Chapter III: Part 3

The mourning garments were completed; but when Mabel was arrayed in them, they carried no comfort to the heart. She could not even feel that the wearing of them was a token of respect to her dead sister; for they had robbed her of the blessed privilege of weeping over her bier.

More than once she recalled the uncharitable judgment she had passed upon the Lawsons; but they had been privileged to mourn without interruption over their dead. The course they had chosen was reasonable; and she could not but feel that if the heart alone were consulted, it would not weep in nodding plumes and sable weeds.

Around the grave of Mary the devoted sister planted the flowers she had loved so well, and every evening, as the sun sank away, she placed a fresh bouquet upon the green sod above her.

And close by, the hand of affection strewed flowers upon the grave of Ellen Lawson; and all summer long, and when the chill winds of autumn swept the cemetery, these floral offerings told the passer by that the dead were remembered every day.

Bring flowers! Scatter them upon the graves of the dead; for they are a far more grateful tribute to the memory of the departed, than all the trappings of fashionable woe!

THE DOMESTIC ELEMENT.

_CHAPTER I._

“Julia has been to the public schools long enough,” said Mrs. Mason to her husband. “She is fifteen years old, and I am sure she can learn nothing more till she is sent to a boarding school.”

“Nonsense!”

“Besides, Mrs. Benson’s daughter has left, and Julia don’t want to go any longer.”

“Let her stay at home then.”

“Stay at home! Don’t you mean she shall have any polish?”

“Can’t you polish her, my dear?” asked the easy husband, with a good-natured smile.

“How absurdly you talk!”

“Why, my dear, you have got quite polish enough for the wife of a small merchant. I would not give a copper to have you any more of a lady than you are.”

“But Julia may be the wife of a rich man; what would she be then without music, French, and painting?”

“And she may be the wife of a poor mechanic, and these accomplishments be useless and burdensome.”

“She never shall be the wife of a mechanic if I can help it,” retorted Mrs. Mason, smartly.

“Fie, Mary; you are unreasonable. Why should she look higher than a mechanic, especially as some of our best and most reputable men are mechanics?”

“She shall not be the wife of a mechanic if I can help it,” repeated the lady.

“Why not?”

“She shall do better, and that is the reason why I want her better educated.”

“She may do worse. What are we, my dear, that we need look among the nabobs for a husband for our daughter?”

“Are you not a merchant?”

“Only a small shopkeeper.”

“Well, that’s a merchant; and I mean Julia shall marry a merchant.”

Mr. Mason yielded the point, and agreed that Julia should marry whomsoever she and her mother might choose.

“But she must be educated for her future station.”

“True, she must.”

“She must go to a boarding school, and learn French, music, painting and German.”

“And Chinese,” interposed Mr. Mason.

“She must learn all the fashionable things.”

“I believe English grammar, writing, and arithmetic are not in fashion.”

“Pooh! she knows all about these things.”

“I asked her to tell me how many bushels of potatoes a wagon seven feet long by four wide and three high would contain, and she could not make the first figure towards it.”

“I suppose there was no such question in her book.”

“Perhaps not; and she could not tell me where Sevastopol was--whether it was in China or the Sandwich Islands.”

“How foolish you are! I think likely she never happened to see the place on the map.”

“And that letter she wrote to her uncle was such horrible grammar that I was ashamed to send it.”

“No matter for that; she understands grammar very well.”

“May be she does; but she has an awkward way of showing it. I suppose washing, cooking, and baking are not fashionable either.”

“There it is again.”

“I think you would do better by her if you took her into the kitchen, and taught her these things. If she happens to marry a poor man, they will be of some service to her.”

“Time enough for these things.”

“Well, well, do as you please; but I am opposed to boarding schools; I think they do more harm than good.”

“That’s just like you! Opposed to boarding schools! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“They spoil more young ladies than they ever benefit.”

“How in the world can it spoil them?”

“Home is the place for girls. The first thing they should be taught to love is the fireside; they ought never to be weaned from it by sending them away to undergo monastic discipline in a boarding school.”

“How foolish!”

“It gives them bad habits--makes them romantic--fills their silly heads with moonshine; and if you send Julia, ten to one she will run away with some bearded puppy.”

But it was no kind of use for Mr. Mason to argue with his wife on such a topic as this; she was bent on sending Julia to the boarding school. He was a man of peace, and, rather than make a tempest, he withdrew from the combat.

_CHAPTER II._

Julia Mason did not possess a very brilliant intellect. Nature had never intended her for a “blue stocking,” and, live as long as she might, there was no probability that she would ever become even a “strong minded woman.” She had for many years attended one of the public schools, but had never risen above the second class, and the master did not believe she ever would.

Yet, for all this, Julia was a good-hearted, generous, whole souled girl. What Nature had neglected to place in her head, she had beneficently put in her heart. She had a nice, womanly, domestic temperament, was quiet and unobtrusive in her manners, and, without doubt, if no pains had been taken to spoil her, would have made somebody a very loving, if not a very brilliant wife.

She was a little disposed to be romantic and sentimental--would have fed well and thriven on moonshine--a temperament which requires a great deal of prudent management on the part of the parent or guardian.

Julia went to the boarding school; but she had not been there three weeks before she wrote to her mother, begging her to take her away, or she declared she should certainly die.

