Atlantic Monthly by - (the reading strategies book .txt) 📖

most signally prospered, and in due time the Doctor himself put his wife to bed with a pair of nice little girls.

Not long after, the twins were christened at the meeting-house, a great crowd attending to witness the ceremony. To the elder girl was given the name of Amelia. Upon the other was bestowed the equally desirable appellative of Cornelia. While they were babies, both were considered remarkably pretty children; at least, so everybody told Mrs. Bugbee; but as they grew in years and stature, it became more and more apparent, that, although each resembled the other in figure, features, and expression, so strongly that you could not see one without being reminded of the other, none would ever be at a loss to distinguish between them; for Amelia promised to be as extremely handsome as her sister seemed likely to be homely. Indeed, Amelia was a beautiful counterpart of Cornelia, resembling her in the same wise that a flattered portrait, painted by some shrewd and skilful limner, will sometimes resemble the rich and ugly original, in which, while the likeness is faithfully portrayed, all the harsh lines are softened, and even blemishes are transformed into beauty-spots, or made to serve as foils.

Besides these twins, other children, from time to time, were born to the Doctor and his spouse, all of whom died in infancy. The love of the parents for their first-born seemed to redouble at each of these bereavements. The mother, especially, would scarcely suffer her darlings to be absent from her sight; and when, at last, after infinite persuasion, she was induced to let them go to the Misses Primber’s great boarding-school at Hartford, she used to ride over to see them as often as she could invent a pretext. It was with the greatest reluctance that she consented to this separation; but in those days it was indispensable that a young woman of good family should spend at least a twelvemonth at the Misses Primber’s famous establishment, where all the rough hewing of less skilful teachers was shaped and polished, so to speak, according to the most fashionable models then in vogue. It was while the twins remained at this notable seminary that they executed those wonderful landscapes, in Reeves’s best water-colors, which used to decorate the walls of the parlors in the Bugbee mansion, and which, I dare say, still hang in tarnished gilt frames in some of the bedchambers. It was there they filled the copybooks of French exercises from Levizac’s Grammar, which Miss Cornelia still carefully preserves in a bureau drawer. There they learned to play and sing “Days of Absence,” “I’m A Merry Swiss Boy,” and many other delightful melodies, the which, even now, Miss Cornelia will sometimes hum softly to herself. Besides acquiring these and sundry other accomplishments, Miss Amelia found time to carry on a secret epistolary correspondence with a good-looking young law-student, (of whom more extended mention will presently be made,) and also to contrive many meetings and walks with him, of which nobody was cognizant but her sister and some five or six other bosom friends and faithful confidants. But Miss Cornelia, though as well inclined thereto as her sister, having, nevertheless, been able to find no lover to occupy her thoughts, and with whom to hold amatory interviews to fill her leisure, was fain to devote all her spare moments to the reading of romances and novels, of which, though rigorously interdicted, a great number were in the house, in possession of the Misses Primber’s pupils; and when this supply was exhausted, she had recourse to a circulating library near by; being often put as nearly to her wits’ end to devise expedients whereby to smuggle the contraband volumes into her chamber, as Amelia was to fulfil, at the time and place of tryst, the frequent engagements which she made to meet her lover.

Accordingly it came to pass, that Amelia’s heart became affected in such a way and to that degree that she was never heart-whole again so long as she lived; and Cornelia’s head was filled with such an accumulation of romantic rubbish, that, to this very day, a mighty heap of it remains,—mingled, to be sure, with ideas of a more solid and useful quality. For when a woman lives a maid during those years in which most of her sex are busy with the cares attendant upon the matronly estate, fantastic notions, such as I have mentioned, are not so apt to be excluded from the mind, and in this way many girls of good natural parts are spoiled, merely for lack of husbands. With the exception of this inordinate liking for the romantic and mysterious,—by which she was sometimes betrayed into follies and absurdities that provoked a little harmless scandal or ridicule,—Miss Cornelia has ever been held in good repute among her neighbors as a kind-hearted, obliging, sentimental little woman.

At last, at the end of a year, the young ladies came home from the seminary, having fully completed their education; an event which filled Mrs. Bugbee’s heart with ineffable satisfaction. When the loving mother reflected, that, for a long time, if it pleased God to spare their lives, she should now enjoy the pleasure of her children’s presence, her bosom overflowed with happiness. Though she looked forward to their being married as to something quite likely to happen in the course of time, yet such events are always uncertain, and they appeared to her to lie so far ahead in the vague distance of the future, that these anticipations caused her no serious disquiet. For the girls were but eighteen years of age, and it seemed hardly a twelvemonth since the time when they used to wear their hair curling in their necks, and to go hand in hand to the district school in pinafores and pantalets.

