Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.

LIGHT AND SHADOW; OR, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

It was a simple dress of snowy muslin, innocent of the magic touch of a French modiste. There was not an inch of lace upon it, nor a rosette, nor a flower; it was pure, and simple, and unpretending as its destined wearer. A pair of white kid gloves, of fairy-like proportions, lay beside it, also a tiny pair of satin slippers. There was no bridal trousseau; no – Meta had no rich uncles, or aunts, or cousins, – no consistent god-parents who, promising at her baptism that she should “renounce the pomp and vanities of the world,” redeemed their promise by showering at her bridal feet, diamonds enough to brighten many a starving fellow-creature’s pathway to the tomb.

Did I say there was no bridal trousseau? There was one gift, a little clasp Bible, with “Meta Grey” written on the flyleaf, in the bridegroom’s bold, handsome hand. Perchance some gay beauty, who reads this, may curl her rosy lip scornfully; but well Meta knew how to value such a gift. Through long dreary years of orphanage “God’s Word” had been to her what the star in the East was to Bethlehem’s watching shepherds. Her lonely days of toil were over now. There was a true heart, whose every pulsation was love for her – a brave arm to defend her helplessness, and a quiet, sunny home where Peace, like a brooding dove, should fold his wings, while the happy hours flew uncounted by.

Yes; Meta was looked for, every hour. She was to leave the group of laughing hoidens, (before whom she had forbidden her lover to claim her,) and thereafter confine her teachings to one pupil, whose “reward of merit” should be the love-light in her soft, dark eyes. Still, it was weary waiting for her; her last letter was taken, for the hundredth time, from its hiding-place, and read and refolded, and read again, although he could say it all, with his eyes shut, in the darkest corner in Christendom. But you know all about it, dear reader, if you own a heart, and if you don’t, the sooner you drop my story the better.

Well; he paced the room up and down, looked out the window, and down the street: then he sat down in the little rocking-chair he had provided for her, and tried to imagine it was tenanted by two; then, delicious tears sprang to his eyes, that such a sweet fount of happiness was opened to him – that the golden morn, and busy noon, and hushed and starry night, should find them ever side by side. Care? – he didn’t know it! Trouble? – what trouble could he have, when all his heart craved on earth was bounded by his clasping arms? And then, Meta was an orphan – he was scarcely sorry – there would be none for her heart to go out to now but himself; he must be brother, sister, father, mother —all to her; and his heart gave a full and joyful response to each and every claim.

– But what a little loiterer! He was half vexed; he paced the room in his impatience, handled the little slippers affectionately, and caressed the little gloves as if they were filled by the plump hand of Meta, instead of his imagination. Why didn’t she fly to him? Such an angel should have wings – he was sure of that.

– Wings? God help you, widowed bridegroom! Who shall have the heart to read you this sad paragraph?

“One of the Norwalk Victims. – The body of a young lady, endowed with extraordinary personal beauty, remains yet unrecognized. On her countenance reposes an expression of pleasure, in striking and painful contrast to the terrible scene amid which she breathed her last. She was evidently about twenty years old, doubtless the glory of some circle of admiring friends, who little dream where she is, and of her shocking condition.”

A MATRIMONIAL REVERIE

“The love of a spirited woman is better worth having than that of any other female individual you can start.”

I wish I had known that before! I’d have plucked up a little spirit, and not gone trembling through creation, like a plucked chicken, afraid of every animal I ran a-fowl of. I have not dared to say my soul was my own since the day I was married, and every time Mr. Jones comes into the entry and sets down that great cane of his, with a thump, you might hear my teeth chatter, down cellar! I always keep one eye on him, in company, to see if I am saying the right thing; and the middle of a sentence is the place for me to stop, (I can tell you,) if his black eyes snap! It’s so aggravating to find out my mistake at this time o’ day. I ought to have carried a stiff upper lip, long ago. Wonder if little women can look dignified? Wonder how it would do to turn straight about now? I’ll try it!

