her stupidity and carelessness in falling and thus ruining her only valuable dress, but these lectures could not quiet the pain Nepenthe felt. When she tried to stand erect, she could not move without the most acute pain. Mrs. Pridefit said, "Perhaps she might have sprained her shoulder." She applied some Mustang liniment, judging from its usefulness when applied to horses that it might be of equal benefit to Nepenthe. The third day Nepenthe was still more ill. She tried hard to stand erect and seem well, but she had apparently lost the use of her left arm, and the left collar bone was inflamed, and the wounded integument was swollen. Some course must be taken consistent with their personal convenience and pecuniary liabilities. "You might have known, John," said Mrs. Pridefit, "that that old rope would break. I told you it was not strong enough for that careless girl to use. Who knows but this may lead to rheumatism, that is, inflammatory rheumatism? Who knows but it is catching?" and she looked disconsolately at her right hand, as she said dolefully, "here I've two big warts, I caught at the industrial school, the day I went with Mrs. Brown. I had to take hold of the hand of one of those ragged young ones. I wish I knew how to get rid of them -they do look shocking on a lady's hand. If Mrs. Brown had Nepenthe she would feed her fat on the milk of human kindness, and wrap her up in the garments of holiness, bandage and poultice her, and make toast and gruel for her to resuscitate her constitution. I can't waste my sympathies on beggar children-if you begin there's no end to it. I believe as Dr. Smoothers says, 'God meant there should be classes in society.' The best way, if you know a girl is getting sick, is to get rid of her before she gets down sick. It's not politic to be caught with a pauper on your hands—and me left with my neuralgia, too-but we could not help this any way, John." The next morning Mr. Pridefit was walking in the yard. He stooped to pull up a weed, growing by the cistern, and as he stooped he saw a penknife with the blade open, and a piece of rope lay near it. He brought the rope and the knife into the house. "Jane," said he, to Mrs. Pridefit, was this a piece of that rope I fastened to the pail ?" Yes," said she, taking it and examining it, "yes, it was a piece of the clothes line with that very knot on the end " "Tis strange," said Mr. Pridefit, "that it should have broken with only the weight of that pail. It is quite a strong piece of rope"-and after a moment's pause he added, "Whose knife is this? I found it by the cistern. ""Tis a good knife," said John. It is very strange ; it was close to our cistern; it looks like a lady's knife-just see, on one corner of the blade are the initials H. S. T.'" CHAPTER VIII. MRS. PRIDEFIT TAKES A COURSE CONSISTENT WITH PERSONAL CONVENIENCE AND PECUNIARY LIABILITIES. "Long the old nurse bent her gaze Marvelling at its wondrous brightness; On her lips, and in the eyes, IT was Monday again, and windy, dusty, cloudy-nobody would call on Mrs. Pridefit, certainly such a morning. She had washed her own dishes in her leg-of-mutton sleeves, slip-shod slippers and curl-papers. She was completely exhausted-she would get the morning paper and rest awhile on the lounge in the drawing-room. There lay her velvet coiffure, and her new robe de chambre with cherry facings-her satin slippers, ready to be put on at a moment's warning-they were all so stylish and becoming, she would just peep out of the door and see if that carrier had brought the paper, but there was not the paper there was the elegant Mrs. Theophilus Brown alighting from her carriage, radiant in smiles, satin, and velvet. There was no chance for retreat. After her smiling recognition, the leg-of-mutton sleeves, fearful sack, and frightful curl papers, had to escort the elegant Mrs. Brown into the undusted parlor, whose wide open staring shutters gave to Mrs. Pridefit's toilet a full eclaircissement. Mr. Pridefit was always tearing the shut If a ters open. Why do gentlemen like so much light? room does happen to be undusted, and a dress not quite à la mode, or even en deshabille, up go the windows, and out go the shutters. "Is there any one like a man for letting the cat out of the bag? Why must they have every thing so light?" thought Mrs. Pridefit, as she tried to talk blandly, and smile agreeably, and bend her head gracefully. Mrs. Brown's stay was short. She wanted assistance in making out a subscription for enlarging the Rev. Dr. Smoothers' already large library. Mrs. Pridefit couldn't refuse, so down went ten precious dollars under Miss Simpson's five. She smilingly bowed out Mrs. Brown, and then frowningly returned, and looked in her full length mirror at the other end of the parlor. There stood Mrs. John Pridefit without collar, without coiffure, without adornment. She would have given ten dollars more to have Mrs. Brown seen her in her new robe de chambre, or rather not to have seen her in that "horrid dress." It was all owing to that careless girl, who ought to have been well and in her place. Mrs. Pridefit was one of those people, who, when in trouble, reproach the nearest, perhaps the most innocent cause. Pride was the strongest elemen: in her naturethis pride was piqued, and she hated Nepenthe. If you've had a sleeplesss