Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 6, December 1852

Judge Hedelquiver. “Yes; but never mind it: It was only a new proof that you are the most sensible girl in creation. It is just the way you ought to feel about it. What he will do of his own accord, let him do; but I will help you in this. I will take care that he don’t do any thing for you because he sees you in need of him.”

Monde. “You are the dearest, best uncle that any poor child ever had! Now, if you will help me.”

Judge Hedelquiver. “There you are! You mount as if you had some little wings up there among the plumes of your hat. I will bet you have.”

Mr. Cullen, appearing at the door with a book in his hand. “What, are you going to ride this morning, Miss Hedelquiver?”

Monde. “Yes, Mr. Cullen.”

Mr. Cullen. “And alone?”

Monde. “Yes, sir. Uncle, my stick, if you please.”

Mr. Cullen, springing forward to pick up the stick. “Now I protest against this! I have been thinking that I wanted to ride – and (laughing a little) that I wanted to ride with you. Let me help you off, now, for a few minutes. I will have John ready in – John is in the stable, isn’t he, judge?”

Judge Hedelquiver. “Yes, and at your service, if Monde will wait – if she wants you to go. You haven’t asked her.”

Mr. Cullen. “No! presuming blockhead that I am! Do you want me to go with you, Monde?”

Monde. “If you want to.”

Mr. Cullen. “As I most certainly do. Let me help you. Only I am sorry to give you so much trouble. I am sorry I didn’t know, in the first of it, that you were going. You will tell me next time, wont you?” (opening the gate for Monde to pass in.)

Monde. “I – I believe I sha’n’t promise you.”

Mr. Cullen. “Promise at any rate to let me know it, whenever you are willing to have me with you.”

Monde, with the door half shut between her and him. “I believe I sha’n’t promise that either.”

Mr. Cullen, on his way, with the Judge, to the stable. “Then I will always make you wait for me like this.”

Well, well! I see I might write all night, with my scenes first to twentieth, inclusive. But I sha’n’t. I shall go to bed, after I have told you that the morning ride was altogether delightful. I never knew such a splendid morning. I never had so agreeable a companion in ride, or ramble, or – I shall say it, Edith, for it is the truth – or any where. And I fancy that he found me – quite tolerable. One could not well be otherwise with him about.

We found company here when we returned – two of the professors from Woodstock, together with Judge Brentwood, and his wife and daughter, from Craftsburg. They all dined here; and things never went off so strongly. I sat by aunt, and helped her serve the guests. When I do this, and she can now and then look over the table into uncle’s always clear, calm face, and listen to his manly expression, she can know pretty well what she is doing, even if she does sometimes venture upon a little conversation.

While we were giving them our adieus at the door, two other sleighs came up with high-headed horses and loud-jingling bells, taking along fresh visitors to spend the rest of the day and the evening with us. They were wealthy farmers, who wanted to talk of horses and oxen, and different breeds of sheep, with uncle; and farmers’ wives, who talked with most interest with aunt, when it was upon butter and cheese, and preserves and bread-making. This, as you must see, left Mr. Cullen and me pretty much to ourselves. But we were at no loss. I can’t see how one can ever be at a loss with him; for his vigorous and fresh thought readily comprehends all the philosophy of nature, of morals, and of life; and he communicates himself, as it were, and all that is in him, so magically that —

But, see if I am going to write all night! A happy New Year, dearest. Extend the greetings of the season to all in your house.

    Thy Loving Monde.

—

CHAPTER V

MONDE TO EDITH

    Danville, Jan. 12, 1852.

Edith, dear, how often I write to you. But it relieves me to throw my story by, and gossip in this careless way. And, moreover, I must be telling somebody how happy I am; and how the days go, day after day, as if on the wings of the morning. I would not have believed that there was any thing like it on this earth; that I, or any one, could ever be so thoroughly comfortable. I suppose it is because uncle and Mr. Cullen talk so much of those excellent things that keep us close by Heaven. I don’t suppose it is any thing else. Only it is pleasant riding every day, sometimes twice a day; sometimes on Kate’s back, sometimes in a sleigh; oftenest, of late, in a sleigh. It is good seeing aunt so kind, so attentive to all our wishes, and so happy – and so facetious, too, in her way. Hear what a curious thing she said to-day, when uncle and Dr. Ponchard were discussing the medical systems. Uncle, by the by, is a homoeopathist. “Husband seems to think, as you see, Dr. Ponchard, that the practice of medicine must needs change with all other practices; that the great pills, for instance, as large as bullets, belong to the almost by-gone age of bullets. I don’t know, I am sure, but he believes that people will be so refined by the time the transition state is fairly over, that nothing but rarefied air will be thought of for remedies. And if he does, I shall think he is right, doctor.”

“Ha! no doubt whatever of that,” said the doctor, who is a sort of witty bear. “No doubt you will have implicit faith in the rarefied-air system, if the judge ever comes to preach it. You’ll be found with a tube in your mouth, breathing it whenever you have a little indigestion or headache.”

