time. Why! there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you – you might have knocked me down with a feather, after such a piece of magnanimity. That “Levins Clough” could stand no more chance than a woodpecker tapping at an iceberg.

HOW IS IT?

“Well, Susan, what do you think of married ladies being happy?” “Why I think there are more ain’t than is, than is that ain’t.”

Susan, I shall apply to the Legislature to have your name changed to “Sapphira.” You are an unprincipled female.

Just imagine yourself Mrs. Snip. It is a little prefix not to be sneezed at. It is only the privileged few, who can secure a pair of corduroys to mend, and trot by the side of; or a pair of coat-flaps alternately to darn, and hang on to, amid the vicissitudes of this patchwork existence.

Think of the high price of fuel, Susan, and the quantity it takes to warm a low-spirited, single woman; and then think of having all that found for you by your husband, and no extra charge for “gas.” Think how pleasant to go to the closet and find a great boot-jack on your best bonnet; or “to work your passage” to the looking-glass, every morning, through a sea of dickeys, vests, coats, continuations, and neck-ties; think of your nicely-polished toilette table spotted all over with shaving suds; think of your “Guide to Young Women,” used for a razor strap. Think of Mr. Snip’s lips being hermetically sealed, day after day, except to ask you “if the coal was out, or if his coat was mended.” Think of coming up from the kitchen, in a gasping state of exhaustion, after making a batch of his favorite pies, and finding five or six great dropsical bags disemboweled on your chamber floor, from the contents of which Mr. Snip had selected the “pieces” of your best silk gown, for “rags” to clean his gun with. Think of his taking a watch-guard you made him out of your hair, for a dog-collar! Think of your promenading the floor, night after night, with your fretful, ailing baby hushed up to your warm cheek, lest it should disturb your husband’s slumbers; and think of his coming home the next day, and telling you, when you were exhausted with your vigils, “that he had just met his old love, Lilly Grey, looking as fresh as a daisy, and that it was unaccountable how much older you looked than she, although you were both the same age.”

Think of all that, Susan.

A MORNING RAMBLE

What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened heart.

“This world is very lovely. Oh my God,I thank Thee, that I live.”

Clouds there are; but, oh, how much of sunshine! Sorrow there is; but, in every cup is mingled a drop of balm. Over our threshold the destroying angel passeth; yet, ere the rush of his dark wing sweepeth past, cometh the Healer.

– Here is a poor, blind man basking in the sunshine, silently appealing, with outstretched palm, to the passer-by. Through his thin, gray locks the wind plays lovingly. A smile beams on his withered face; for, though his eyes are rayless, he can feel that chill Winter has gone; and he knows that the flowers are blossoming, – for the sweet West wind cometh, God-commissioned, to waft him their fragrance. Some pedestrians gaze curiously at him: others, like the Levite, “pass by on the other side.” A woman approaches. She is plainly clad, and bears a basket on her arm. She has a good, kind, motherly face, as if she were hastening back to some humble home, made brighter and happier by her presence. Life is sweet to her. She catches sight of the poor old man; her eye falls upon the label affixed to his breast: “I am blind!” Oh, what if the brightness and beauty of this glad sunshine were all night, to her vailed lids? What if the dear home faces were forever shrouded from her yearning sight? What if she might never walk the sunny earth, without a guiding hand? She places her basket upon the sidewalk, and wipes away a tear: now she explores her time-worn pocket; finds the hardly-earned coin, and placing it in the palm of the old man, presses his hand lovingly, and is gone!

Poor Bartimeus! He may never see the honest face that bent so tenderly over him; but, to his heart’s core, he felt that kindly pressure, and the sunshine is all the brighter, and the breeze sweeter and fresher for that friendly grasp, and life is again bright to the poor blind man.

“Oh God! I thank Thee, that I live!”

