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THE SOUTHERN WORLD, JULY 16,1882.
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“ AFTER TIIE BALE.”
Tiny nat and comb'd tbelr beautiful balr.
Their long, bright treaaee, one by one.
Ah they laughed uud talked In thrfcliamlier there,
After the revel waa done.
Idly they talked of wallr. and quadrille.
Idly they laughed, like other glrle,
Whoever the lire, when all Is still,
Couth out their braids and curls.
Itobes of satin and Brussels lace.
Knout of flowers and ribbons, too,
Scattered about In every place,
For the revel Is through.
And Maud and Madge In robes of white, '
The prettiest night-gowns under the sun,
Hlockingless.sllpperleas, sit In the night,
For the revel la done—
Bit and comb their beautiful hair,
Those wonderful waves of brown and gold,
Till the fire Is out In the chamber there,
I lAnd the little bare feet are cold.
Then out of the gathering winter chill,
All out of the bitter 8t. Agnes weather,
While the fire Is out and the house Is still,
Maude and Madge together.
Maud and Madge In robes of white.
The prettiest night-gowns under the sun,
Curtained away from tbechlliy night,
After the revel Is done—
Float along In a splendid dream,
To a golden giltern’s tinkling tune,
While a thousand lustres shimmering stream
In a palace’s grand saloon.
Flashing of Jewels and flutter of laces,
Tropical odors sweeter than musk,
Men and women with beautiful faces,
And eyes of tropical dust.
And onefaceshining out like a star,
One face haunting the dreams of each,
And one voice, sweeter than others are,
Breaking Into silvery speech—
Telling through lips of bearded bloom,
An old, old story over again,
As down the royal bannered room,
To the golden glttern’s strain,
Two and two, they dreamily walk,
While an unseen spirit walks beside,
And all unheard In tlio lover's talk.
He clalmeth one for a bride.
0, Maud and Madge, dream on together,
With never a pang of Jealous fear!
For ere the bitter 8t. Agnes weather
Shall whiten another year,
itobod for the bridal, and robed for the tomb.
Braided brown hair and golden tress.
There’ll be only one of you left for the bloom
Of the bearded lips to press-
only one for the bridal pearls,
The robe of satin and Brussels lace—
Only one to blush through her curls
At the sight of a lover’s face.
O beautiful Madge In your bridal white,
For you the revel has Just begun;
But for her who sleeps in your arms to night,
The revel of Life Is done I
But rob'd and crown'd with yourealntly bliss,
Queen of heaven and brldo of the sun,
O beautiful Maud, you’ll never miss
The kisses another bath won !
—Nona Penny.
MY WELL-MPEKT Nl'MMEK.
Thi* story is for "common people,” so if
you are one of the uncommon people, or think
you are—which is just the same—turn the
leaf ami pass on. This is not for you.
"Kitty, I’d give the world, if I only knew
how to keep house like you. 1 get so dis
couraged and disheartened that I feel os if
I’d like to give it all up and die. What
witli the children, and the housework, and-
my ignorance, life is a burden to me.”
Poor Cousin Belle 1 a dim suggestion of a
plan by which I might help her out of her
trouble, had been floating through my brain
for several days, and this pathetic appeal
brought my ideas to a focus.
My mother hud a “faculty.” She was a
gentle woman, but when she walked through
u room, the chairs, tables, etc., used to mar
shal themselves into place, as if a general
was giving the word of command to his sol
diers.
All of her daughters were instructed in
housewifely duties. 1 not only served an
apprenticeship us "second girl,” but was
"chief cook" us well, and when my father
suid, "Killy, this bread is just us good os
your mother’s,” 1 thought 1 hud graduated
with tiie highest honors. This wus my good
fortune, l’oor Belle lmd never been taught
uuythiiig but the piano, and, us she sagely
remurked, "They couldn’t eat nusic.”
This was her ill-fortune, and so it came
about that Belle, a thousand times prettier
and brighter than 1 ever thought of being,
lmd jpHteii the threads in her web of life all
in a tangle, where 1 could have woven with
out let or hindrance.
Now, this was my plan. Belle was nat-
urully very quick and bright, and I could
stay with her six months and train her in
house-keeping. All that she needed was to
be taught. But—alas for the “buts” in this
world—wo had planned a lovely summer at
home. We had talked about it all winter.
Could 1 give it up and stay shut up in this
little, “pokey," unlinished village, teaching
Cousin Belle to do what was as easy to me as
Mother Goose’s melodies and the alphabet?
That night when I went up to my room, 1
put on my “thinking cap,” and sat down to
make my decision.
"Belle,” said I, the next morning at
breakfast, “I think there is a way out of
your trouble.”
“Oh 1” said she, radiantly, “if you only
could help me 1”
“But, Belle, if we find a way out you’ll
have to abdicate, and let me be a kind of ab
solute Empress of China for a few months.