Aunt laughed, and filled the huge pockets of the doctor’s fur overcoat with apples for his wife and children.

Hear how diligent I am. I have been writing since five o’clock. I began an hour earlier than usual, because we are to have visitors from Barnet to spend the day, so that I must be hindered.

Mr. Cullen has been reading in the parlor since six; now it is almost seven. He yawns, he moves about; I fancy he is tired of his books. I do not allow him to come into the library in the morning, because then it disturbs me having him near. After they are stirring in all the rest of the rooms, I don’t mind it; and he sits here by the hour. He yawns again, says, “Heigho!” and sees to the fire. “Monde!” he says, as if there were something that he will no longer try to bear.

“What say, sir?”

“It is so hot and stupid here, a fellow can have no comfort.” (Shutting the stove door.) “I am coming into your cool room. May I?”

“Yes.”

“Shall I disturb you?” – coming.

“No, sir.”

“‘No, sir!’ so I see. You can write, and talk, and have me about – it isn’t so much as if Ponto had come into the room instead of me. I have a good mind to try whether there is a way of disturbing you a little. I shall sit here close by you, and keep scolding. Yes, I see. You only smile quietly at this, and go on writing. I am provoked! I want you to talk with me; want you to care more about me than about this old ‘commercial pen’ of yours. Will you?”

“I can’t,” laughing.

“Then I will steal your pen. I will hold your hand – thus – ”

    Evening.

He stole my pen, and threw it to the other side of the table. He held my hand, and called me “an obstinate thing! but a dear good girl – a dear good girl, for all that.” He would keep my hand; and soon I ceased trying to regain it – for he was telling me, in the dearest voice, what he had been reading and thinking; so that I forgot every thing but that I was happy enough to go straight away to Heaven. And I wish at this moment, Edith, that I might die – for I cannot believe that such happiness as this can last; and I would rather die than have it broken.

I know what you will say. You will say that I love Mr. Cullen; and I expect that I do. I expect that I have loved him since the day that he came. And I shall never regret this, even if I find that it is only friendliness he feels for me, if I find that he loves and marries another – for my life is enriched and beautified by the new emotions, by the love of one so noble, so pure!

For the present, aunt looks smilingly on, takes Mr. Cullen’s part when he and uncle are both going to ride, and both lay claims to my company. She adjusts the matter by saying, “Frederic, let her go with Alfred! He isn’t going to stay long, you know. And, besides, I want to go with you myself. So just bring my hood and cloak in from the hall, while I am finding the rest of my things.”

“Yes, ‘finding the rest of your things!’ this takes a week; and this is why I like it best having Monde go with me.” But, notwithstanding uncle contends I can see that he likes best seeing me go and come with Mr. Cullen. Notwithstanding he and aunt send Mr. Cullen or me in every morning to see how it is with Paulina’s neuralgia, they are neither of them much sorry to be told that her face is still swelled out of all comeliness of shape with it, so that she will not see either of us. Her mother, by the way, says she took cold wearing such thin stockings over here the day that Mr. Cullen came. She would wear them, she says, because she wanted to pinch her feet up in her tight summer boots.

“A silly puss!” said uncle, when aunt told him about it. “I wonder how a woman can imagine that any person of sense cares a fig whether her foot is like an elephant or a mouse.”

We rode a long way to-day, for our visitors were old people, who cared more for talking with uncle and aunt about their fathers and grandfathers and great-uncles, than for all Mr. Cullen and I had to say to them. And the day and the scenery were magnificent. I wonder if you know, Edith, mine, that one never needs go to Italy because one is longing to look upon deep blue skies, sunsets, and moonlights splendid enough to bewitch one; and upon mountains, great and small, ranging off like troops of living monsters. One needs only come to New England; here, to this hilly town, Danville. And one should come, at least once in one’s life, in the winter of the year; for the so much bepraised summer glory must yield to the winter, if many mountains are in the scene, and such noble ones as Mount Washington and its kindred. Their snowy lights are softened by the distance, and their shades deepened, so that, at midday, it is as if they were all of pearl. They lie along the whole eastern horizon; and when the sun takes a golden setting, there can hardly be any thing much finer of its kind in all Italy, in all Switzerland, I imagine; for a reflected glory is upon the mountains as varied nearly, nearly as intense as that which immediately surrounds the sun.

We talked of Alice to-day as we rode; and Mr. Cullen had serious eyes and hushed tones, as if he had infinite tenderness for her memory.

“I think as your uncle and aunt do, that you are like Alice in many respects, dear Monde,” said he, leaning a little toward me, as if he felt tenderness for me, in that he felt it for the dead Alice. “Only,” he added, “as the judge says, you have much the superior character. You have, I see, the pliancy of the reed, when you need to bend, and the consistency of the oak, when you need to stand erect. I like the way you bear praise,” added he, after a little pause. “I suppose you would bear the same amount of fault-finding as quietly.”

“Try me, and see.”

“Yes; for instance, if I tell you that you have a certain obstinate self-reliance, piquant to see.”

“Well?”