CHAPTER XII.
MISS PRISSY.
WILL our little Mary really fall in love with the Doctor?—The questionreaches us in anxious tones from all the circle of our readers; andwhat especially shocks us is, that grave doctors of divinity, andserious, stocking-knitting matrons, seem to be the class who areparticularly set against the success of our excellent orthodox hero,and bent on reminding us of the claims of that unregenerate James, whomwe have sent to sea on purpose that our heroine may recover herself ofthat foolish partiality for him which all the Christian world seemsbent on perpetuating.
‘Now, really,’ says the Rev. Mrs. Q., looking up from her bundle ofSewing-Society work, ‘you are _not_ going to let Mary marry the Doctor?’
My dear Madam, is not that just what you did, yourself, after havingturned off three or four fascinating young sinners as good as James anyday? Don’t make us believe that you are sorry for it now!
‘Is it possible,’ says Dr. Theophrastus, who is himself a stanchHopkinsian divine, and who is at present recovering from his last grandeffort on Natural and Moral Ability,—‘is it possible that you are goingto let Mary forget that poor young man and marry Dr. H.? That willnever do in the world!’
Dear Doctor, consider what would have become of you, if some lady at acertain time had not had the sense and discernment to fall in love withthe _man_ who came to her disguised as a theologian.
‘But he’s so old!’ says Aunt Maria.
Not at all. Old? What do you mean? Forty is the very season ofripeness,—the very meridian of manly lustre and splendour.
‘But he wears a wig.’
My dear Madam, so did Sir Charles Grandison, and Lovelace, and all theother fine fellows of those days: the wig was the distinguishing markof a gentleman.
No,—spite of all you may say and declare, we do insist that our Doctoris a very proper and probable subject for a young lady to fall in lovewith.
If women have one weakness more marked than another, it is towardsveneration. They are born worshippers,—makers of silver shrines forsome divinity or other, which, of course, they always think fellstraight down from heaven.
The first step towards their falling in love with an ordinary mortalis generally to dress him out with all manner of real or fanciedsuperiority; and having made him up, they worship him.
Now a truly great man, a man really grand and noble in heart andintellect, has this advantage with women, that he is an idol ready-madeto hand; and so that very painstaking and ingenious sex have lesslabour in getting him up, and can be ready to worship him on shorternotice.
In particular is this the case where a sacred profession and a moralsupremacy are added to the intellectual. Just think of the career ofcelebrated preachers and divines in all ages. Have they not stood likethe image that ‘Nebuchadnezzar the king set up,’ and all womankind,coquettes and flirts not excepted, been ready to fall down and worship,even before the sound of cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, and so forth? Isnot the faithful Paula, with her beautiful face, prostrate in reverencebefore poor, old, lean, haggard, dying St. Jerome, in the most splendidpainting of the world, an emblem and sign of woman’s eternal power ofself-sacrifice to what she deems noblest in man? Does not old RichardBaxter tell us, with delightful single-heartedness, how his wife fellin love with him first, spite of his long, pale face,—and how sheconfessed, dear soul, after many years of married life, that she hadfound him _less_ sour and bitter than she had expected?
The fact is, women are burdened with fealty, faith, reverence, morethan they know what to do with; they stand like a hedge of sweet-peas,throwing out fluttering tendrils everywhere for something high andstrong to climb by,—and when they find it, be it ever so rough in thebark, they catch upon it. And instances are not wanting of those whohave turned away from the flattery of admirers to prostrate themselvesat the feet of a genuine hero who never wooed them except by heroicdeeds and the rhetoric of a noble life.
Never was there a distinguished man whose greatness could sustain thetest of minute domestic inspection better than our Doctor. Strongin a single-hearted humility, a perfect unconsciousness of self, anhonest and sincere absorption in high and holy themes and objects,there was in him what we so seldom see,—a perfect logic of life; hisminutest deeds were the true results of his sublimest principles.His whole nature, moral, physical, and intellectual, was simple,pure, and cleanly. He was temperate as an anchorite in all mattersof living,—avoiding, from a healthy instinct, all those intoxicatingstimuli then common among the clergy. In his early youth, indeed, hehad formed an attachment to the almost universal clerical pipe,—but,observing a delicate woman once nauseated by coming into the atmospherewhich he and his brethren had polluted, he set himself gravely toreflect that that which could so offend a woman must needs be uncomelyand unworthy a Christian man; wherefore he laid his pipe on themantelpiece, and never afterwards resumed the indulgence.