The poor girl was homesick. Monastic discipline was an outrage upon her affectionate, domestic nature. She had been accustomed to spend her evenings by the fireside at home, with her parents and younger brother and sisters; and it was a sad deprivation to her to be driven, at the stroke of a bell, into her chamber at seven o’clock, there to sit in painful silence with her roommate, and study her lesson. She was not a genius, and she hated study; it was uncongenial in the highest degree.

At nine o’clock, at the stroke of the bell, she must retire, and in fifteen minutes her light must be put out, or a black mark was made against her name on the following day; and so it was all day long, week in and week out. Her existence was odiously mechanical. Her life was regulated by that everlasting stroke of the bell. She was obliged to do every thing by rule--eat, drink, sleep, study, play, walk, by rule.

It was unnatural, and her soul cried out within her against such monstrous formality. She could not learn, her heart grieved so under the repulsive mechanism of her existence. Even the music lesson, which she had anticipated with the liveliest pleasure, was gloomy and distasteful. She was conscientious, and, though her companions laughed at her for it, she at first paid the most implicit obedience to the rules of the institution. Her roommate devised various happy expedients for relieving the tedium of their lives; but she refused to avail herself of them.

Her mother begged her to persevere for a time, assuring her that she was only homesick--a disease which a few weeks would effectually cure. She did persevere; but her “chum” finally succeeded in overcoming her conscientious scruples, and the evenings, instead of being passed in study, were devoted to a “good time generally.” It is true, Julia got innumerable black marks for failures in her recitations; but the horrible bugbears soon became so familiar that they ceased to have any terrors. Before the first term had expired, she had so completely weaned herself from her domestic memories that home had lost all its charms.

She had learned a great many “new tricks.” Indeed, the preceptor, in his report to her parents at the close of her first term, felt it his duty to say that her conduct had not been altogether satisfactory. She had gone to the boarding school the quietest person in the world; she returned a romp, her head full of strange notions about lovers, and her heart as washy as the moonshine in her head.

On the first evening after her return home she insisted on going to the opera; the second to a concert; the third to the theatre; the fourth to a lecture; the fifth to a party; the sixth to a conference meeting; and so on every evening.

“What in the world has got into you, Julia? You did not use to be fond of ‘kiting’ round in this manner,” said the astonished Mrs. Mason.

“O mother, it is so insufferably dull at home! Besides, it is not fashionable to stay at home in the evening,” drawled Julia.

“What _has_ got into you?”

“Boarding schools,” said Mr. Mason.

“I should die of _ennui_ to stay at home an evening,” continued the daughter, with a languishing sigh.

“You had better give her a lesson on the pots and kettles now,” interrupted Mr. Mason.

“O papa, how cruel you are! Pray go to the opera with me.”

Mr. Mason was an indulgent papa, and he was obliged to go; but he could not help wondering what Julia would finally come to, if she was permitted to go on in this manner.

_CHAPTER III._

Julia returned to the boarding school, and in spite of the weak efforts of her father to avert the fashionable fate that awaited her, she continued there for nearly two years. In music and painting she made rapid progress; but in literature and science she failed to make even a decent proficiency.

She was an altered creature. She was vain, affected, romantic, and transcendental, cherishing all sorts of visionary notions about life, and especially about lovers and husbands, who filled a long space in her daily meditations. She had lost her domestic nature, and that was the saddest loss of all. Her heart was not actually corrupted; but it was so buried up in the weeds of vanity and folly, that its gentle influence was almost entirely lost upon her life and character. If not unsexed, she had lost that hold upon woman’s sphere which confers her chief charm in society. She was a creature for the ball room and the opera, and not for the quiet shades of home.

Perhaps a boarding school does not always make such sad havoc in the mind and heart of the young female; but such is the tendency of its artificial manner of existence. Monastic discipline spoils woman; it removes her from, and unfits her for, her social, domestic position.

When the two years had nearly expired, Mr. Mason one day received a letter from the principal of the seminary, containing the astounding intelligence that Julia had eloped with a young gentleman who had come from the city on a visit in the neighborhood.

“The grand _finale_ of the drama,” said Mr. Mason, throwing the letter to his wife.

“Good Heaven! who is this Mr. Winchel?” exclaimed Mrs. Mason, when she had read the letter.

“A son of Winchel, the merchant in ---- Street.”

“Rich?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God it is no worse!” replied Mrs. Mason, so far relieved that a pleasant smile played upon her lips.

A few days after, Julia and her husband presented themselves at the home of her father. They were received with open arms. Mrs. Mason was too much pleased with the match to make a fuss about it, and Mr. Mason followed his wife’s “lead.”

A few weeks after, they were comfortably settled in a pleasant house; for Mr. Winchel, who had some very clearly defined aspirations for the quiet joys of a fireside of his own, insisted upon going to housekeeping instead of boarding.

This kind of life was novel to Julia, and for the first six months, while her husband consented to take her every evening to the opera, a ball, party, or concert, she was tolerably contented.

But Mr. Winchel got sick of such an incessant round of amusement, and sighed for that paradise of home which his imagination had years ago painted. He reasoned with his giddy wife; but she hated home, and reproached him for attempting to imprison her in the house, and thus make her life miserable.

Mr. Winchel was firm, and positively refused to go to any more operas, balls, parties, or concerts.