The good lady’s chagrin, therefore, was excessive, when, the next Saturday morning but one after her daughters’ return, Amelia came into her bedroom, where she sat darning a stocking by the window, and after so much hesitation that her mother began to wonder, suddenly put her arms about her neck, hid her blushing face upon her shoulder, and in that position softly whispered a confession, that a certain young gentleman, with whom she had become acquainted in Hartford, had told her he was very much attached to her indeed; that she was not wholly indifferent with respect to him, and that, in fact, she loved him. While Mrs. Bugbee remained speechless with surprise, Miss Amelia proceeded to say, that it was highly probable the young gentleman, would that very afternoon take it into his head to ride out from Hartford to Belfield; and perhaps he would also request permission to visit her regularly, with the ultimate purpose of asking her hand in marriage; in which case, she said, it was to be hoped her parents would not refuse his modest petition; for that the young gentleman was a very good and worthy young gentleman, a law-student of extraordinary promise, of as old and respectable a family as any other in the State, and, withal, a young gentleman in no wise given to bad habits of any kind whatsoever, but, on the contrary, distinguished for his exemplary morals and sober conduct. All this Amelia uttered very earnestly; but, strange to say, made no mention of the quality which, as much as all the rest, had attracted her regards; namely, the young gentleman’s good looks, for which he was somewhat noted, and of which he was not a little vain.

When the Doctor returned that day from his morning ride among his patients, his wife took him aside into their bedroom and related what has just been set forth. The Doctor listened with grave attention till his wife concluded her story; but when, at the end of it, she began to lament, he turned the thing off with a laugh, and giving her a hearty kiss, endeavored to soothe her disquiet. “Well, well, mother,” said he, “why, let him come, let him come. It’s only a year or two sooner than I expected, and may be it’ll be a flash in the pan after all. I think I must have seen the young fellow in at Squire Johnson’s; and at any rate, I’m pretty sure I know his father. When he comes, we’ll just invite him right over here to spend the Sabbath, and by the time he goes away on Monday we’ll know the twist of every thread in his jacket. If he’s the right one to make our girl happy, we ought to be glad she’s found him; and if he a’n’t, it’ll be all the harder to make her listen to reason, unless we show reason ourselves; and, surely, it would be unreasonable to be set against him, before we’ve even seen him or heard him say a word.”

When Mr. Edward Talcott (for that was the young gentleman’s name) came over from the tavern, where he had left his horse and portmanteau, and with much secret trepidation and assumed boldness had walked up the wide flagstones which led from the street to the green front door of Doctor Bugbee’s mansion, it was opened, at the summons of the brass knocker, by a little black girl, who vainly strove to hide a grin behind a corner of her long check apron. Before the visitor had time to utter a word, Amelia, blushing like a rose and looking handsomer than ever, came tripping into the hall, and after a whisper, which Dinah, who tried, failed to overhear, and the purport of which, therefore, I cannot relate, ushered him into the parlor, and presented him in due form to her mother, and also to her grandmother, Madam Major Bugbee, as she was styled by the townsfolk,—a stately old lady in black silk, who, being hard of hearing, and therefore incapable of mingling in the conversation that ensued, regarded the new comer through her gold-bowed spectacles, during the remainder of the afternoon, with a furtive, but earnest attention which was quite embarrassing to the object of it.

Presently a sulky came dashing up the drive, and soon afterwards the Doctor came in, who, being made acquainted with Mr. Talcott by the blushing Amelia, fell into a lively conversation with his visitor, which finally turning upon the subject of politics, both gentlemen agreed cordially in lauding the wisdom displayed In Mr. Adams’s administration, and congratulating each other and the country upon the defeat of General Jackson. After tea, the hired man was sent to fetch Mr. Talcott’s horse and luggage from the inn, and then, it being near sundown, the Doctor put on as solemn an expression as his merry visage was capable of assuming, took up the big quarto Bible from its place, on a stand in the corner of the room, and read a chapter from the New Testament Then, standing up behind his arm-chair, he made a hurried prayer, which was evidently one he had got by heart; for when he endeavored to interpolate an apt allusion to the young “stranger within his gates,” he made such a piece of work of it, that everybody but the dowager had to bite his lips to keep from smiling. The brief remainder of the evening was spent in sober conversation. Soon after nine o’clock the little black girl showed Mr. Talcott up the broad stairway into the best front chamber, a spacious apartment directly over the parlor, where he went to bed under a lofty tester canopy, with embroidered curtains trimmed with lace. After a long reverie, coming to the conclusion that the downright courtship of a young lady in her father’s house was a much more serious affair than a mere clandestine flirtation with a pretty school-girl, the young gentleman turned over upon his side and went to sleep.

The next day, being Sunday, everybody went to meeting, except the Doctor, who was