In all his relations with womanhood he was delicate and reverential,forming his manners by that old precept, ‘The elder women entreatas mothers, the younger as sisters,’—which rule, short and simpleas it is, is nevertheless the most perfect _résumé_ of all truegentlemanliness. Then, as for person, the Doctor was not handsome, tobe sure; but he was what sometimes serves with woman better,—majesticand manly, and, when animated by thought and feeling, having even acommanding grandeur of mien. Add to all this, that our valiant hero isnow on the straight road to bring him into that situation most likelyto engage the warm partisanship of a true woman,—namely, that of a manunjustly abused for right-doing,—and one may see that it is ten to oneour Mary may fall in love with him yet, before she knows it.
If it were not for this mysterious selfness-and-sameness which makesthis wild, wandering, uncanonical sailor, James Marvyn, so intimateand internal,—if his thread were not knit up with the thread of herlife,—were it not for the old habit of feeling for him, thinking forhim, praying for him, hoping for him, fearing for him, which—woe isus!—is the unfortunate habit of womankind,—if it were not for thatfatal something which neither judgment, nor wishes, nor reason, norcommon sense shows any great skill in unravelling,—we are quitesure that Mary would be in love with the Doctor within the next sixmonths; as it is, we leave you all to infer from your own heart andconsciousness what his chances are.
A new sort of scene is about to open on our heroine, and we shall showher to you, for an evening at least, in new associations, and with adifferent background from that homely and rural one in which she hasfluttered as a white dove amid leafy and congenial surroundings.
As we have before intimated, Newport presented a _résumé_ of manydifferent phases of society, all brought upon a social level by thethen universally admitted principle of equality.
There were scattered about in the settlement lordly mansions, whoseowners rolled in emblazoned carriages, and whose wide halls were thescenes of a showy and almost princely hospitality. By her husband’sside, Mrs. Katy Scudder was allied to one of these families of wealthyplanters, and often recognized the connection with a quiet undertoneof satisfaction, as a dignified and self-respecting woman should. Sheliked, once in a while, quietly to let people know, that, although theylived in the plain little cottage and made no pretensions, yet they hadgood blood in their veins,—that Mr. Scudder’s mother was a Wilcox, andthat the Wilcoxes were, she supposed, as high as anybody,—generallyending the remark with the observation, that ‘all these things, to besure, were matters of small consequence, since at last it would be offar more importance to have been a true Christian than to have beenconnected with the highest families of the land.’
Nevertheless, Mrs. Scudder was not a little pleased to have in herpossession a card of invitation to a splendid wedding-party that wasgoing to be given on Friday at the Wilcox Manor. She thought it a verybecoming mark of respect to the deceased Mr. Scudder that his widowand daughter should be brought to mind,—so becoming and praiseworthy,in fact, that, ‘though an old woman,’ as she said, with a complacentstraightening of
her tall, lithe figure, she really thought she mustmake an effort to go.
Accordingly, early one morning, after all domestic duties had beenfulfilled, and the clock, loudly ticking through the empty rooms, toldthat all needful bustle had died down to silence, Mrs. Katy, Mary, andMiss Prissy Diamond, the dressmaker, might have been observed sittingin solemn senate around the camphor-wood trunk, before spoken of, andwhich exhaled vague foreign and Indian perfumes of silk and sandalwood.
You may have heard of dignitaries, my good reader,—but, I assure you,you know very little of a situation of trust or importance compared tothat of _the_ dressmaker in a small New England town.
