Home Scenes and Home Influence; a series of tales and sketches

"I did not!" I spoke with affected surprise only; for I thought I knew what it was she meant.

"No, I am sorry to say that you did not. Nothing could have been more improper than the notice you took of what was passing. A true gentlemanly spirit would have led you to look away from, rather than at the weakness of our hostess."

"Look away from it, Mrs. Sunderland! How could I do that, pray? It was before my eyes all the time."

"You ought to have shut your eyes, then."

"Nonsense."

"Very far from it, Mr. Sunderland! You are ready enough to see the faults of other people!"—(in this, I must confess, my wife did not err very much)—"but quite willing to shut your eyes to your own. Now, I think you acted just as bad as Mrs. Tudor; and, in fact, worse."

"Worse! You are complimentary, Mrs. Sunderland."

"I can't help it if I am. Mrs. Tudor was led by her weakness to conduct herself in an unlady-like manner; but you, with her example before your eyes, and in a mood to reflect, permitted yourself to remark upon her conduct in a way calculated to give pain."

"In the name of wonder, what are you driving at, Mrs. Sunderland? No one but you heard any remark I made."

"I wish I could think so."

"Who, besides yourself, heard what I said?"

"Mr. Tudor."

"Impossible!"

"He was sitting very near us when you so far forgot yourself as to notice, verbally, what was passing, and I am well satisfied, either heard distinctly what was said, or enough to enable him to understand the nature of all you said."

"You are surely mistaken," said I, feeling a good deal mortified, and perceiving much more clearly than I did before the nature of my offence against good manners and propriety of conduct.

"I wish I were. But I fear I am not. I know that Mr. Tudor looked around toward you suddenly, and I noticed that he was much more particular afterward in his attentions to the rest of the company. At table, you may have yourself remarked this."

"Yes, I noticed it."

"And yet, even at the table, when he was doing his best, you again hurt his feelings."

"Me!"

"Yes, you. When Mrs. Tudor spoke harshly to Lucy, or did something or other that you thought out of the way, you must look your sarcasm at me, notwithstanding the eyes of her husband were upon you."

"But he didn't see me, then."

"Yes, but he did. I saw him looking directly at you."

"Oh, no! it cannot be." I was unwilling to believe this.

"I wish it were not so for my husband's sake," returned Mrs. Sunderland. "But the evidence of my senses I generally find it necessary to credit."

I must own that I felt considerably cut up, or cut down, whichever is the most mortifying state to be in. To look and whisper my censure in company, I had thought no great harm; but now that I had found I had been discovered in the act, I had a mortifying sense of its impropriety.

"Well, anyhow," said I, rallying myself, and speaking with some lightness of tone, "it is clear that Mrs. Tudor is no lady, for all you thought her such a pattern-card of gentility."

"And I have not the least doubt," retorted my wife, "that it is equally clear to Mr. Tudor that you are no gentleman. So, on that score, the account stands fairly balanced between the two families."

This was a pretty hard hit; and I felt a little "riled up," as the Yankees say, but I concluded that the uttering of a few sharp sayings to my wife, under the circumstances, would not prove my claim to being a gentleman, especially against the facts of the case; so I cooled down, and walked home rather silently, and in not the best humour with myself.

On the next morning, I took up a little book from my wife's bureau, and sat down to look over it while waiting for the breakfast bell. It was a book of aphorisms, and I opened at once to a page where a leaf was turned down. A slight dot with a pencil directed my eyes to a particular line, which read—

"He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones."

I am not sure that Mrs. Sunderland turned down that leaf in the book, and marked the sentiment for my especial benefit; though I strongly suspected her. At any rate, I deemed it best not to ask the question.

GOING INTO MOURNING

THE weeping mother bent over the beautiful form of innocent childhood—beautiful still, though its animating spirit had fled—and kissed the pale cheek of her dear departed one. When she lifted her head, a tear glistened on the cold brow of the babe. Then the father looked his last look, and, with an effort, controlled the emotion that wellnigh mastered him. The sisters came next, with audible sobs, and cheeks suffused with tears. A moment or two they gazed upon the expressionless face of their dear little playfellow, and then the coffin lid was shut down, while each one present experienced a momentary feeling of suffocation.

As the funeral procession came out of the door, and the family passed slowly across the pavement to the carriages, a few gossiping neighbours—such as, with no particular acquaintance with the principal members of a household, know all about the internal management of every dwelling in the square—assembled close by, and thus discoursed of the events connected with the burying.

"Poor Mrs. Condy," said one, "how can she bear the loss of that sweet little fellow!"

"Other people have lost children as well as she," remarked a sour-looking dame. "Rich people, thank heaven! have to feel as well as we poor folks."

No one seemed disposed to reply to this; and there was a momentary silence.

"They've got up mourning mighty quick," said a third speaker. "Little Willie only died yesterday morning."

"It's most all borrowed, I suppose," responded a fourth.

"Hardly," said the other.

"Yes, but I know that it is, though," added the individual who made the allegation of borrowing; "because, you see, Lucy, the chambermaid, told me last night, that Mrs. Condy had sent her to borrow her sister's black bombazine, and that the girls were all hard enough put to it to know where to get something decent to attend the funeral in."

"No doubt, they thought more about mourning dresses, than they did about the dead child," remarked the cynic of the group.

"It's a shame, Mrs. Grime, for you to talk in that way about any one," replied the woman who had first spoken.

"It's the truth, Mrs. Myers," retorted Mrs. Grime. "By their works ye shall know them. You needn't tell me about people being so dreadful sorry at the loss of friends when they can make such a to-do about getting black to wear. These bombazine dresses and long black veils are truly enough called mourning—they are an excellent counterfeit, and deceive one half of the world. Ah, me! If all the money that was spent buying in mourning was given to the poor, there would be less misery in the world by a great deal."

And while the little group, attracted by the solemn pageant, thus exercised the privilege of independent thought and free discussion, carriage after carriage was filled and moved off, and soon the whole passed out of sight.

It was near the hour of twilight when the afflicted family returned, and after partaking of supper, sparingly, and in silence, the different members retired to their chambers, and at an early hour sought relief to their troubled thoughts in sleep.

On the next morning, during the breakfast hour, Mrs. Condy broke the oppressive silence by asking of her husband the sum of fifty dollars.

"What for, Sarah?" said Mr. Condy, looking into her face with an expression of grave inquiry.

"It's the middle of the week now, you know, and therefore no time is to be lost in getting mourning. At any rate, it will be as much as a bargain to get dresses made by Sunday. Jane and Mary will have to go out this morning and buy the goods."

Mr. Condy did not immediately reply, but seemed lost in deep and somewhat painful thought. At length, he said, looking his wife steadily in the face, but with a kind expression on his countenance—