Harry will come home presently and thunder out, as usual, “Mary, why the deuce isn’t dinner ready?” I’ll just set my teeth together, put my arms akimbo, and look him right straight – oh, mercy! I can’t! I should dissolve! Bless your soul, he’s a six-footer; such whiskers – none of your sham settlements! Such eyes! and such a nice mouth. Come to think of it, I really believe I love him! Guess I’ll go along the old way!

WHAT LOVE WILL ACCOMPLISH

“This will never do,” said little Mrs. Kitty; “how I came to be such a simpleton as to get married before I knew how to keep house, is more and more of an astonisher to me. I can learn, and I will! There’s Bridget told me yesterday there wasn’t time to make a pudding before dinner. I had my private suspicions she was imposing upon me, though I didn’t know enough about it to contradict her. The truth is, I’m no more mistress of this house than I am of the Grand Seraglio. Bridget knows it, too; and, there’s Harry (how hot it makes my cheeks to think of it!) couldn’t find an eatable thing on the dinner table yesterday. He loves me too well to say anything, but he had such an ugly frown on his face when he lit his cigar and went off to his office. Oh, I see how it is:

“What on earth sent you over here in this dismal rain?” said Kitty’s neighbor, Mrs. Green. “Just look at your gaiters.”

“Oh, never mind gaiters,” said Kitty, untying her “rigolette,” and throwing herself on the sofa. “I don’t know any more about cooking than a six-weeks’ kitten; Bridget walks over my head with the most perfect Irish nonchalance; Harry looks as solemn as an ordained bishop; the days grow short, the bills grow long, and I’m the most miserable little Kitty that ever mewed. Do have pity on me, and initiate me into the mysteries of broiling, baking, and roasting; take me into your kitchen now, and let me go into it while the fit is on me. I feel as if I could roast Chanticleer and all his hen-harem!”

“You don’t expect to take your degree in one forenoon?” said Mrs. Green, laughing immoderately.

“Not a bit of it! I intend to come every morning, if the earth don’t whirl off its axle. I’ve locked up my guitar and my French and Italian books, and that irresistible ‘Festus,’ and nerved myself like a female martyr, to look a gridiron in the face without flinching. Come, put down that embroidery, there’s a good Samaritan, and descend with me into the lower regions, before my enthusiasm gets a shower-bath,” and she rolled up her sleeves from her round white arms, took off her rings, and tucked her curls behind her ears.

Very patiently did Mrs. Kitty keep her resolution; each day added a little to her store of culinary wisdom. What if she did flavor her first custards with peppermint instead of lemon? What if she did “baste” a turkey with saleratus instead of salt? What if she did season the stuffing with ground cinnamon instead of pepper? Rome wasn’t built in a day; – cooks can’t be manufactured in a minute.

Kitty’s husband had been gone just a month. He was expected home that very day. All the morning the little wife had been getting up a congratulatory dinner, in honor of the occasion. What with satifaction and the kitchen fire, her cheeks glowed like a milkmaid’s. How her eyes sparkled, and what a pretty little triumphant toss she gave her head, when that big trunk was dumped down in the entry! It isn’t a bad thing, sometimes, to have a secret even from one’s own husband.

“On my word, Kitty,” said Harry, holding her off at arm’s length, “you look most provokingly ‘well-to-do’ for a widow ‘pro tem.’ I don’t believe you have mourned for me the breath of a sigh. What have you been about? who has been here? and what mine of fun is to be prophesied from the merry twinkle in the corner of your eye? Anybody hid in the closet or cupboard? Have you drawn a prize in the lottery?”

“Not since I married you,” said Mrs. Kitty; “and you are quite welcome to that sugar-plum to sweeten your dinner.”