What important interests does she hold in her hands! How is shebesieged, courted, deferred to! Three months beforehand, all her daysand nights are spoken for; and the simple statement, that _only_ onthat day you can have Miss Clippers, is of itself an apology for anyomission of attention elsewhere,—it strikes home at once to the deepestconsciousness of every woman, married or single. How thoughtfully iseverything arranged, weeks beforehand, for the golden, important seasonwhen Miss Clippers can come! On that day, there is to be no extrasweeping, dusting, cleaning, cooking, no visiting, no receiving, noreading or writing, but all with one heart and soul are to wait uponher, intent to forward the great work which she graciously affordsa day’s leisure to direct. Seated in her chair of state, with herwell-worn cushion bristling with pins and needles at her side, herready roll of patterns and her scissors, she hears, judges, and decides_ex cathedrâ_ on the possible or not possible, in that importantart on which depends the right presentation of the floral part ofNature’s great horticultural show. She alone is competent to saywhether there is any available remedy for the stained breadth in Jane’sdress—whether the fatal spot by any magical hocus-pocus can be cut outfrom the fulness, or turned up and smothered from view in the gathers,or concealed by some new fashion of trimming falling with generousappropriateness exactly across the fatal weak point. She can tell youwhether that remnant of velvet will make you a basque,—whether mamma’sold silk can reappear in juvenile grace for Miss Lucy. What marvelsfollow her, wherever she goes! What wonderful results does she contrivefrom the most unlikely materials, as everybody after her departurewonders to see old things become so much better than new!
Among the most influential and happy of her class was Miss PrissyDiamond,—a little, dapper, doll-like body, quick in her motions andnimble in her tongue, whose delicate complexion, flaxen curls, merryflow of spirits, and ready abundance of gaiety, song, and story, apartfrom her professional accomplishments, made her a welcome guest inevery family in the neighbourhood. Miss Prissy laughingly boasted beingpast forty, sure that the avowal would always draw down on her quitea storm of compliments, on the freshness of her sweet-pea complexionand the brightness of her merry blue eyes. She was well pleased tohear dawning girls wondering why with so many advantages she had nevermarried. At such remarks, Miss Prissy always laughed loudly, anddeclared that she had always had such a string of engagements withthe women that she never found half an hour to listen to what any_man_ living would say to her, supposing she could stop to hear him.‘Besides, if I were to get married, nobody else could,’ she would say.‘What would become of all the wedding-clothes for everybody else?’ Butsometimes, when Miss Prissy felt extremely gracious, she would drawout of her little chest, just the faintest tip-end of a sigh, andtell some young lady, in a confidential undertone, that one of thesedays she would tell her something,—and then there would come a wink ofher blue eyes, and a fluttering of the pink ribbons in her cap, quitestimulating to youthful inquisitiveness, though we have never been ableto learn by any of our antiquarian researches that the expectationsthus excited were ever gratified.
In her professional prowess she felt a pardonable pride. What featscould she relate of wonderful dresses got out of impossibly smallpatterns of silk! what marvels of silks turned that could not betold from new! what reclaimings of waists that other dressmakers hadhopelessly spoiled! Had not Mrs. General Wilcox once been obliged tocall in her aid on a dress sent to her from Paris? and did not MissPrissy work three days and nights on that dress, and make every stitchof that trimming over with her own hands, before it was fit to be seen?And when Mrs. Governor Dexter’s best silver-gray brocade was spoiled byMiss Pimlico, and there wasn’t another scrap to pattern it with, didn’tshe make a new waist out of the cape, and piece one of the sleevestwenty-nine times, and yet nobody would ever have known that there wasa joining in it?
In fact, though Miss Prissy enjoyed the fair average plain-sailing ofher work, she might be said to _revel_ in difficulties. A full patternwith trimming, all ample and ready, awoke a moderate enjoyment; but theresurrection of anything half-worn or imperfectly made, the brilliantsuccess, when, after turning, twisting, piecing, contriving, and,by unheard-of inventions of trimming, a dress faded and defaced wasrestored to more than pristine splendour,—_that_ was a triumph worthenjoying.
