Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (111 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 650
love him. Why, hearing him talk put me in mind of a real beautiful song of Mr. Watts,I don't know as I could remember the tune."
And Miss Prissy, whose musical talent was one of her special
fortes,
tuned her voice, a little cracked and quavering, and sang, with a vigorous accent on each accented syllable,
"From 
the
 third heaven, where God resides,
That holy, happy place,
The New Jerusalem comes down,
Adorned with shining grace.
"Attending angels shout for joy,
And the bright armies sing,
'Mortals! behold the sacred seat
Of your descending King!'"
"Take care, Miss Scudder!that silk must be cut exactly on the bias"; and Miss Prissy, hastily finishingly her last quaver, caught the silk and the scissors out of Mrs. Scudder's hand, and fell down at once from the Millennium into a discourse on her own particular way of covering piping-cord.
So we go, dear reader,so long as we have a body and a soul. Two worlds must mingle,the great and the little, the solemn and the trivial, wreathing in and out, like the grotesque carvings on a Gothic shrine;only, did we know it rightly, nothing is trivial; since the human soul, with its awful shadow, makes all things sacred. Have not ribbons, cast-off flowers, soiled bits of gauze, trivial, trashy fragments of millinery, sometimes had an awful meaning, a deadly power, when they belonged to one who should wear them no more, and whose beautiful form, frail and crushed as they, is a hidden and a vanished thing for all time? For so sacred and individual is a human being, that, of all the million-peopled earth, no one form ever restores another. The mould of each mortal type is broken at the grave; and never, never, though you look through all the faces on earth, shall the exact form you mourn ever meet your eyes again! You are living your daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics. One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track

 

Page 651
of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies our common life.

 

Page 652
XIII.
The Party
Well, let us proceed to tell how the eventful evening drew on,how Mary, by Miss Prissy's care, stood at last in a long-waisted gown flowered with rose-buds and violets, opening in front to display a white satin skirt trimmed with lace and flowers,how her little feet were put into high-heeled shoes, and a little jaunty cap with a wreath of moss-rose-buds was fastened over her shining hair,and how Miss Prissy, delighted, turned her round and round, and then declared that she must go and get the Doctor to look at her. She knew he must be a man of taste, he talked so beautifully about the Millennium; and so, bursting into his study, she actually chattered him back into the visible world, and, leading the blushing Mary to the door, asked him, point-blank, if he ever saw anything prettier.
The Doctor, being now wide awake, gravely gave his mind to the subject, and, after some consideration, said, gravely, "No,he didn't think he ever did." For the Doctor was not a man of compliment, and had a habit of always thinking, before he spoke, whether what he was going to say was exactly true; and having lived some time in the family of President Edwards, renowned for beautiful daughters, he naturally thought them over.
The Doctor looked innocent and helpless, while Miss Prissy, having got him now quite into her power, went on volubly to expatiate on the difficulties overcome in adapting the ancient wedding-dress to its present modern fit. He told her that it was very nice,said, "Yes, Ma'am," at proper places,and, being a very obliging man, looked at whatever he was directed to, with round, blank eyes; but ended all with a long gaze on the laughing, blushing face, that, half in shame and half in perplexed mirth, appeared and disappeared as Miss Prissy in her warmth turned her round and showed her.
"Now don't she look beautiful?" Miss Prissy reiterated for the twentieth time, as Mary left the room.

 

Page 653
The Doctor, looking after her musingly, said to himself,"'The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold; she shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needle-work.'"
"Now, did I ever?" said Miss Prissy, rushing out. "How that good man does turn everything! I believe you couldn't get anything, that he wouldn't find a text right out of the Bible about it. I mean to get the linen for that shirt this very week, with the Miss Wilcox's money; they always pay well, those Wilcoxes,and I've worked for them, off and on, sixteen days and a quarter. To be sure, Miss Scudder, there's no real need of my doing it, for I must say you keep him looking like a pink,but only I feel as if I must do something for such a good man."
The good doctor was brushed up for the evening with zealous care and energy; and if he did
not
look like a pink, it was certainly no fault of his hostess.
Well, we cannot reproduce in detail the faded glories of that entertainment, not relate how the Wilcox Manor and gardens were illuminated,how the bride wore a veil of real point-lace,how carriages rolled and grated on the gravel walks, and negro servants, in white kid gloves, handed out ladies in velvet and satin.
To Mary's inexperienced eye it seemed like an enchanted dream,a realization of all she had dreamed of grand and high society. She had her little triumph of an evening; for everybody asked who that beautiful girl was, and more than one gallant of the old Newport first families felt himself adorned and distinguished to walk with her on his arm. Busy, officious dowagers repeated to Mrs. Scudder the applauding whispers that followed her wherever she went.
"Really, Mrs. Scudder," said gallant old General Wilcox, "where have you kept such a beauty all this time? It's a sin and a shame to hide such a light under a bushel."
And Mrs. Scudder, though, of course, like you and me, sensible reader, properly apprised of the perishable nature of such fleeting honors, was, like us, too, but a mortal, and smiled condescendingly on the follies of the scene.
The house was divided by a wide hall opening by doors, the front one upon the street, the back into a large garden,

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