“How Bridget has improved,” said Harry, as he plied his knife and fork industriously; “I never saw these woodcock outdone, even at our bachelor club-rooms at – House. She shall have a present of a pewter cross, as sure as her name is McFlanigan, besides absolution for all the detestable messes she used to concoct with her Catholic fingers.”

“Let me out! let me out!” said a stifled voice from the closet; “you can’t expect a woman to keep a secret forever.”

“What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Green?” said Harry, gaily shaking her hand.

“Why, you see, ‘Bridget has improved;’ i. e. to say, little Mrs. Kitty there received from my hands yesterday a diploma, certifying her Mistress of Arts, Hearts and Drumsticks, having spent every morning of your absence in perfecting herself as a housekeeper. There now, don’t drop on your knees to her till I have gone. I know very well when three is a crowd, or, to speak more fashionably, when I am ‘de trop,’ and I’m only going to stop long enough to remind you that there are some wives left in the world, and that Kitty is one of ’em.”

And now, dear reader, if you doubt whether Mrs. Kitty was rewarded for all her trouble, you’d better take a peep into that parlor, and while you are looking, let me whisper a secret in your ear confidentially. You may be as beautiful as Venus, and as talented as Madame de Stael, but you never’ll reign supreme in your liege lord’s affections, till you can roast a turkey.

MRS. GRUMBLE’S SOLILOQUY

“There’s no calculating the difference between men and women boarders. Here’s Mr. Jones, been in my house these six months, and no more trouble to me than my gray kitten. If his bed is shook up once a week, and his coats, cravats, love-letters, cigars and patent-leather boots left undisturbed in the middle of the floor, he is as contented as a pedagogue in vacation time.

“Take a woman to board, and (if it is perfectly convenient) she would like drapery instead of drop-curtains; she’d like the windows altered to open at the top, and a wardrobe for her flounced dresses, and a few more nails and another shelf in her closet, and a cricket to put her feet on, and a little rocking-chair, and a big looking-glass, and a pea-green shade for her gas-burner.

“She would like breakfast about ten minutes later than your usual hour; tea ten minutes earlier, and the gong, which shocks her nerves so, altogether dispensed with.

“She can’t drink coffee, because it is exhilarating; broma is too insipid, and chocolate too heavy. She don’t fancy cocoa. ‘English breakfast tea’ is the only beverage which agrees with her delicate spinster organization.

“She can’t digest a roast or a fried dish; she might possibly peck at an egg, if it were boiled with one eye on the watch. Pastry she never eats, unless she knows from what dairy the butter came, which enters into its composition. Every article of food prepared with butter, salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar or oil; or bread that is made with yeast, soda, milk or saleratus, she decidedly rejects.

“She is constantly washing out little duds of laces, collars, handkerchiefs, chemisettes and stockings, which she festoons up to the front windows, to dry; giving passers-by the impression that your house is occupied by a blanchesseuse; – then jerks the bell-wire for an hour or more, for relays of hot smoothing irons, to put the finishing stroke to her operations.

“She is often afflicted with interesting little colds and influenzas, requiring the immediate consolation of a dose of hot lemonade or ginger tea; choosing her time for these complaints when the kitchen fire has gone out and the servants are on a furlough. Oh! nobody knows, but those who’ve tried, how immensely troublesome women are! I’d rather have a whole regiment of men boarders. All you have to do is, to wind them up in the morning with a powerful cup of coffee, give them carte-blanche to smoke, and a night-key, and your work is done.”

HENRY WARD BEECHER

What a warm Sunday! and what a large church! I wonder if it will be half-filled! Empty pews are a sorry welcome to a pastor. Ah! no fear; here comes the congregation in troops and families; now the capacious galleries are filled; every pew is crowded, and seats are being placed in the aisles.

The preacher rises. What a young “David!” Still, the “stone and sling” will do their execution. How simple, how child-like that prayer; and yet how eloquent, how fervent. How eagerly, as he names the text, the eye of each is riveted upon the preacher, as if to secure his individual portion of the heavenly manna.