It was true, Miss Prissy, like most of her nomadic compeers,was a little given to gossip; but, after all, it was innocentgossip,—not a bit of malice in it; it was only all the particularsabout Mrs. Thus-and-So’s wardrobe,—all the statistics of Mrs.That-and-T’other’s china-closet,—all the minute items of MissSimpkins’s wedding-clothes,—and how her mother cried the morning of thewedding, and said that she didn’t know anything how she could spareLouisa Jane, only that Edward was such a good boy that she felt shecould love him like an own son,—and what a providence it seemed thatthe very ring that was put into the bride-loaf was one that he gave herwhen he first went to sea, when she wouldn’t be engaged to him becauseshe thought she loved Thomas Strickland better, but that was onlybecause she hadn’t found him out, you know,—and so forth, and so forth.Sometimes, too, her narrations assumed a solemn cast, and brought tomind the hush of funerals, and told of words spoken in faint whispers,when hands were clasped for the last time,—and of utterances crushedout from hearts, when the hammer of a great sorrow strikes out sparksof the Divine, even from common stone; and there would be real tears inthe little blue eyes, and the pink bows would flutter tremulously, likethe last three leaves on a bare scarlet maple in autumn. In fact, dearreader, _gossip_, like romance, has its noble side to it. How can youlove your neighbour as yourself, and not feel a little curiosity as tohow he fares, what he wears, where he goes, and how he takes the greatlife tragi-comedy, at which you and he are both more than spectators?Show me a person who lives in a country-village absolutely withoutcuriosity or interest on these subjects, and I will show you a cold,fat oyster, to whom the tide-mud of propriety is the whole of existence.
As one of our esteemed collaborators remarks,—‘A dull town, where thereis neither theatre nor circus nor opera, must have some excitement,and the real tragedy and comedy of life _must_ come in place of thesecond-hand. Hence the noted gossiping propensities of country-places,which, so long as they are not poisoned by envy or ill-will, have arespectable and picturesque side to them,—an undoubted leave to be, asprobably has almost everything, which obstinately and always insists onbeing, except sin!’
As it is, it must be confessed that the arrival of Miss Prissy in afamily was much like the setting up of a domestic showcase, throughwhich you could look into all the families in the neighbourhood, andsee the never-ending drama of life,—births, marriages, deaths,—joyof new-made mothers, whose babes weighed just eight pounds and threequarters, and had hair that would part with a comb,—and tears ofRachels who wept for their children, and would not be comforted becausethey were not. Was there a tragedy, a mystery, in all Newport, whosesecret closet had not been unlocked by Miss Prissy? She thought not;and you always wondered, with an uncertain curiosity, what those thingsmight be over which she gravely shook her head, declaring, with such alook,—‘Oh, if you only _could_ know!’—and ending with a general sighand lamentation, like the confidential chorus of a Greek tragedy.
We have been thus minute in sketching Miss Prissy’s portrait, becausewe rather like her.
She has great power, we admit; and were she asour-faced, angular, energetic body, with a heart whose secretionshad all become acrid by disappointment and dyspepsia, she might be afearful gnome, against whose family visitations one ought to watchand pray. As it was, she came into the house rather like one of thosebreezy days of spring, which burst all the blossoms, set all the doorsand windows open, make the hens cackle and the turtles peep,—filling asolemn Puritan dwelling with as much bustle and chatter as if a box ofmartins were setting up housekeeping in it.
Let us now introduce you to the sanctuary of Mrs. Scudder’s own privatebedroom, where the committee of exigencies, with Miss Prissy at theirhead, are seated in solemn session around the camphor-wood trunk.
‘Dress, you know, is of _some_ importance after all,’ said Mrs.Scudder, in that apologetic way in which sensible people generallyacknowledge a secret leaning towards anything so very mundane. Whilethe good lady spoke, she was reverentially unpinning and shakingout of their fragrant folds creamy crape shawls of rich Chineseembroidery,—India muslin, scarfs, and aprons; and already her handswere undoing the pins of a silvery damask linen in which was wrappedher own wedding-dress. ‘I have always told Mary,’ she continued, ‘that,though our hearts ought not to be set on these things, yet they hadtheir importance.’
‘Certainly, certainly, ma’am,’ chimed in Miss Prissy. ‘I was sayingto Miss General Wilcox, the other day, _I_ didn’t see how we could“consider the lilies of the field,” without seeing the importance oflooking pretty. I’ve got a flower-de-luce in my garden now, from one ofthe new roots that old Major Seaforth brought over from France, whichis just the most beautiful thing you ever did see; and I was thinking,as I looked at it to-day, that if women’s dresses only grew on ’em ashandsome and well-fitting as that, why, there wouldn’t be any need ofme; but as it is, why, we _must think_, if we want to look well. Nowpeach-trees, I s’pose, might bear just as good peaches without the pinkblows; but then who would want ’em to? Miss Deacon Twitchel, when I wasup there the other day, kept kind o’ sighin’, ’cause Cerintha Ann isgetting a new pink silk made up, ’cause she said it was such a dyingworld it didn’t seem right to call off our attention: but I told herit wasn’t any pinker than the apple-blossoms; and what with robins andblue-birds, and one thing or another, the Lord is always calling offour attention; and I think we ought to observe the Lord’s works andtake a lesson from ’em.’