Julia was forced to accede to his reasonable desires; but home, even in the presence of her husband, had become an intolerable place. Indeed, the romance of a husband had worn itself away. He had fallen in love with her in the most natural way in the world, and had proposed to wait upon her father, and arrange the preliminaries for their marriage; but Julia was not content to be united to him in such a tame manner as that, and insisted upon an elopement. Her lover gratified her--to his sorrow, he now discovered.

Julia was unhappy. Her husband, disgusted at her folly, returned to the club he had abandoned when he married her, leaving her to comfort or amuse herself as best she might. And she found comfort and amusement in the society of a gay and dashing Lothario, who consoled her for her husband’s absence by making love to her. It was not long before the world was again astonished by the publication of an elopement--not a harmless, sentimental affair, but a criminal elopement.

Julia was too romantic to consider the moral turpitude of the act. The pious preaching and praying of the boarding school, had been lost upon her in the variety of more congenial topics that were there presented to her. The elopement was romance; she thought not of the crime.

Mr. Mason and his wife were in the deepest distress. Mr. Winchel called at her father’s store, and stated the particulars of their domestic experience. It was plain to both that the distaste for home was traceable to the loss of the domestic element of the misguided wife.

Julia and her seducer--we wrong him--both were guilty--were heard from in New Orleans; but the villain soon became tired of her whims, and left her, and she died a few years later, a ruined, abandoned, off-cast creature, the victim of a false education.

Mr. Mason’s remaining daughters were not sent to the boarding school. They received the best education to be had in the city, and there are noted institutions of learning there. They were thus kept constantly under the watchful care of their parents, and the domestic element in their natures was not unsettled by absence from home, while the plastic mind was being moulded into its shape for life.

“BANG UP!”

OR,

THE RESULTS OF ADVERTISING.

_CHAPTER I._

“Any thing over, Ben?”

“Not a dollar; I just paid the Journal’s bill for advertising, which has pretty much cleaned me out.”

“How much?”

“Forty-two dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“Ben, I don’t like to tell you that you are the biggest fool on the street; but you are.”

“Wait, Joe, and see,” returned the other, with a confident smile.

“Forty-two dollars for advertising!”

“Just so, and for three months’ advertising.”

The applicant for “any thing over” gave a peculiar whistle to define the length, breadth, and depth of his astonishment.

This conversation occurred in the store of Benjamin Weston, a young and enterprising merchant, who had just commenced business on his own account. The other person, who to use his own classic expression, was “bang up,” and wanted to borrow fifty dollars to make up the amount of a note due that day, was Joseph Weston, a cousin of the other. They had been playmates in youth and stanch friends in maturity. Though there was a great diversity of opinion on many topics, a strong sympathy existed between them.

They had commenced business at about the same time, and under nearly the same circumstances, both being obliged for the want of sufficient capital to mortgage the stock in their respective stores.

Thus far they had done well, and the prospect was that both would become wealthy and distinguished merchants.

They had married sisters, and occupied tenements in the same block. Their houses were furnished in substantially the same style, and with no material difference of expenditure. Both had been brought up to business habits, and educated into the principles of a rigid economy.

“Forty-two dollars for advertising,” repeated Joe.

“And if I had the money to spare, I would spend double that sum,” replied Benjamin.

“What benefit do you expect to realize from it?”

“You are behind the times, Joe. Benefit! What a question! I expect to make my fortune by it.”

“Humbug!”

“Look at Brandeth and Swaim.”

“Both humbugs.”

“No matter for that; if these fellows have been able to make princely fortunes by advertising humbugs, how much more so will he who deals in substantial realities!”

“All gammon!”

“We differ; time will tell who is in the right.”

“Seriously, Ben, you will ruin yourself if you go on in this manner. Forty-two dollars a quarter for advertising!”

“I shall spend a hundred the next quarter.”

“Don’t do it, Ben.”

“How does it happen, Joe, that you are in the street borrowing money? I never did such a thing since I commenced business.”

“How does it happen, Ben, that you haven’t got any money to lend?” asked Joe, with a smile.

“Because I spent it in advertising.”

“Better have spent it for opera and 2:40’s.”

“Wait, Joe, wait.”

“I spent nothing for advertising; but I will bet you the oysters my sales for the last quarter are as large as yours.”

“I will take you up on the next quarter.”

“Why not the last.”

“Advertising is somewhat like planting potatoes; you must wait for the crops.”

“Don’t believe in it, Ben. When I have a fifty spot that I don’t know what to do with, I shall put it into my family. Buy a library, a new sofa, or something of that sort. I should rather go to the White Mountains with it, than throw it away upon newspapers.”

“You don’t know your own interest, Joe.”

“Don’t I? Some kinds of business might thrive on advertising; but ours, never. Do you believe the women look in the newspapers before they go shopping?”

“Well, there was a lady in here just now, who said she saw such and such goods advertised by me.”

“Pshaw! and on the strength of that you intend to spend fifty dollars more in advertising! Ben, you are crazy;” and Joseph Weston turned his heel and left the store, assured in his own mind that his friend was going to ruin.

In his estimation such loose principles would eventually bring him to bankruptcy. But Ben was his friend, and he deeply commiserated him because he clung to such weak and pernicious doctrines.

_CHAPTER II._

Business prospered with the young men. By prudent and careful management, each had not only made a living, but had been able to pay a small portion of the mortgage on the stock, at the end of the first year.

