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

“A chicken-pie.”

“Yes! as true as you live. I remembered how you liked them, and we made this on purpose for you.”

“Thank you! you are always kind. What else have you? I am so hungry!”

“Pumpkin pies and toasted brown bread; it will be ready in less than five minutes.”

“Ah, this is good! there is nothing I love so well. But, Ponto, let this paper alone. Here, you little rascal!” (For Ponto was running off with the “Era;” going sideways in a highly comical way, that he might not step on it.) “Ponto grows more roguish: I am afraid you help to spoil him, Miss Hedelquiver.”

And in all that he said and did – I mean Mr. Cullen, of course – he was like a good son, running over with delight and sociability at finding himself beneath the home-roof once more.

“The handsomest pie I ever saw,” said he, as uncle was beginning to carve it.

I looked at aunt, but she would not look at me. She would say – “I think so too. Rosamonde put on the cross and border. Neither Bessy nor I should ever have thought of such a thing.”

Mr. Cullen looked up to me, I know, and uncle, too; but I was drinking, and kept my eyes down in my tumbler of water. “I am vexed,” thought I, for one moment, “for this is what she will keep doing.” But the next moment I looked about me undauntedly, and thought – “Yet, if she does, I wont be vexed. I will only do those things that I do in such a way that she can’t hold me up for admiration. Good! I fancy Mr. Cullen will see something not quite so pretty as that chicken-pie, before many days.” And I was full of mirth at thought of the hodge-podge I will perpetrate if I am troubled.

Mr. Cullen went over to Mr. Monroe’s after dinner, and brought Paulina back with him to take her supper with us and spend the evening. She was in the new Thibet, the new collar and under-sleeves, so that she was rather stiff, rather careful about her ways, but pretty as a rose and lily tied together, and Mr. Cullen evidently thought the same. He ate a part of her Baldwin apple, when she complained of its being so large that she could neither hold it with both her hands (and she spread them before him to let him see how much too small they were for that) nor eat it if she could hold it. She didn’t allow Ponto to come very near her new Thibet, or new under-sleeves, and so Mr. Cullen let the little fellow run over himself and me. He played backgammon with her, game after game, as he talked with the rest, and allowed her to beat him in every game; whereupon she patted his shoulder with her dice-box and called him a careless goose.

“Rosamonde Hedelquiver,” said she to me, as she was putting on her furs to go, “what made you keep on this common-looking dress, and these plain duds,” touching her finger to my linen cuffs and collar. “I thought you would be all dressed up in your best, and so I put these on. I was mad with myself for my pains when I saw you.”

“Ah, this is nothing, any way, Paulina. Here is your hood; it is a beauty.”

“Yes, I like it pretty well. I suppose you’ll ride every day on horseback, just as you have done?”

“I presume so. Let me tie your hood for you. You can’t find the strings, can you?”

“No, my fingers are all thumbs to-night. I suppose Alfred will ride with you. Aunt will teaze him to. He used to ride with Alice; but he never liked it so well as walking, or going in a carriage. But he is one of those who will do every thing that is required of him.”

She was putting on her over-shoes, so that I could not see what sort of expression accompanied these words.

“You needn’t expect to see him here again to-night, Aunt Alice,” said she, hanging on his arm, at the parlor door. “I shall keep him. We’re going to have something for breakfast that he likes best of any thing; and I know he’ll stay for this, if not for any thing else. Wont you, Alfred?”

“No, no, Paulina. Let him come back,” said aunt. “We want him here to-night. Don’t stay, Alfred.”

“No, I will not, mother,” bowing to go.

“Then I will call you an obstinate and real cross pig, if you don’t,” I heard Paulina say, in tones half-laughing, half-pouting, in the hall.

Uncle took up the Tribune; aunt and I drew near the stove to toast our feet a little.

