To this statement, Grace did not reply. She only began nervously sweeping together the débris of leaves and flowers which encumbered the table, on which the newly arranged flower-vases were standing. Then she arranged the vases with great precision on the mantel-shelf. As she was doing it, so many memories rushed over her of that room and her mother, and the happy, peaceful family life that had hitherto been led there, that she quite broke down; and, sitting down in the chair, she covered her face, and went off in a good, hearty crying spell.
Poor John was inexpressibly shocked. He loved and revered his sister beyond any thing in the world; and it occurred to him, in a dim wise, that to be suddenly dispossessed and shut out in the cold, when one has hitherto been the first object of affection, is, to make the best of it, a real and sore trial.
But Grace soon recovered herself, and rose up smiling through her tears. What a fool I am making of myself! she said. The fact is, John, I am only a little nervous. You mustnt mind it. You know, she said, laughing, we old maids are like cats,we find it hard to be put out of our old routine. I dare say we shall all of us be happier in the end for this, and I shall try to do all I can to make it so. Perhaps, John, Id better take that little house of mine on Elm Street, and set up my tent in it, and take all the old furniture and old pictures, and old-time things. Youll be wanting to modernize and make over this house, you know, to suit a young wife.
Nonsense, Gracie; no such thing! said John. Do you suppose I want to leave all the past associations of my life, and strip my home bare of all pleasant memorials, because I bring a little wife here? Why, the very idea of a wife is somebody to sympathize in your tastes; and Lillie will love and appreciate all these dear old things as you and I do. She has such a sympathetic heart! If you want to make me happy, Gracie, stay here, and let us live, as near as may be, as before.
So we will, John, said Grace, so cheerfully that John considered the whole matter as settled, and rushed upstairs to write his daily letter to Lillie.
CHAPTER IV
PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGEMISS LILLIE ELLIS was sitting upstairs in her virgin bower, which was now converted into a tumultuous, seething caldron of millinery and mantua-making, such as usually precedes a wedding. To be sure, orders had been forthwith despatched to Paris for the bridal regimentals, and for a good part of the trousseau; but that did not seem in the least to stand in the way of the time-honored confusion of sewing preparations at home, which is supposed to waste the strength and exhaust the health of every bride elect.
Whether young women, while disengaged, do not have proper under-clothing, or whether they contemplate marriage as an awful gulf which swallows up all future possibilities of replenishing a wardrobe,certain it is that no sooner is a girl engaged to be married than there is a blind and distracting rush and pressure and haste to make up for her immediately a stock of articles, which, up to that hour, she has managed to live very comfortably and respectably without. It is astonishing to behold the number of inexpressible things with French names which unmarried young ladies never think of wanting, but which there is a desperate push to supply, and have ranged in order, the moment the matrimonial state is in contemplation.
Therefore it was that the virgin bower of Lillie was knee-deep in a tangled mass of stuffs of various hues and description; that the sharp sound of tearing off breadths resounded there; that Miss Clippins and Miss Snippings and Miss Nippins were sewing there day and night; that a sewing-machine was busily rattling in mammas room; and that there were all sorts of pinking and quilling, and braiding and hemming, and whipping and ruffling, and over-sewing and cat-stitching and hem-stitching, and other female mysteries, going on.
As for Lillie, she lay in a loose negligé on the bed, ready every five minutes to be called up to have something measured, or tried on, or fitted; and to be consulted whether there should be fifteen or sixteen tucks and then an insertion, or sixteen tucks and a series of puffs. Her labors wore upon her; and it was smilingly observed by Miss Clippins across to Miss Nippins, that Miss Lillie was beginning to show her engagement bones. In the midst of these preoccupations, a letter was handed to her by the giggling chambermaid. It was a thick letter, directed in a bold honest hand. Miss Lillie took it with a languid little yawn, finished the last sentences in a chapter of the novel she was reading, and then leisurely broke the seal and glanced it over. It was the one that the enraptured John had spent his morning in writing.
Miss Ellis, now, if youll try on this jacketoh! I beg your pardon, said Miss Clippins, observing the letter, we can wait, of course; and then all three laughed as if something very pleasant was in their minds.