night, reader, with a sick child or a toothache, and you get up in the morning feeling like letting every thing go for once, and Bridget seems to feel like it, too; if it is the only day in the annals of your housekeeping, when the furnace fire goes out, the parlor is not dusted, your dress en deshabille, you sit down with a formidable basket of inevitable mending or a most bewitching book; maybe Bridget has taken it into her head to slip off and get married, or go and see some cousin, all the fires unaccountably go out. Then, surely, some high bred, elegant, fastidious caller comes in her carriage to make you her annual fashionable call, and you so distracted in your deshabille and cold dusty parlor, only heighten the contrast of her self-possessed blandness. You can think of nothing suitable to say, and after looking critically around, and saying a few elegant nothings, your caller gracefully makes her exit, and says to her dear friend at home, that Mrs. has grown old and negligent since her marriage-she's not a nice housekeeper. Her circumstances must be very limited judging from her plain dress and cold parlor. Or if you are literary, it may be because you are a blue, you are so neg. ligent, and then at last in comes Bridget who has really greatly aggravated your embarrassment by her sudden absence. "She has just been out at the corner to see her cousin "—if you don't scold, it is because you are very good natured. Reader, before you condemn Mrs. Pridefit for her undignified and foolish impatience, think of the many times when you have been excited, angry, or unreasonable, for some equally trivial cause-something of which you are afterwards heartily ashamed. When we are sailing off on the high tide of self esteem, self respect, conscious of our all sufficiency to meet all life's little and great ills, some foolish breeze of circumstance, little and weak, will lash up the spirit till it frets and fumes and irritates itself into a kind of madness, foaming with sudden rage, and writhing with impetuous pain. Let the kind voices of our good old grandmothers still echo in our ears, Handsome is that handsome does." This voice is an uncertain response for the modern world. The world says, practically, "Handsome is that handsome seems." The first bow of deference will be paid to the agreeable exterior, which is the first passport to the stranger's eye and hand of welcome. It is an instinct of the warm heart, an impulse of the refined mind to make house, furniture, and dress, beautiful and symmetrical. We associate beauty with Heaven itself. Our ideas of upward climbing and onward advance are of rising to something more beautiful and perfect, and paradise wouldn't be paradise to us if in our beautiful imaginings there were no starry crowns, pearly gates, and golden harps. There is even a kind of beauty in perfect order. Simple and plain beautiful arrangements and elegant adornments, are sought for eagerly by all cultivated human eyes. We turn wearily from a hard granite hill, with its wondrous trinity of quartz, feldspar and mica, to gaze admiringly on the beautiful prairie, bouqueted with sapphire cups and ruby bells. When Mrs. Pridefit descended the kitchen stairs, after looking into her truth-telling mirror, there was in her face an expression which may be summed up in one dark word -Retribution. Giving Nepenthe another lecture on past offences, Mrs. Pridefit was soon transformed into an elegantly-dressed lady in promenade costume, and on her way-whither? By the aid of the directory she was soon in the office of a physician, and after some preliminary and plausible preamble, she said, "I will be much obliged to you, doctor, if you will inform me of the requisite preliminaries to getting her admitted. I am exceedingly sensitive, and my health is extremely delicate, my servants very inefficient, and I wish to consummate some arrangement as soon as possible." 66 tor. When did the accident occur, madam ?”` said the doc "Day before yesterday, sir." "Then it will be necessary for you to procure the services of a physician, and get his certificate as to the nature of the accident, and the suitability of the patient for the institution. If you had taken her directly to the hospital on the day of the accident no certificate from a physician would have been necessary. But as it is you will be under the necessity of procuring a certificate from some respectable physician, which certificate you must present to the Commissioner or Superintendent of the Alms House, at the Rotunda in the Park, entrance Chambers street, and he will give you another certifi cate which will entitle her to admission." "What do you charge per visit, doctor?" "Well, seeing the patient is a poor little orphan, I will visit her and make out a certificate for two dollars." "Very well, doctor, you will please call at my house immediately." I will be there in two hours, madam." (Mrs. Pridefit makes her exit.) "Good morning, doctor." "Good morning, madam." "What a Mrs. Pridefit on her way home soliloquizes: fool John Pridefit was that he did not know enough to have that little brat sent to the hospital on the day of the accident, and thus saved the payment of an exorbitant doctor's fee. Is't possible? Two dollars! Who ever heard of such an outrageous charge? The doctor has no conscience |