Joseph had the advantage of his friend in possessing a better location, and though his rent was somewhat higher, the difference was more than compensated by the increased facilities it afforded him. The prospect was decidedly bright to him. If his business increased as it had done, he would be enabled to clear himself of debt in another year.

Under this encouraging aspect he ventured to expend a hundred dollars in additions to his furniture, which his wife insisted was absolutely necessary for their comfort and happiness. The house had been furnished altogether too plain for this progressive age in her estimation. She was behind some of her friends who, she was sure, were doing no better than her husband.

Joseph was a little obstinate at first; but then there was something so decidedly comfortable in a set of stuffed chairs and a lounge, that he did not hold out in his opposition. He was doing well, and the expenditure would not seriously embarrass him.

With a nice new Brussels carpet and the new furniture, Mrs. Weston’s little parlor looked exceedingly pleasant and comfortable. Besides, it looked as though her husband was prospering in his business.

It was so very nice that the young wife could not bear the idea of having the parlor shut up, so that no one should see it till the furniture had grown rusty; consequently she made up her mind that they must have a party.

Their friends had parties; why shouldn’t they? It looked stingy not to have one. Mrs. Weston was an eloquent debater, and she gained the day in this matter. It is true the party was not a very extravagant affair; but it cost Joe some fifty dollars. In the meantime Benjamin had paid quite as much for advertising as his friend had for new furniture and the party. Joseph laughed at him, and finally came to believe that he was insane, and would certainly come to ruin in another year.

Mrs. Ben Weston, too, felt decidedly unpleasant about the improvements which had been going on in her sister’s house.

“Why can’t we have a rosewood table and a set of stuffed chairs, Benjamin?” asked she, pouting her pretty lips into a very unamiable position.

“Simply, my dear, because I cannot afford it,” replied the philosophical merchant.

“How can Joe afford it?”

“I presume he knows his business best.”

“He has put over a hundred dollars into his house.”

Ben whistled “T’other side of Jordan,” and made no reply.

“Do, Ben, buy some new chairs.”

“Can’t afford it.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t.”

“_You_ can afford it as well as Joe.”

“Perhaps I can.”

“Do buy some.”

“I should be very glad to gratify you, but I cannot take the money from my business. A year hence, if business prospers with me, you shall have them.”

“A year hence,” pouted the wife.

“I must spend a hundred dollars in advertising the next quarter.”

“How foolish!”

“Very foolish, my dear; but it must be done.”

“That’s the way you throw your money away. You don’t catch Joe to do such a trick as that.”

“True; but though he has the advantage of having a corner store, I paid three hundred dollars more on my mortgage note than he did.”

“Then you can afford the table and chairs.”

“Nay, my dear, I will not spend a dollar for superfluities while I am in debt.”

Mrs. Ben Weston felt very bad about it, but her husband was firm, and she was forced to content herself with the plain furniture.

Mrs. Joe Weston enjoyed her nice parlor till the novelty wore away, and then she discovered that there were a great many other articles wanted to make things look uniform. The two windows must have drapery curtains, a pier glass was needed, and some pictures were wanted to relieve the walls. Her husband, who had once exceeded the limits of his means, found no great difficulty in doing so again, and the things were bought.

But Joe had some scruples about it. His notes began to be troublesome, and every day he was in the street borrowing money. His business, too, had not met his expectations. Instead of increasing in the ratio of his first year’s experience, it hardly held its own, and the poor fellow began to have some serious misgivings about the future.

Before the year had half expired, he was obliged to introduce a rigid system of retrenchment into his family and business affairs, in order to keep his expenses within his means.

_CHAPTER III._

Another year had passed away in the business experience of the young merchants. The books had been balanced, and the results stood in black and white before them.

Ben had followed up his system of advertising through the year. He had expended large sums, but had made the outlay with judgment and discretion.

The result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. His store was crowded with customers; with genuine, _bona fide_ customers, and with but a small proportion of gadders and fancy shoppers. The newspapers had borne to the best families in the city and country full descriptions of his stock. His name was as familiar as “household words” in the dwellings of the rich and poor, of the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer.

Truly, the harvest was abundant, and Ben rubbed his hands with delight as he cast his eyes over the figures which conveyed to him the pleasing results of his year’s operations. He had the means, not only of clearing himself of debt, but also of gratifying his wife by giving her all the new furniture she required, besides a handsome surplus with which to increase his business.

The new furniture was bought and set up; every debt was discharged, and the importers and jobbers were eager to give him unlimited credit.

One day, while he was ruminating upon this pleasant state of things, Joe Weston entered the store. For some months past, the intercourse between the young merchants had not been as cordial as formerly. Joe’s nice things had rather “set him up;” some of the upper ten had condescended to visit him; and he had attended the “Almack” parties with his wife.

He was getting ahead fast in his own estimation, and cherished a supreme contempt for the slow motion of his friend. But when, in the middle of the year, he found himself running down hill, and discovered that Ben’s store was crowded with shoppers, while his own was empty, a feeling of envy took possession of him. Ben must be underselling, he concluded, and sooner or latter the consequences would appear.

The prosperous merchant could not but notice the sad and dejected mien of his friend, as he entered the store.

“How are you, Joe? You are almost a stranger, lately. Where do you keep yourself?” said Ben.