Let us look around, upon the audience. Do you see yonder gray-haired business man? Six days in the week, for many years, he has been Mammon’s most devoted worshipper. According to time-honored custom, he has slept comfortably in his own pew each Sunday, lulled by the soft voice of the shepherd who “prophesieth smooth things.” One pleasant Sabbath, chance, (I would rather say an overruling Providence,) led him here. He settles himself in his accustomed Sunday attitude, but sleep comes not at his bidding. He looks disturbed. The preacher is dwelling upon the permitted but fraudulent tricks of business men, and exposing plainly their turpitude in the sight of that God who holds “evenly the scales of justice.” As he proceeds, Conscience whispers to this aged listener, “Thou art the man!” He moves uneasily on his seat; an angry flush mounts to his temples: What right has that boy-preacher to question the integrity of men of such unblemished mercantile standing in the community as himself? He is not accustomed to such a spiritual probing knife. His spiritual physician has always “healed the hurt of his people slightly.” He don’t like such plain talking, and sits the service out only from compulsion. But when he passes the church porch, he does not leave the sermon there, as usual. No. He goes home perplexed and thoughtful. Conscience sides with the preacher; self-interest tries to stifle its voice with the sneering whisper of “priest-craft.” Monday comes, and again he plunges into the maelstrom of business, and tries to tell the permitted lie with his usual nonchalance to some ignorant customer, but his tongue falters and performs its duty but awkwardly; a slight blush is perceptible upon his countenance; and the remainder of the week chronicles similar and repeated failures.

Again it is Sunday. He is not a church-member: he can stay at home, therefore, without fear of a canonical committee of Paul Prys to investigate the matter: he can look over his debt and credit list if he likes, without excommunication: he certainly will not put himself again in the way of that plain-spoken, stripling priest. The bell peals out, in musical tones, seemingly this summons: “Come up with us, and we will do you good.” By an irresistible impulse, he finds himself again a listener. “Not that he believes what that boy says:” Oh no: but, somehow, he likes to listen to him, even though he attack that impregnable pride in which he has wrapped himself up as in a garment.

Now, why is this? Why is this church filled with such wayside listeners?

Why, but that all men – even the most worldly and unscrupulous – pay involuntary homage to earnestness, sincerity, independence and Christian boldness, in the “man of God?”

Why? Because they see that he stands in that sacred desk, not that his lips may be tamed and held in, with a silver bit and silken bridle: not because preaching is his “trade,” and his hearers must receive their quid pro quo once a week – no, they all see and feel that his heart is in the work – that he loves it – that he comes to them fresh from his closet, his face shining with the light of “the Mount,” as did Moses’.

The preacher is remarkable for fertility of imagination, for rare felicity of expression, for his keen perception of the complicated and mysterious workings of the human heart, and for the uncompromising boldness with which he utters his convictions. His earnestness of manner, vehemence of gesture and rapidity of utterance, are, at times, electrifying; impressing his hearers with the idea that language is too poor and meager a medium for the rushing tide of his thoughts.

Upon the lavish beauty of earth, sea, and sky, he has evidently gazed with the poet’s eye of rapture. He walks the green earth in no monk’s cowl or cassock. The tiniest blade of grass with its “drap o’ dew,” has thrilled him with strange delight. “God is love,” is written for him in brilliant letters, on the arch of the rainbow. Beneath that black coat, his heart leaps like a happy child’s to the song of the birds and the tripping of the silver-footed stream, and goes up, in the dim old woods, with the fragrance of their myriad flowers, in grateful incense of praise, to Heaven.

God be thanked, that upon all these rich and rare natural gifts, “Holiness to the Lord” has been written. Would that the number of such gospel soldiers was “legion,” and that they might stand in the forefront of the hottest battle, wielding thus skillfully and unflinchingly the “Sword of the Spirit.”