How would you like that?" said I, alittle
doubtfully, for Belie was several years my
senior, and a matron's dignity must be very
tenderly approached.
"Kitty, you’ve no idea how heavenly it
would be to me, to have some one tell me
every day just what to do, again. That is
one of my woist troubles. To think every
morning, when 1 get up that I must tell my
self and everybody else what to do, when I
don't know wbat I want done myself.”
“Well, then,” said I, “we’ll begin to-day.”
“Listen, Harry, and children,” said Belle,
clapping her hands gleefully, “you must all
mind Cousin Kitty, and so must I. We'll
all be young together. I begin to feel re
stored already."
"Very well,” said I, judicially, "to-day is
Thursday. We will devote the rest of the
week to getting the house in perfect order.
We must have a clean casket to put our
jewel of a home in.”
Saturday night came, and the house was
like a band-box. Then I put my finger on
a “ tender spot ” in the household economy.
‘ About one-fourth of the needless work was
caused by a lack of order. The Lord of
Misrule was sovereign, and it sometimes
looked as if hats, and coats, dresses and
playthings had rained down.
“Now,” said I, quoting niy mother, “the
house cannot be untidy if every person puts
his or her own things in place.”
“Hear! hear!” shouted cousin Harry,
Belle’s husband, mischievously.
“ You may laugh, Harry,” said I, shaking
my licud at him, “but it is true.”
“ That'sso," he replied, “there is consider
able sense in that curly head of yours, after
all."
“ Very well,” said I, “ what is the use of
‘ sense ’ if it won’t help us out of our troubles!
Now, I am going to draw up—what do you
call it?—an agreement, by which each mem
ber of the family binds himself to keep his
or her things in perfect order.”
All entered merrily into the arrangement
Harry drew up a formidable looking docu
ment. He and Belle signed first; under
neath the children wrote in regular order,
and one of them gleefully put the pen be
tween the baby’s chuffy fingers and guided
them to make "hismark.”
Then we reduced the regular routine of
the work to a jierfect system, and every day
cousin Belle wus to devote her spare time to
learning some one thing.
"Well, Kitty, wliat is the juvenile pupil
to learn to-day ? "
" What would you like ? "
“ If I could only make such bread os you
used to have at your house) It was the
very poetry of foodl Mine is sour, or it
won’t rise, or something is the matter with
it half the time, so that it isn’t fit to eat”
“Belle," said l profoundly, “haven’tyou
learned from Tyndall, and Huxley, and
Maria Mitchell, and the Popular Science
Monthly, that making bread is a chemical
process, aud that every chemical process is
governed by certain fixed, unchangeable
laws?"
Belle looked a little bewildered; then
smiling archly, raid:
“I haven't devoted much time to chem
istry for the last ten years.”
“ Yes, that’s the trouble,” said I; "it has
not been chemistry, but something else be
ginning with C, viz., chance. Now, give
your ingredients combined in a certain man
ner. and as an absolute result your bread is
just os sure to rise as the sun is to rise in tiie
east. You can't keep it down, unless you
put a mill-stone on it. I suppose, Belle, you
have wasted some food in experiments?”
“Some!” if you could seethe bread and
pie and cake I have thrown away you would
be horrified. I sometimes think we shall
come to want as a punishment.”
•’ Well, we won’t waste any more. In six
lessons you can learn to make as good bread
as anybody, or you arc not the bright woman
I think you are. So this week we will make
bread every day. Of course, we cannot eat
it all, but what we don’t want we will give
to the poor."
And so every day I sat by the table and
gave Belle instructions, while the pretty
hands, which even hard work could not de
face, molded the loaves which came out of
the oven snowy within, a delicate brown
without,—the sweet and odorous staff of life.
Saturday I left her to her own devices, and
I don’t believe she blushed more when
Harry proposed to her than when he gave
her the highest praise a man can offer—
“This is just as good as my mother’s."
Poor Harry I what a digestion he must have
had to begin with, and what a bete noir “ my
mother’s bread ” is to many a young house
keeper!
Tuesday afternoon I saw something in the
parlor which made me sit down and think a
little. The result was a note, thus:
“Dbar Habby—Will you come down to
the house as soon as you can conveniently ?
In great haste, Kitty.”
* Down came Harry at a pace like the lope
of a California horse. Breathless he rushed
in.
“Is Belle sick?”
“No," I replied; “but come into the par
lor a moment.”
- “Harry,” said I, severely, “you remember
our compact, and the duty of parents to set
good examples?”
I could see a glimmer of suspicion in his
face. Then I made a desperate pluuge.
"Look over on the sofa. I only sent for
you to hang up your overcoat."
“ Pause, awful to me, while Harry vibrat
ed between anger and merriment. Finally,
good fellow that he was, he sat back in his
chair and laughed heartily.