‘Yes, you are quite right,’ said Mrs. Scudder, rising and shaking out asplendid white brocade, on which bunches of moss-roses were looped tobunches of violets by graceful fillets of blue ribbons. ‘This was mywedding-dress,’ she said.
Little Miss Prissy sprang up and clapped her hands in an ecstasy.
‘Well, now, Miss Scudder, really!—did I ever see anything morebeautiful? It really goes beyond anything _I_ ever saw. I don’t think,in all the brocades I ever made up, I ever saw so pretty a pattern asthis.’
‘Mr. Scudder chose it for me himself, at the silk-factory in Lyons,’said Mrs. Scudder, with pardonable pride, ‘and I want it tried on toMary.’
‘Really, Miss Scudder, this ought to be kept for _her_ wedding-dress,’said Miss Prissy, as she delightedly bustled about the congenial task.‘I was up to Miss Marvyn’s, a-working, last week,’ she said, as shethrew the dress over Mary’s head, ‘and she said that James expected tomake his fortune in that voyage, and come home and settle down.’
Mary’s fair head emerged from the rustling folds of the brocade, hercheeks crimson as one of the moss-roses,—while her mother’s faceassumed a severe gravity, as she remarked that she believed Jameshad been much pleased with Jane Spencer, and that, for her part, sheshould be very glad when he came home, if he could marry such a steady,sensible girl, and settle down to a useful, Christian life.
‘Ah, yes,—just so,—a very excellent idea, certainly,’ said Miss Prissy.‘It wants a little taken in here on the shoulders, and a little underthe arms. The biases are all right; the sleeves will want altering,Miss Scudder. I hope you will have a hot iron ready for pressing.’
Mrs. Scudder rose immediately, to see the command obeyed; and as herback was turned, Miss Prissy went on in a low tone,—
‘Now _I_, for my part, don’t think there’s a word of truth in thatstory about James Marvyn and Jane Spencer, for I was down there at workone day when he called, and I _know_ there couldn’t have been anythingbetween them,—besides, Miss Spencer, her mother, told me there wasn’t.There, Miss Scudder, you see that is a good fit. It’s astonishing hownear it comes to fitting, just as it was. I didn’t think Mary was sonear what you were, when you were a girl, Miss Scudder. The other day,when I was up to General Wilcox’s, the General he was in the room whenI was a-trying on Miss Wilcox’s cherry velvet, and she was askingcouldn’t I come this week for her, and I mentioned I was coming to MissScudder; and the General, says he,—“I used to know her when she was agirl. I tell you, she was one of the handsomest girls in Newport, byGeorge!” says he. And says I,—“General, you ought to see her daughter.”And the General,—you know his jolly way,—he laughed, and says he,—“Ifshe is as handsome as her mother was, I don’t want to see her,” sayshe. “I tell you, wife,” says he, “I but just missed falling in lovewith Katy Stephens.”’
‘I could have told her more than that,’ said Mrs. Scudder, with aflash of her old coquette girlhood for a moment lighting her eyes andstraightening her lithe form. ‘I guess, if I should show a letterhe wrote me once——. But what am I talking about?’ she said, suddenlystiffening back into a sensible woman. ‘Miss Prissy, do you think itwill be necessary to cut it off at the bottom? It seems a pity to cutsuch rich silk.’
‘So it does, I declare. Well, I believe it will do to turn it up.’
‘I depend on you to put it a little into modern fashion, you know,’said Mrs. Scudder. ‘It is many a year, you know, since it was made.’