AN OLD MAID’S DECISION

“I can bear misfortune and poverty, and all the other ills of life, but to be an old maid– to droop and wither, and wilt and die, like a single pink – I can’t endure it; and what’s more, I won’t!”

Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart. There she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room – sofa big enough for two; two arm chairs, two bureaus, two looking-glasses – everything hunting in couples except herself! I don’t wonder she’s frantic! She read in her childhood that “matches were made in Heaven,” and although she’s well aware there are some Lucifer matches, yet she has never had a chance to try either sort. She has heard that there “never was a soul created, but its twin was made somewhere,” and she’s a melancholy proof that ’tis a mocking lie. She gets tired sewing – she can’t knit forever on that eternal stocking – (besides, that has a fellow to it, and is only an aggravation to her feelings.) She has read till her eyes are half blind, – there’s nobody to agree with her if she likes the book, or argue the point with her if she don’t. If she goes out to walk, every woman she meets has her husband’s arm. To be sure, they are half of them ready to scratch each other’s eyes out; but that’s a little business matter between themselves. Suppose she feels devotional, and goes to evening lectures, some ruffianly coward is sure to scare her to death on the way. If she takes a journey, she gets hustled and boxed round among cab-drivers, and porters, and baggage-masters; her bandbox gets knocked in, her trunk gets knocked off, and she’s landed at the wrong stopping place. If she wants a load of wood, she has to pay twice as much as a man would, and then she gets cheated by the man that saws and splits it. She has to put her own money into the bank and get it out, hire her own pew, and wait upon herself into it. People tell her “husbands are often great plagues,” but she knows there are times when they are indispensable. She is very good looking, black hair and eyes, fine figure, sings and plays beautifully, but she “can’t be an old maid, and what’s more– she won’t.”

A PUNCH AT “PUNCH.”

“What is the height of a woman’s ambition? Diamonds.” —Punch.

Sagacious Punch! Do you know the reason? It is because the more “diamonds” a woman owns, the more precious she becomes in the eyes of your discriminating sex. What pair of male eyes ever saw a “crow’s foot,” grey hair, or wrinkle, in company with a genuine diamond? Don’t you go down on your marrow-bones, and vow that the owner is a Venus, a Hebe, a Juno, a sylph, a fairy, an angel? Would you stop to look (connubially) at the most bewitching woman on earth, whose only diamonds were “in her eye?” Well, it is no great marvel, Mr. Punch. The race of men is about extinct. Now and then you will meet with a specimen; but I’m sorry to inform you that the most of them are nothing but coat tails, walking behind a moustache, destitute of sufficient energy to earn their own cigars and “Macassar,” preferring to dangle at the heels of a diamond wife, and meekly receive their allowance, as her mamma’s prudence and her own inclinations may suggest.

FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER

You have never heard Father Taylor, the Boston Seaman’s preacher? Well – you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighborhood are guiltless of shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at the corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of Africa – checked off with “dough faces.”

Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows – no richly draperied pulpit – no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your sleepy conscience. No odor of patchouli, or nonpareil, or bouqet de violet will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin and broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the synagogue, – they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”

Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed faces. It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The seas they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the lonely, dismal, weary nights they have kept watch! – the harpies in port who have assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the sheeted dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre! – what stirring thoughts and emotions do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the sailor! – Here they come; sure of a welcome – conscious that they are no intruders on aristocratic landsmen’s soil – sure that each added face will send a thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who folds them all, as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.

There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here, brother!” pointing to a seat in the pulpit. Jack don’t know about that! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the pulpit! – Jack doubts his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough, brother!” again reässures him; and, with a litle extra fumbling at his tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as though he were on his vessel’s deck.

The hymn is read with a heart-tone. There is no mistaking either the poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a “scientific musical ear,” (which, thank heaven, I have not,) you may criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal down my face, as I mark the effect of good Old Hundred (minus trills and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.