“ Kitty, I’ll pay you for this, if I live.
The idea of getting a man home from his
offleo to hangup his overcoat! What will
you bet that you don’t catch me again ?'”
“BetI You are demoralizing! I have
lived in New York, and teen Jerome Park ;
I have been in Saratoga, and heard about
the races, but I have never made a bet.
However, just to ‘make up’ with you, Harry,
I’ll bet tiie price of that new China set
which Belle looked at so longingly the other
day.”
“ Very well,”,said Harry: "but you see if
she gets it I”
After this it was a source of much amuse
ment to Belle and myself to see Harry every
morning sauntering carelessly around the
room, os if he had no object whatever, but
slyly looking out of the corner of his eyes
to see if anything of his was astray, and then
pouncing upon the offending article, like
the eagle upon his prey. I lost my bet.
And now descend we, at one fell swoop,
from esthetics to—potatoes.
We had made out our bill of fare, and on
this bill figured the delicious esculent afore
said, twice a day, breakfast and dinner. So
fourteen times a week Belle was In the habit
of disappearing in the nethermost regions
with a little pan, which she filled with the
ugly, dirty things, and then subjected to the
wearisome preparatory processes.
Now, a true housekeeper is a labor-saving
institution; so, one day, I took a basket and
disappeared. When I returned with it full,
Belle looked up aghast.
" My goodness! are we going to have a reg
iment for dinner?" said she.
“No,” I replied, “ this is for the week—
one journey for fourteen.”
One day I walked out to the shop of a
halfway Hoosler carpenter, and gave him
directions for making a dish-drainer—a
thing he had never heard of. He brought it
to us the next day, and we found it a source
of solid comfort; but, alas! I lost my stand
ing with the Hoosier.
That evening, when he went home to
“bacon and greens” for the third time that
day, he told his wife, who with kind con
sideration, managed to send it along to me,
that
“Them'ere girls was powerful cute, but
he didn't think he should want one for a
wife. He’d ruther have one of ‘onary’
kind. For a woman to be telling a man how
to make things, somehow seemed to him
agin nater.”
“Now, Belle," said, I one morning, “cof
fee.” Belle looked subdued at once, as if
she expected a little more chemistry, but I
spared her. “ Give good coffee, properly
roasted and ground, plus boiling water, and
a subtle something which Sambo called ‘de
know liow,’ and the result must be—nectar.
So this week we will have coffee for our
text,” and the result was, as it mutt be,
nectar. So it went on, and before the expi
ration of the six months, I formally abdi
cated, and Belle took the reins again, because
she knew just how to manage them.
And did things go on in this smooth way,
and bread and coffee, and all the necessaries
of family comfort come without any slips
or mishaps?
There are “ spots on the sun,” there are
erratic wanderings among the stars, there
are clouds as well as sunshine, and this little
household was human.
There were days when things weie very
wrong indeed. When the children were
cross, and Belle was tired, and I—well, I had
“ nerves," I believe that is the nice way of
saying it.
But those days were few. There is nothing
like a sense of duty to curb the wandering
fancy.
Belle, like many another troubled young
housekeeper, needed only a little instruction,
and writes me that she has now a happy,
well-ordered home.
As for me, it is certainly a very deplorable
and mournful thing for a woman to be
called “cute”—but then, if one lias managed
to help another a little by it, the odium is
more supportable.
I have had my gay summer since, but this
I still call, My Well-Spent Summer.—Chrit-
tian Union.
A Woman About the House.
It is conceded by all that tiie adornment
and beautifying of a home depends in a
great measure upon the tact and taste of
women by the addition of the many knick-
knacks which originate only in their own
fertile brains—in the construction of which
the lords of creation are prone to look upon
with something of a cynical smile as entirely
beneath their massive intellect. But it is a
noticeable fact, after a woman’s deft fingers
and busy brain have taken hold of a room—
it is transformed as by a magic wand, bright
ness peeps out front the darkest corners,
creating a glow throughout that conqiels
even the most unwilling of our husbands and
brothers to admit the handiwork of women
is not to be despised, and almost uncon
sciously fall to considering the effect these
little “gimcracks” would have upon a room
they have in mind, of some dear old auut
Prim, whose sole ambition in life is to keep
that best front-room closed against light and
sunshine, and daily comes off victor with
the dust fiend. 8he would defy you to at
any time find a fly or speck of dirt upon or
about that room. The fringed white curtains
are as white as soap and sunshine can make
them; but, nevertheless, every “quarterly
meetln” finds those same curtains freshened
and rehung.
With all this cleanliness our convert
would like to try the effect of some of sister’s
or wife’s new-fangled fancy-work. The
white fringed stand cover, to be sure, has
done duty for many a year to the stand that
has so faithfully borne the family Bible and