No, said Lillie, giving the letter a toss; itll keep; and she stood up to have a jaunty little blue jacket, with its pluffy bordering of swans down, fitted upon her.
Its too bad, now, to take you from your letter, said Miss Clippins, with a sly nod.
Im sure you take it philosophically, said Miss Nippins, with a giggle.
Why shouldnt I? said the divine Lillie. I get one every day; and its all the old story. Ive heard it ever since I was born.
Well, now, to be sure you have. Lets see, said Miss Clippins, this is the seventy-fourth or seventy-fifth offer, was it?
Oh, you must ask mamma! she keeps the lists: Im sure I dont trouble my head, said the little beauty; and she looked so natty and jaunty when she said it, just arching her queenly white neck, and making soft, downy dimples in her cheeks as she gave her fresh little childlike laugh; turning round and round before the looking-glass, and issuing her orders for the fitting of the jacket with a precision and real interest which showed that there were things in the world which didnt become old stories, even if one had been used to them ever since one was born.
Lillie never was caught napping when the point in question was the fit of her clothes.
When released from the little blue jacket, there was a rose-colored morning-dress to be tried on, and a grave discussion as to whether the honiton lace was to be set on plain or frilled.
So important was this case, that mamma was summoned from the sewing-machine to give her opinion. Mrs. Ellis was a fat, fair, rosy matron of most undisturbed conscience and digestion, whose main business in life had always been to see to her childrens clothes. She had brought up Lillie with faithful and religious zeal; that is to say, she had always ruffled her underclothes with her own hands, and darned her stockings, sick or well; and also, as before intimated, kept a list of her offers, which she was ready in confidential moments to tell off to any of her acquaintance. The question of ruffled or plain honiton was of such vital importance, that the whole four took some time in considering it in its various points of view.
Sarah Selfridge had hers ruffled, said Lillie.
And the effect was perfectly sweet, said Miss Clippins.
Perhaps, Lillie, you had better have it ruffled, said mamma.
But three rows laid on plain has such a lovely effect, said Miss Nippins.
Perhaps, then, she had better have three rows laid on plain, said mamma.
Or she might have one row ruffled on the edge, with three rows laid on plain, with a satin fold, said Miss Clippins. Thats the way I fixed Miss Elliotts.
Or she might have one row ruffled on the edge, with three rows laid on plain, with a satin fold, said Miss Clippins. Thats the way I fixed Miss Elliotts.
That would be a nice way, said mamma. Perhaps, Lillie, youd better have it so.
Oh! come now, all of you, just hush, said Lillie. I know just how I want it done.
The words may sound a little rude and dictatorial; but Lillie had the advantage of always looking so pretty, and saying dictatorial things in such a sweet voice, that everybody was delighted with them; and she took the matter of arranging the trimming in hand with a clearness of head which showed that it was a subject to which she had given mature consideration. Mrs. Ellis shook her fat sides with a comfortable motherly chuckle.
Lillie always did know exactly what she wanted: shes a smart little thing.
And, when all the trying on and arranging of folds and frills and pinks and bows was over, Lillie threw herself comfortably upon the bed, to finish her letter.
Shrewd Miss Clippins detected the yawn with which she laid down the missive.
Seems to me your letters dont meet a very warm reception, she said.
Well! every day, and such long ones! Lillie answered, turning over the pages. See there, she went on, opening a drawer, What a heap of them! I cant see, for my part, what any one can want to write a letter every day to anybody for. John is such a goose about me.
Hell get over it after hes been married six months, said Miss Clippins, nodding her head with the air of a woman that has seen life.
Im sure I shant care, said Lillie, with a toss of her pretty head. Its borous any way.
Our readers may perhaps imagine, from the story thus far, that our little Lillie is by no means the person, in reality, that John supposes her to be, when he sits thinking of her with such devotion, and writing her such long, borous letters.