“Business, Ben; business!” replied Joe, demurely.

“Good! Business before pleasure.”

“Any thing over to-day?” asked Joe; but the query was not put in that buoyant, elastic tone, which had distinguished him in former times.

“A trifle; how much do you want?” returned Ben, promptly.

“To tell the truth, I am ‘bang up.’ I have got a note of four hundred to pay, and I have not yet raised the first dollar towards it.”

“You are late; it is half past one now,” replied Ben, consulting his watch.

“Ben, I am in a tight place,” said Joe, in a low, solemn tone.

“Indeed! I am sorry to hear it,” and Ben’s face wore an expression of sincere sympathy. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“I am afraid so.”

“What can I do for you?” and the young merchant took down his check book, and examined the state of his bank account.

“I can give you a check for three hundred, if that will do you any good,” continued he, taking up the pen to fill out the blank.

“Thank you, Ben; you are very kind; but I don’t know as I ought to take it.”

“Not take it! Why not?”

“If I should pay this note, there is hardly a possibility that I could get through the month.”

“So bad as that? ’Pon my soul, I am sorry to hear it.”

“Smith and Jones advise me to make an assignment.”

“How does it happen? I thought you were doing well?”

“Business has been very dull for the last six months. Haven’t you found it so?”

“Well, no; it has been driving with me.”

Joe knew it had; indeed, his present visit was not to borrow money, but to prepare his friend for the “smash,” which was now unavoidable.

“My sales have been light,” continued he; “I can’t account for it.”

“I can; look here, Joe.”

Ben took down his ledger, and pointed to the account “Charges,” where the sums paid for advertising had been entered. On a slip of paper he had footed them up.

“Five hundred and sixty-five dollars for advertising, Joe! That’s what did the business.”

Joe was astonished. It was quite as much as he had paid for fine things for his house, and for parties, and the opera; but the investment had been vastly more profitable, inasmuch as, taken in connection with his careful management of his business and his economical manner of living it had laid the foundation of his future fortune. It had given him a good start in business, and a good beginning is half the battle.

Joe Weston failed, and paid only twenty cents on a dollar. His fine furniture was all sold, and he was obliged to board out. But in his extremity Ben was his true friend. He received him into his house, and when his business was settled up, took him into partnership.

The firm is now one of the most respectable and prosperous in the city. Joe, ever since he was “bang up,” believes in advertising, and any one who opens the Journal, or, indeed, any of the daily papers, cannot fail to notice the conspicuous advertisement of “Weston & Co.”

THE NEW CLOAK;

OR,

“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”

_CHAPTER I._

“There! I declare, if Mrs. Burton hasn’t got a new cloak!” exclaimed Mrs. Waxwell to her intimate friend, Miss Viney, as they came out of church one Sunday.

“I see she has,” replied Miss Viney, very quietly.

“I know her husband can’t afford it; she will be the ruin of him yet.”

“I suppose they know their own business best. At any rate, it is a blessing that you and I are not accountable for her misdeeds,” said Miss Viney, who, though what is technically termed an “old maid,” was not of that class who have been slanderously styled gossips and busybodies; and we have purposely introduced her to refute the foul calumny that “old maids” are all meddlers, and we are sure that all spinsters will be grateful to us for the service.

“I don’t know about that,” returned Mrs. Waxwell, with a dubious shake of the head. “Mr. Burton owes my husband three hundred dollars, and I don’t believe he will ever get his pay if things go on in this way. That cloak couldn’t have cost less than thirty dollars.”

“I presume they could afford it, or they would not have bought it. At any rate, they ought to know best.”

“Mrs. Burton is a vain, conceited, proud woman, and pride will have a fall one of these days.”

“I hope not.”

“I hope she will have a fall; she would drop some of those airs then.”

“I never thought she was what might be termed a vain woman.”

“She is; she is an impudent minx, and the sooner she is brought down to a level with her circumstances, the better for her and the world.”

“She has the reputation of being a very kind-hearted person and an excellent neighbor.”

“I don’t care if she has; she likes to ‘lord’ it through the village, and for one I won’t be ruled by her.”

“Really, I do not understand you; she is as amiable and humble as any one need be.”

“Amiable and humble indeed! What did she buy that new cloak for except to excite the envy of half the town, and make them think she is somebody?”

“I hope there is no one so silly as to envy her;” and Miss Viney cast a significant glance full into the face of her companion.

“I don’t, for one; but I should like to teach her that she is no better than the rest of the world.”

“She don’t profess to be; she visits the neighborhood; and I’m sure there is no better person in sickness than she is.”

“All that may be.”

“When you had the erysipelas, you remember she watched with you when no one else would.”

“I know it; but is one to be tyrannized over forever because she watched a few nights with me?”

“How strange you talk!”

“Do I? Didn’t she buy that cloak on purpose to cut a figure through the town, and make every body feel cheap?”

“No, I am sure she did not; she had no such motive,” replied Miss Viney, smartly.

“I don’t believe it, there!”

“She is not such a woman as that.”

“Yes, she is, just such a woman as that.”

“I have seen no one but you who feels bad about it.”

“But me! Lor’ sake! I wouldn’t have you think _I_ feel bad about it. She can wear what she’s a mind to for all me; only I hope she can afford it--that’s all.”

“I think she can; she has the reputation of being a pretty careful woman.”