‘Oh, never you fear! You leave all that to me,’ said Miss Prissy.‘Now, there never was anything so lucky as that, just before allthese wedding-dresses had to be fixed, I got a letter from my sisterMartha, that works for all the first families of Boston. And Martha,she is really unusually privileged, because she works for Miss Cranch,and Miss Cranch gets letters from Miss Adams,—you know Mr. Adams isAmbassador now at the Court of St. James, and Miss Adams writes homeall the particulars about the court-dresses; and Martha, she heard oneof the letters read, and she told Miss Cranch that she would give thebest five-pound note she had, if she could just copy that descriptionto send to Prissy. Well, Miss Cranch let her do it, and I’ve got a copyof the letter here in my work-pocket. I read it up to Miss GeneralWilcox’s, and to Major Seaforth’s, and I’ll read it to you.’
Mrs. Katy Scudder was a born subject of a crown, and, though now arepublican matron, had not outlived the reverence, from childhoodimplanted, for the high and stately doings of courts, lords, ladies,queens, and princesses, and therefore it was not without some awethat she saw Miss Prissy produce from her little black work-bag, thewell-worn epistle.
‘Here it is,’ said Miss Prissy, at last. ‘I only copied out the partsabout being presented at Court. She says:—
‘“One is obliged here to attend the circles of the Queen, which areheld once a fortnight; and what renders it very expensive is, thatyou cannot go twice in the same dress, and a court-dress you cannotmake use of elsewhere. I directed my mantua-maker to let my dressbe elegant, but plain as I could possibly appear with decency.Accordingly, it is white lutestring, covered and full-trimmed withwhite crape, festooned with lilac ribbon and mock point-lace, over ahoop of enormous size. There is only a narrow train, about three yardsin length to the gown-waist, which is put into a ribbon on the leftside,—the Queen only having her train borne. Ruffled cuffs for marriedladies,—treble lace ruffles, a very dress cap with long lace lappets,two white plumes, and a blonde lace handkerchief. This is my rigging.”’
Miss Prissy here stopped to adjust her spectacles. Her audienceexpressed a breathless interest.
 
; ‘You see,’ she said, ‘I used to know her when she was Nabby Smith. Shewas Parson Smith’s daughter, at Weymouth, and as handsome a girl asever I wanted to see,—just as graceful as a sweet-brier bush. I don’tbelieve any of those English ladies looked one bit better than she did.She was always a master-hand at writing. Everything she writes about,she puts it right before you. You feel as if you’d been there. Now,here she goes on to tell about her daughter’s dress. She says:—
‘“My head is dressed for St. James’s, and in my opinion looks verytasty. Whilst my daughter is undergoing the same operation, I setmyself down composedly to write you a few lines. Well, methinks Ihear Betsy and Lucy say, ‘What is cousin’s dress?’ _White_, my deargirls, like your aunt’s, only differently trimmed and ornamented,—hertrain being wholly of white crape, and trimmed with white ribbon; thepetticoat, which is the most showy part of the dress, covered anddrawn up in what are called festoons, with light wreaths of beautifulflowers; the sleeves, white crape drawn over the silk, with a row oflace round the sleeve near the shoulder, another half-way down the arm,and a third upon the top of the ruffle,—a little stuck between,—a kindof hat-cap with three large feathers and a bunch of flowers,—a wreathof flowers on the hair.”’
Miss Prissy concluded this relishing description with a little smack ofthe lips, such as people sometimes give when reading things that areparticularly to their taste.
‘Now, I was a-thinking,’ she added, ‘that it would be an excellent wayto trim Mary’s sleeves,—three rows of lace, with a sprig to each row.’
All this while, our Mary, with her white short-gown and bluestuff-petticoat, her shining pale brown hair and serious large blueeyes, sat innocently looking first at her mother, then at Miss Prissy,and then at the finery.
We do not claim for her any superhuman exemption from girlish feelings.She was innocently dazzled with the vision of courtly halls andprincely splendours, and thought Mrs. Adams’s descriptions almost aperfect realization of things she had read in ‘Sir Charles Grandison.’If her mother thought it right and proper she should be dressed andmade fine, she was glad of it; only there came a heavy, leaden feelingin her little heart, which she did not understand, but we who knowwomankind will translate for you: it was, that a certain pair of darkeyes would not see her after she was dressed; and so, after all, whatwas the use of looking pretty?
‘I wonder what James _would_ think,’ passed through her head; for Maryhad never changed a ribbon, or altered the braid of her hair, or pinneda flower in her bosom, that she had not quickly seen the effect ofthe change mirrored in those dark eyes. It was a pity, of course, nowshe had found out that she ought not to think about him, that so manythought-strings were twisted round him.