How swiftly the ferry boat plows through the wave! How gleefully that little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business men, going back to their quiet homes; and pleasure-loving belles, returning from the city. Pacing up and down the deck, is a worn and weary woman, bearing in her arms a child, so emaciated, so attenuated, that but for the restless glance of its dark, sunken eyes, one would think it a little corpse. The mother has left her unhealthy garret in the noisome lane of the teeming city, and paid her last penny to the ferryman, that the health-laden sea breeze may fan the sick child’s temples. Tenderly she moves it from one shoulder to another. Now, she lays its little cheek to hers; now, she kisses the little slender fingers; but still the baby moans. The boat touches the pier. All are leaving, but the mother and child; the ferryman tells her to “go too.” She says timidly, “I want to return again – I live the other side – I came on board for the baby,” (pointing to the dying child.) Poor woman, she did not know that she could not go back without another fee, and she has not a penny. Loathsome as is her distant home, she must go back to it; but how?

One passenger beside herself still lingers listening. Dainty fingers drop a coin into the gruff ferryman’s hand, – then a handful into the weary, troubled mother’s. The sickly babe looks up and smiles at the chinking coin – the mother smiles, because the baby has smiled again – and then weeps because she knows not how to thank the lovely donor.

“Homeward bound.”

Over the blue waters, the golden sunset gleams; tinting the snowy, billowy foam with a thousand iris hues; while at the boat’s prow, stands the happy mother, wooing the cool sunset breeze, which kisses soothingly the sick infant’s temples.

“This earth is very lovely. Oh my God,I thank thee that I live!”

HOUR-GLASS THOUGHTS

The bride stands waiting at the altar; the corpse lies waiting for burial.

Love vainly implores of Death a reprieve; Despair vainly invokes his coming.

The starving wretch, who purloins a crust, trembles in the hall of Justice; liveried sin, unpunished, riots in high places.

Brothers, clad “in purple and fine linen, fare sumptuously every day;” Sisters, in linsey-woolsey, toil in garrets and shrink, trembling, from insults that no fraternal arm avenges.

The Village Squire sows, reaps and garners golden harvests; the Parish Clergyman sighs, as his casting vote cuts down his already meager salary.

The unpaid sempstress be-gems with tears the fairy festal robe; proud beauty floats in it through the ball-room, like a thing of air.

Church spires point, with tapering fingers, to the rich man’s heaven; Penitence, in rags, tearful and altarless, meekly stays its timid foot at the threshold.

Sneaking Vice, wrapped in the labeled cloak of Piety, finds “open sesame;” shrinking Conscientiousness, jostled rudely aside, weeps in secret its fancied unworthiness.

The Editor grows plethoric on the applause of the public and mammoth subscription lists; the unrecognized journalist, who, behind the scenes, mixes so deftly the newspaperial salad, lives on the smallest possible stipend, and looks like an undertaker’s walking advertisement.

The Wife, pure, patient, loving, trustful, sits singing, by the evening fire, repairing, with the busy fingers of economy, the time-worn garment; the Husband, favored by darkness, seeks, with stealthy steps and costly gifts, the syren of the hour, squandering hundreds to win a smile which is ever in the market for the highest bidder.

The polluted libertine, with foul lips, hackneyed heart, but polished manners, finds smiling welcome at the beauteous lips of Virtue; while, from the brow on which that libertine has ineffaceably written “Magdalen,” “beauteous Virtue” turns scornfully away.

Wives rant of their “Woman’s Rights,” in public; Husbands eat bad dinners and tend crying babies, at home.

Mothers toil in kitchens; Daughters lounge in parlors.

Fathers drive the plough; Sons drive tandem.

BOARDING HOUSE EXPERIENCE

Mr. Ralph Renoux lived by his wits: i. e., he kept a boarding-house; taking in any number of ladies and gentlemen, who, in the philanthropic language of his advertisement, “pined for the comforts and elegancies of a home.”

Mr. Renoux’s house was at the court-end of the city; his drawing-room was unexceptionably furnished, and himself, when “made up,” after ten o’clock in the morning, quite comme il faut. Mrs. Renoux never appeared; being, in the pathetic words of Mr. Renoux, “in a drooping, invalid state:” nevertheless, she might be seen, by the initiated, haunting the back stairs and entries, and with flying cap-strings, superintending kitchen-cabinet affairs.