“I don’t care; but I feel it my duty to warn my husband to look out about his debt. When folks get to be so awful extravagant, there’s no knowing what may happen.”

“Mr. Burton is doing a very good business, people say.”

“Nobody knows any thing about what he is doing. All I know is, that when Squire Smith sold him two cords of wood last week, and carried in the bill, he couldn’t pay it. He actually put the squire off till next week. That looks as though they could afford thirty dollar cloaks, don’t it?”

With these sage reflections, Mrs. Waxwell turned down the lane that led to her home, leaving Miss Viney to pursue her way and ponder the extravagance of “some folks.”

_CHAPTER II._

Mrs. Waxwell loved fine clothes quite as much as any other woman of the nineteenth century, and this is saying a great deal; but then her husband was parsimonious, and she was parsimonious; and, though she loved “nice things” very much, she loved money more, which, we take it, amounts to nothing more nor less than meanness.

Mr. Waxwell was a farmer, and well off in the world. The advent of the railroad into his native town had turned things topsy-turvy in general, and “put the devil into the women” in particular, to use Mr. Waxwell’s classic language. Time was when they were content to wear a straw bonnet and a calico gown to meeting; but now they had to rig out in silks and satins, with flounces and furbelows, and all sorts of rigging hitched to ’em, for all the world just like a clown in the circus. Such were Mr. Waxwell’s views of the social influence of the railroad.

Society began to be a little “select;” folks put on airs, and were so “stuck up” that you couldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole.

Farmer Waxwell did not much like this state of things; it cost money on the one hand, and he did not like to be thrown into the shade on the other. He was about the richest man in the place; but ten dollar bonnets and thirty dollar cloaks were abominations that he could not tolerate. Mrs. Waxwell didn’t like to be outdone in the matter of dress, and when she bought a new merino cloak the previous season, she had not a doubt but it would be unsurpassed for two seasons at least. When Mrs. Burton came out with the thirty dollar velvet, she found the wind was taken entirely out of her sail, and she was as indignant as the case demanded.

In the rise and progress of the village since the advent of the railroad, two new stores had gone into operation, one of which was conducted by Mr. Burton, an enterprising young man from the metropolis, who had brought a city wife and a great many city notions into the place with him.

As with a great many who go from the city to the country, he was exceedingly annoyed by that disinterested, charitable attention to other people’s business which so extensively prevails in many rural districts. He kept his affairs to himself, and this bothered and perplexed the gossips. His wife had a way of attending to her own concerns; she had been brought up where people do not even know their next door neighbors. If she wanted a new dress or a new bonnet, she never deemed it necessary to consult the neighbors in regard to her ability to afford it, or about the style and material.

But, in spite of these peculiarities, she was a popular person in the village. She was amiable and kind to all, a friend and a comforter to the sick, and quite a useful person in the society of the place. She understood matters and things, had a larger experience of the world than those who had seen nothing of it; and the consequence was, that when a party was to be given, a picnic projected, or a ball got up, she was consulted, and her advice followed. She understood all these things, and was happy to explain the “fashion” in regard to them to all who asked her counsel.

Poor Mrs. Waxwell! Her star began to decline when Mrs. Burton came to the village. She was no longer the leader of the _ton_, and her heart was bursting with envy. Though she had often received the kind offices of the storekeeper’s wife, both in sickness and in health, she would willingly have crushed her. That new cloak was the capsheaf of the indignities which she fancied had been heaped upon her, and she determined that her unconscious rival should suffer the consequences of her temerity.

Her first demonstration was upon her husband, whom she found no difficulty in convincing that Mr. Burton must be ruined by the extravagance of his wife, and that, unless he immediately collected his debt, he would certainly lose it.

As soon as she had done her washing on Monday, she “made some calls,” and embraced the opportunity of commenting freely upon that new cloak. The women told their husbands that Mr. Burton would certainly fail; and before three days had elapsed there was quite a ferment in the place.

Nobody knew any thing about Mr. Burton’s affairs; he seemed to be doing a good business, though no one knew of his having any money. He did not even own the house in which he lived; he had no property, apparently, but his stock. The careful old farmers, to whom in the course of trade he had become indebted for produce which he sent to Boston, began to be alarmed by these rumors.

It was in the State of New Hampshire; and at the time of which I write, the “grab law” was in force, and is still, for aught I know.

One morning, as Mr. Burton returned from a journey to a neighboring town, he found his stock attached on the claim of Farmer Waxwell, and all on account of that new cloak which his wife had worn to meeting on the preceding Sunday.

He had not the means to pay the note at that moment, and while he was considering a plan to extricate himself from the dilemma, the news that his goods had been attached spread all over the place. All the creditors were in hot haste to follow the track of Farmer Waxwell; for it was “first come, first served,” and in less than two hours a dozen had fastened upon the stock of his store.

This was a tremendous result to follow in the train of a thirty dollar cloak and a gossiping old woman.

_CHAPTER III._

“What do you think now, Miss Viney?” asked Mrs. Waxwell, as they met, soon after the storekeeper’s disaster had been made public.

“I hope Mr. Burton will be able to pay his debts.”

“But he won’t--I know he won’t.”

“Probably, if they had given him any notice of their intention to demand the payment of their claims, he would have been prepared to meet them.”