She is not. John is in love not with the actual Lillie Ellis, but with that ideal personage who looks like his mothers picture, and is the embodiment of all his mothers virtues. The feeling, as it exists in Johns mind, is not only a most respectable, but in fact a truly divine one, and one that no mortal man ought to be ashamed of. The love that quickens all the nature, that makes a man twice manly, and makes him aspire to all that is high, pure, sweet, and religious,is a feeling so sacred, that no unworthiness in its object can make it any less beautiful. More often than not it is spent on an utter vacancy. Men and women both pass through this divine initiation,this sacred inspiration of our nature,and find, when they have come into the innermost shrine, where the divinity ought to be, that there is no god or goddess there; nothing but the cold black ashes of commonplace vulgarity and selfishness. Both of them, when the grand discovery has been made, do well to fold their robes decently about them, and make the best of the matter. If they cannot love, they can at least be friendly. They can tolerate, as philosophers; pity, as Christians; and, finding just where and how the burden of an ill-assorted union galls the least, can then and there strap it on their backs, and walk on, not only without complaint, but sometimes in a cheerful and hilarious spirit.
Not a word of all this thinks our friend John, as he sits longing, aspiring, and pouring out his heart, day after day, in letters that interrupt Lillie in the all-important responsibility of getting her wardrobe fitted.
Shall we think this smooth little fair-skinned Lillie is a cold-hearted monster, because her heart does not beat faster at these letters which she does not understand, and which strike her as unnecessarily prolix and prosy? Why should John insist on telling her his feelings and opinions on a vast variety of subjects that she does not care a button for? She doesnt know any thing about ritualism and anti-ritualism; and, whats more, she doesnt care. She hates to hear so much about religion. She thinks its pokey. John may go to any church he pleases, for all her. As to all that about his favorite poems, she dont like poetry,never could,dont see any sense in it; and John will be quoting ever so much in his letters. Then, as to the love parts,it may be all quite new and exciting to John; but she has, as she said, heard that story over and over again, till it strikes her as quite a matter of course. Without doubt the whole world is a desert where she is not: the thing has been asserted, over and over, by so many gentlemen of credible character for truth and veracity, that she is forced to believe it; and she cannot see why John is particularly to be pitied on this account. He is in no more desperate state about her than the rest of them; and secretly Lillie has as little pity for lovers pangs as a nice little white cat has for mice. They amuse her; they are her appropriate recreation; and she pats and plays with each mouse in succession, without any comprehension that it may be a serious thing for him.
When Lillie was a little girl, eight years old, she used to sell her kisses through the slats of the fence for papers of candy, and thus early acquired the idea that her charms were a capital to be employed in trading for the good things of life. She had the misfortuneand a great one it isto have been singularly beautiful from the cradle, and so was praised and exclaimed over and caressed as she walked through the streets. She was sent for, far and near; borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled Lillies chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious parents. Lillie had not these. Her father was a shrewd grocer, and nothing more; and her mother was a competent cook and seamstress. While he traded in sugar and salt, and she made pickles and embroidered under-linen, the pretty Lillie was educated as pleased Heaven.
Pretty girls, unless they have wise mothers, are more educated by the opposite sex than by their own. Put them where you will, there is always some man busying himself in their instruction; and the burden of masculine teaching is generally about the same, and might be stereotyped as follows: You dont need to be or do any thing. Your business in life is to look pretty, and amuse us. You dont need to study: you know all by nature that a woman need to know. You are, by virtue of being a pretty woman, superior to any thing we can teach you; and we wouldnt, for the world, have you any thing but what you are. When Lillie went to school, this was what her masters whispered in her ear as they did her sums for her, and helped her through her lessons and exercises, and looked into her eyes. This was what her young gentlemen friends, themselves delving in Latin and Greek and mathematics, told her, when they came to recreate from their severer studies in her smile. Men are held to account for talking sense. Pretty women are told that lively nonsense is their best sense. Now and then, an admirer bolder than the rest ventured to take Lillies education more earnestly in hand, and recommended to her just a little reading,enough to enable her to carry on conversation, and appear to know something of the ordinary topics discussed in society,but informed her, by the by, that there was no sort of need of being either profound or accurate in these matters, as the mistakes of a pretty woman had a grace of their own.