Mrs. Renoux was the unhappy mother of three unmarried daughters, with red hair, and tempers to match; who languished over Byron, in elegant negligées, of a morning, till after the last masculine had departed; then, in curl-papers and calico long-shorts, performed, for the absentees, the duty of chambermaids; peeping into valises, trunks, bureaus, cigar boxes and coat pockets, and replenishing their perfumed bottles, from the gentlemen’s toilet stands, with the most perfect nonchalance. At dinner, they emerged from their chrysalis state, into the most butterfly gorgeousness, and exchanged the cracked treble, with which they had been ordering round the over-tasked maid-of-all-work, as they affectionately addressed “Papa.”

At the commencement of my story, Renoux was as happy as a kitten with its first mouse – having entrapped, with the bait of his alluring advertisement, a widow lady with one child. “The comforts and elegancies of a home;” – it was just what the lady was seeking: – how very fortunate!

“Certainly, Madam,” said Renoux, doubling himself into the form of the letter C. “I will serve your meals in your own room, if you prefer; but, really, Madam, I trust you will sometimes grace the drawing-room with your presence, as we have a very select little family of boarders. Do you choose to breakfast at eight, nine, or ten, Madam? Do you incline to Mocha? or prefer the leaves of the Celestial city? Are you fond of eggs, Madam? Would you prefer to dine at four, or five? Do you wish six courses, or more? There is the bell-rope, Madam. I trust you will use it unsparingly, should any thing be omitted or neglected. I am just on my way down town, and if you will favor me by saying what you would fancy for your dinner to-day, (the market is full of every thing – fish, flesh, fowl and game of all sorts,) you have only to express a wish, Madam, and the thing is here; I should be miserable, indeed, were the request of a lady to be disregarded in my house, and that lady deprived of her natural protector. Which is it, Madam, fish? flesh? or fowl? Any letters to send to the post-office, Madam? Any commands any where? I shall be too happy to be of service”; – and bending to the tips of his patent leather toes, Mr. Renoux, facing the lady, bowed obsequiously and Terpsichore-ally out of the apartment.

The dinner hour came. An Irish servant-girl came with it; and drawing out a table at an Irish angle upon the floor, tossed over it a tumbled table-cloth; placed upon it a castor, minus one leg, some cracked salt-cellars and tumblers; then laid some knives, left-handed, about the table; then, withdrew, to reappear with the result of Mr. Renoux’s laborious research “in the market filled with every thing,” viz: a consumptive looking mackerel, whose skin clung tenaciously to its back bone, and a Peter Schemel looking chicken, which, in its life-time, must have had a vivid recollection of Noah and the forty days’ shower. This was followed by a dessert of stale baker’s tarts, compounded of lard and dried apples; and twenty-four purple grapes.

The next morning, Mr. Renoux tip-toed in, smirking and bowing, as if the bill of fare had been the most sumptuous in the world, and expressed the greatest astonishment and indignation, that “the stupid servant had neglected bringing up the other courses which he had provided;” then he inquired “how the lady had rested;” and when she preferred a request for another pillow, (there being only six feathers in the one she had,) he assured her that it should be in her apartment in less than one hour. A fortnight after, he expressed the most intense disgust, that “the rascally upholsterer” had not yet sent what he had never ordered. Each morning, Mr. Renoux presented himself, at a certain hour, behind a very stiff dickey, and offered the lady the morning papers. Seating himself on the sofa, he would remark that – it was a very fine day, and that affairs in France appeared to be in statu quo; or, that the Czar had ordered his generals to occupy the principalities; that Gorchakoff was preparing to cross the Danube; that the Sultan had dispatched Omar Pasha to the frontiers; that the latter gentleman had presented his card to Gorchakoff, on the point of a yataghan, which courtesy would probably lead to – something else!