“I guess Mrs. Burton will not feel quite so stuck up after this.”

“I hope _you_ have done nothing to bring about this sad result.”

“But I have; I made my husband sue his note, and when he put on, the others did. Thirty dollar cloak indeed!”

“I am sorry you have done this; you may ruin Mr. Burton by it.”

“That’s just what I mean to do!” and Mrs. Waxwell’s malignant expression betrayed the jealousy she had so long harbored.

“You did? It was very unkind and ungrateful in you to do so,” replied Miss Viney, indignantly.

“Humph!”

“Any trader would be likely to come out badly to have all his creditors pounce upon him without giving him a chance to collect his debts.”

“I don’t believe he has any to collect.”

“Even your husband, as well off as he is, might be embarrassed if suddenly called upon to pay his debts;” and Miss Viney looked significantly at her angry companion.

“I doubt it.”

“He may have a trial,” said the maiden lady, as she moved towards the store.

“What can she mean by that?” thought Mrs. Waxwell.

Miss Viney had some property of her own, and it was all in the hands of Farmer Waxwell, who had, on his own account, invested the greater part of it in railroad stock.

This is what she meant. She would claim the three thousand dollars her husband owed her, and a cold chill passed through her veins as the thought struck her. Farmer Waxwell was rich in houses, lands, and stocks, all of which yielded him a good income; but he had not three thousand dollars in money, and it might cost him some trouble to raise it.

* * * * *

“Don’t cry, my dear; I have enough due me in Boston to pay these debts ten times over,” said Mr. Burton to his wife, who was much alarmed by the storm which threatened them.

“What will people think?”

“What will they think when I pay them all? The whole amount is not above nine hundred dollars.”

Just then Miss Viney entered the house. In a few words, she explained the circumstances which had led to the sudden “strike” among the creditors.

Mrs. Burton, kind soul, shed a flood of tears when she heard how cruel Mrs. Waxwell had been--she whom she had nursed with all the tenderness of a mother, when her frightened neighbors fled from the contagious disease.

“Never mind it, my dear. We may expect any thing from a meddler, a gossip, a slanderer,” said Mr. Burton. “I must start for Boston in the noon train.”

“Allow me, Mr. Burton, to offer you the money to discharge these liabilities. I have three thousand dollars in the hands of Mr. Waxwell.”

“You are very kind, and I accept your offer,” replied Mr. Burton, “and next week I shall have the means of repaying you. I assure you I am worth at least five thousand dollars.”

In proof of his assertion, he showed her various notes, mortgages, and certificates of stock.

“I presume, if the people here knew that I was not a bankrupt, they would not have molested me. In spite of all my amiable neighbor, Mrs. Waxwell, may say, I think I am abundantly able to give my wife a thirty dollar cloak.”

“I never doubted it,” replied Miss Viney, as she hastened to the village lawyer to put her note in course of collection.

Farmer Waxwell was at dinner when the lawyer, who was a personal friend, called upon him.

“Sorry to trouble you, but I am instructed to collect this note,” said he.

“The devil!” exclaimed Farmer Waxwell.

“The ugly hussy!” added Mrs. Waxwell, as she perceived that Miss Viney’s prophetic words had been burdened with a meaning.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the lawyer; “but if I understand it rightly, you have publicly boasted that you brought about all this difficulty.”

“I?”

“Yes, madam: that new cloak did the business. You set your husband on, and all the rest followed him; so Miss Viney tells me.”

“My gracious!”

“And now she wants the money to assist Mr. Burton out of the difficulty into which you have plunged him.”

“That’s plain speech, squire,” said the farmer.

“But true.”

“I can’t raise the money.”

“Then I must sue.”

“Can’t we compromise?”

“Burton is worth at least five thousand dollars, and when he gets a remittance from Boston, will pay all.”

“I will dissolve my attachment, and be bound for the payment of the others. Will that do it?”

“Yes, if Miss Viney will consent.”

Miss Viney did consent,--she was a kind-hearted lady--and the matter was compromised.

“Now, wife,” said Farmer Waxwell, on the following week, as he put the three hundred dollars in his pocket which Burton had paid, minus thirty which he held in his hand, “here’s thirty dollars, and I think you’d better go and buy one of them ’ere cloaks. Your foolish envy like to have got me into the cu’sedest scrape I ever got into in my life.”

She would not take it; she was too mean to dress well herself, and too envious to permit others who were able to do so in peace. But she gathered from the events of our story a healthy experience of the wisdom of that excellent maxim.--“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.”

“EVERY THING COMFORTABLE.”

_CHAPTER I._

“You have every thing comfortable, Maria,” said Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup, to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Sparrow, at whose house she was making a visit; “every thing _comfortable_.”

The speaker placed a very significant emphasis upon the last word, which, in connection with her peculiar tone of voice, and the half apparent sneer on her lips, was equivalent to saying, “You have all that is absolutely necessary to make your house habitable; you have beds, and chairs, and tables, but your furniture is of the most ordinary description--plain, cheap, and old-fashioned. It would not suit me.”

Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup was a New York lady; that is to say, she had formerly been a shop girl in Boston, and, having considerable talent at diplomacy, had captivated the senses of a dry goods clerk on four hundred dollars salary, become Mrs. Buttercup, and moved to New York. She was an ambitious person, and though she had been brought up in a ten footer in an obscure street, she earnestly desired to become what is technically called a “lady.” Fashion was her god. To dress well, to live in a fine house, furnished _a la mode_, and to move in fashionable society constituted her highest ideal of human happiness.