“I think he attends to her and humors her more and more,” said aunt at length, in a dreamy tone. She had been watching a chink in the stove where the flickering blaze was seen. “Don’t you think he does, Frederic? Frederic, don’t you think Alfred really means to make a wife of Paulina?”

“I think likely he does,” replied uncle, at the same time that he went on with his reading, as if he had not spoken, or aunt either.

Aunt kept her eyes on the stove after this until I rose to leave the room. “Good-night dear,” said she then, kissing me lovingly. She looked as if the last of ever so many cherished hopes was on its flight.

I write in a little library that opens out of the back-parlor, and is warmed by the book-parlor stove. Mr. Cullen has just entered the parlor; where he talks softly to Ponto, and rummages the newspapers. Now aunt comes in, and after the morning greetings, she says, clearing her throat – “So you think Paulina improves?”

“In some respects; don’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose she does. But breakfast is quite ready, Alfred. Monde, dear – ” coming this way.

“Yes, dear aunt, I come.”

    Evening.

This has been the busiest day! I couldn’t even find time to get this already longest of all letters ready for the mail. I will therefore sit here, now that it is all over, now that all have gone to rest but me, and tell you about it; and let me do it in little skirmishing scenes like this.

Scene 1. The Breakfast Table

Judge Hedelquiver. “So Burchard & Bean are lending their interests to the Nicaragua route?”

Mr. Cullen. “Yes; and so are Cornish & Brothers. They are much more substantial.”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “The Nicaragua route, the Panama rail-road, free trade, and so on – Frederic and Rosamonde think that these are going to do not a little toward making this world all over new. They think they are going to do their part in putting down wars and every sort of thing that isn’t brotherly and according to what the gospel enjoins. Monde, have you water? Oh yes, I see. Now I’ve tried again and again to see what connection there can possibly be between peace and the Panama rail-road, for instance; and I can’t. I don’t half believe there is any – do you, Alfred?”

Mr. Cullen, laughing. “Oh yes, mother?”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “Yes, I suppose you do. You and Frederic, and Monde think just alike about every thing, I see. Have some more chocolate, Alfred.”

Scene 2. The Hall

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “What do you want to say to me, dear?”

Monde. “I want to tell you – why, aunt, you see I want to write mornings, and then ride when I am tired of it – just as I have done all along. And I have been thinking that Mr. Cullen may feel that it belongs to him to – why, to see to me some, perhaps sometimes to ride with me. But it don’t, you know. I would rather attend to myself, and go alone, as I have done. So you wont let him think, will you, dear aunt, that it is necessary for him on any account, or at any time, to go with me any where.”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “Why?”

Monde. “Because, if you do, aunt, it will put a disagreeable restraint upon him, and make me very unhappy. I have always been used, you know, to depending upon myself. I have never been a favorite of the gentlemen, or of anybody, except a few kind people who would see that there was something in me somewhere that deserved to be loved.”

Mrs. Hedelquiver. “And this has been a grief to you, dear, Monde? and is at this minute, as I know by the sound of your voice.”

Monde. “Sometimes it grieves me; and then again I am thankful. For it has made me self-reliant, and very loving toward Him who will always be near His child, and love her. Aunt, dear, you will promise not to hint it to him, in the remotest way, that he ought to ride with me, or wait on me at any time?”

Mrs. Hedelquiver, dreamily, and as if again hopes were flying. “Yes, I will promise. But I can’t see what objections you can have to his riding with you. There’s John almost always, you know, in the stable. There is nothing to hinder his going.”

Monde. “Nothing to hinder, if it is his own spontaneous will and wish; otherwise, every thing, in my way of thinking. Come, aunt, you are freezing.”

Scene 3. Outside the Gate

Judge Hedelquiver. “Ready, Monde?”

Monde. “Ready, uncle.”

Judge Hedelquiver. “Wait a moment. I want to tell you, Monde, that I overheard what you said to your aunt in the hall, this morning.”

Monde. “Did you, uncle?”