So while Miss Prissy turned over her papers, and read out of othersextracts about Lord Caermarthen and Sir Clement Cotterel Dormer,and the Princess Royal, and Princess Augusta, in black and silver,with a silver netting upon the coat, and a head stuck full ofdiamond pins,—and Lady Salisbury and Lady Talbot, and the Duchess ofDevonshire, and scarlet satin sacks and diamonds and ostrich-plumes,and the King’s kissing Mrs. Adams,—little Mary’s blue eyes grew largerand larger, seeing far off on the salt green sea, and her ears heardonly the ripple and murmur of those waters that carried her heartaway,—till, by-and-by, Miss Prissy gave her a smart little tap, whichawakened her to the fact that she was wanted again to try on the dresswhich Miss Prissy’s nimble fingers had basted.
So passed the day,—Miss Prissy busily chattering, clipping,basting,—Mary patiently trying on to an unheard-of extent,—and Mrs.Scudder’s neat room whipped into a perfect froth and foam of gauze,lace, artificial flowers, linings, and other aids, accessories, andabetments.
At dinner, the Doctor, who had been all the morning studying out hisTreatise on the Millennium, discoursed tranquilly as usual, innocentlyignorant of the unusual cares which were distracting the minds of hislisteners. What should he know of dressmakers, good soul? Encouragedby the respectful silence of his auditors, he calmly expanded andsoliloquized on his favourite topic, the last golden age of Time, theMarriage Supper of the Lamb, when the purified Earth, like a repentantPsyche, shall be restored to the long-lost favour of a celestialBridegroom, and glorified saints and angels shall walk familiarly aswedding-guests among men.
‘Sakes alive!’ said little Miss Prissy, after dinner, ‘did I ever hearany one go on like that blessed man?—such a spiritual mind! Oh, MissScudder, how you are privileged in having him here! I do really thinkit is a shame such a blessed man a’n’t thought more of. Why, I couldjust sit and hear him talk all day. Miss Scudder, I wish sometimesyou’d just let me make a ruffled shirt for him, and do it all upmyself, and put a stitch in the hem that I learned from my sisterMartha, who learned it from a French young lady who was educated in aconvent;—nuns, you know, poor things, can do _some_ things right; andI think _I_ never saw such hemstitching as they do there;—and I shouldlike to hemstitch the Doctor’s ruffles; he is _so_ spiritually-minded,it really makes me love him. Why, hearing him talk put me in mind of areal beautiful song of Mr. Watts,—I don’t know as I could remember thetune.’
And Miss Prissy, whose musical talent was one of her special _fortes_,tuned her voice, a little cracked and quavering, and sang, with avigorous accent on each accented syllable,—
‘From _the_ third heaven, where God resides, That holy, happy place, The New Jerusalem comes down, Adorned with shining grace.
‘Attending angels shout for joy, And the bright armies sing,— “Mortals! behold the sacred seat Of your descending King!”’
‘Take care, Miss Scudder!—that silk must be cut exactly on the bias;’and Miss Prissy, hastily finishing her last quaver, caught the silk andthe scissors out of Mrs. Scudder’s hand, and fell down at once fromthe Millennium into a discourse on her own particular way of coveringpiping-cord.
_The Doctor’s opinion consulted._
_Page 127._
Sampson Low, Son & Co. May 24th, 1859.]
So we go, dear reader,—so long as we have a body and a soul. Twoworlds must mingle,—the great and the little, the solemn and thetrivial, wreathing in and out, like the grotesque carvings on a Gothicshrine;—only, did we know it rightly, nothing is trivial; since thehuman soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred. Have notribbons, cast-off flowers, soiled bits of gauze, trivial, trashyfragments of millinery, sometimes had an awful meaning, a deadly power,when they belonged to one who should wear them no more, and whosebeautiful form, frail and crushed as they, is a hidden and a vanishedthing for all time? For so sacred and individual is a human being,that, of all the million-peopled earth, no one form ever restoresanother. The mould of each mortal type is broken at the grave; andnever, never, though you look through all the faces on earth, shallthe exact form you mourn ever meet your eyes again! You are livingyour daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics.One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of atrain, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife,the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, whichto-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dreadmemorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies ourcommon life.