Mr. Buttercup entertained similar views. It is true, he was only a poor clerk when he married,--he had married to redeem his wife from the drudgery of her occupation,--and when he went to New York he had a hard struggle to support her, even in a five dollar boarding house. At the end of a year, circumstances so favored him that he was enabled to go into business on his own account. In a small shop, which his former employer stocked for him, taking a mortgage with interest at the rate of twenty per cent. per annum, he rushed boldly into the stream, assured it would bear him to opulence and an influential position in society.

Fortune favored him, and the first year showed a gain of a thousand dollars. The young man was elated, and having lived within his means, he had a considerable surplus on his hands. Taking a larger store and employing two additional clerks, he commenced his second year. He was the biggest man on Broadway; talked magnificently about his business operations, and innocently magnified his last year’s profits to five thousand dollars. Things looked so promising with him that the importers and jobbers gave him all the credit he desired. Mr. Buttercup was perfectly satisfied that he was on the high road to fortune. As Richelieu says in the play, there was no such word as “fail” in his vocabulary.

Of course, a five dollar boarding house could no longer be tolerated, and to Mrs. Buttercup’s inexpressible satisfaction, her husband engaged a room in a fashionable establishment “up town.” It was only one room, and Mr. B. had contracted to pay twenty dollars a week for it, washing and “sundries” extra. The ambitious lady went a shopping a few days after, and contrived to get rid of a hundred dollars, which the complacent shopkeeper in an impulsive moment had placed in her hands. Milliners and dressmakers were in demand for a time, and Mrs. Buttercup’s present ambition was fully satisfied. It is true, she could see in the distance an establishment of her own, with imported carpets and mirrors, with a train of liveried servants, a carriage with the Buttercup arms blazoned on its panels; and a faint whisper from the admiring crowd, “There goes the elegant Mrs. Buttercup!” reached her ears. The future was full of glorious visions, full of royal splendors, full of every thing that the heart of vanity could conceive. But for the present, she was satisfied.

Things went on swimmingly at the new store, and when Mrs. Buttercup proposed a tour to the east, her husband readily assented. Our lady of magnificent aspirations had considerable difficulty in deciding whether she should propose Saratoga or home for the summer excursion. On the one hand, Saratoga was fashionable, and she would have abundant opportunity to make the acquaintance of the exclusives. But on the other hand, if she went home, she could create a tremendous sensation among her own and her husband’s friends and relatives. She could carry the New York fashions among them; could astonish them with a display of her elegant silk, made by Madam Hippolyta Hyfalutin, from Paris, and her splendid new bonnet from the celebrated rooms of Madam Hesperiana Blomereaux, also from Paris. These things would scarcely be noticed by the fashionable of Saratoga--the absence of them alone would make a noise there.

And then her husband’s glorious prospects in the dry goods line, as well as the immense business he at present transacted--it would be so delightful to hear Tim tell them all about it! How his old father’s eyes would stick out when he heard his son talk about a hundred thousand dollars so beautifully and so indifferently; how he would open his mouth with wonder, when Tim should tell him that the firm of Funk, Hunk, and Co.--the most extensive dry goods establishment in New York--had offered him three thousand dollars salary to superintend their retail department, and how indignantly he had rejected the offer. Tim had such a graceful way of telling these things; indeed, she knew that he could make the most out of a very small matter.

They could create a sensation at home, and the prospect of being the “bright particular star” of a circle of admiring and wondering friends, enabled her to decide between Saratoga and the east. The preparations were completed, and in due time they reached the “village of Boston,” as Tim facetiously termed it.

Father and mother were duly astonished when the magnificent Mr. Buttercup spread himself. The old gentleman’s eyes stuck out, and his mouth was all agape with wonder. He “couldn’t exactly see how Broadway, if ’twan’t more’n a hund’ed foot wide, could hold all the carriages Tim telled on stoppin’ afore his door.”

In the course of events, Tim and his accomplished lady called on his sister, Mrs. Sparrow, whose husband was the secretary of an insurance company. Mr. Sparrow lived in his own house--a small, but neat and convenient structure. It was plainly furnished; but reasonable people said they were prettily situated, while those who knew them best were sure they were contented and happy.

Mrs. Belladonna Buttercup looked over the house, and turned up her nose at it. Tim’s mother was with them, and the simple-minded old lady was so indiscrete as to ask her magnificent daughter-in-law how she would like just such an establishment. She should not like it; it would not suit her. When she went to housekeeping, not less than six thousand dollars would furnish her house. At present, she preferred boarding.

“Then you don’t like my house, Belladonna?” asked Mrs. Swallow, with the slightest appearance of disappointment on her smiling face.

“Well, I can’t say that I do, Maria,” replied Mrs. Buttercup, languidly.

“It is as good as any body need have,” added Mrs. Buttercup, Senior. “If I ever see Tim as comfortably settled as Charles is, I shall be perfectly satisfied.”

“Dear me! Tim wouldn’t look at such an establishment.”

“He may be glad to yet.”

“I am sure I always liked my house very much indeed,” said Mrs. Swallow.

“You have everything comfortable, Maria; every thing _comfortable_.”