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that the enemy saw the smoke of our muskets. They could not
have heard the report. But, you think I will do to see Madame
Girardin ?”
“ As well as any gallant of us all,” was my reply.
“ Very good. 11l ride over this morning.’ 4
“ Eyes right, father, and look out for fences on the left.”
44 Get out, you dog. Trust me, never again to take champagne
or any other liquor on an empty stomach.”
44 And, beware of the black dog, father.”
44 The tiger is becoming pacified, Ned,” was my remark after
the departure of the Major. He has had a bad scare. He will
come round by degrees. All the symptoms are favourable.”
“He will give up some favourite projects then. His heart has
been more earnestly set on this marriage than I had suspected. I
am now convinced he has been planning it for months, and I have
reason to believe that he opened the subject to Mrs. Mazyck be
fore she went to travel last summer. He is tenacious of such
matters.”
“No doubt; and without some extraordinary event he would
have continued so. This accident has been a great good fortune.
The Major has too uniformly escaped successfully from those evils
to which flesh is heir. Uninterrupted good fortune is quite too
apt to harden the hearts of the very best men. They finally be
lie v r e themselves to be entitled to impunity. It requires a disas
ter to rebuke arrogance; and one should pray for an occasional
mischance, knowing our tendency to self-reliance. We must every
now 7 and then receive a lesson which teaches us that God is still
the Ruler of the Universe, and that the richest, the strongest, the
the bravest, the wisest, are but feathers and straw before his
breath. Your father has just had one of these excellent lessons.
He has been taught the exceeding shortness of the step between
an imperial will, a haughty temper, a glorious future, and suffering,
agony, the grave, the loss of the thing most precious, the over
throw of the most cherished pride and vanity. You are the only
son, and the very will which threatened to w reck your hopes, was
based upon the desire to subserve your success and prosperity.
Strange as it may seem, parents are thus constantly employed, at
once for the good and the mortification of their children. Keep
up your spirits. Do not vex him. Say nothing of your hurts.
He will see them, and suppose them, fast enough; and your verv
forbearance to complain will, in his mind, exaggerate the amount
of your suffering. There will be a degree of remorse at work
within his bosom, which shall impel his moods hereafter in an en
tirely opposite direction.”
“ But, you do not augur any thing from this visit to Madame
Girardin ?”
“By no means. Asa gentleman, he could do no less. He had
to go. There is no merit in the act. He owes the old lady and
the young one the visit, and something more. But, there is some
thing favourable in the fact that he does it willingly, cheerfully,
and with a grace, showing that the duty is now by no means an
irksome one. A week ago, and to be required to visit the Bonneau
plantation would have been like taking a pill of myrrh and aloes.”
Let us follow the Baron, and see the issue of his visit.
When it was announced to Madame Girardin that Major Bul
mer was in the parlour, she was quite in a fidget. “ Bonita,” her
own maid, a mulatto of Cuban origin, and 44 Marie,” the waiting
maid of Paula, were both summoned.
SUPPLEMENT TO SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE.
44 Bonita, what has become of my mantua cap. feTU,
you to put away my Valenciennes. Dear me, Paula, I c an
nothing, and these servants are positively in the way of each other
They are certainly the most awkward and useless creatures i n
world. Paula, child, do look into your drawers for the \M (11 •
ennes tippet. Ah ! there it is. Paula, child, do fix me,—pj n
cap for me, and put on that bunch of crimson ribbons. Crimson
always suited my hair best, and complexion. Do, get away Bun
nita you only disorder me. You are getting quite too fat and
clumsy for any useful purpose about house. I’ll have to send you
into the field. Heavens, what will Major Bulmer say to bein r
kept so long ? Why, Paula, where are you, child ?”
Paula was already down stairs. Madame Agnes-Theresa was
still a long time fixing. For years she had never taken such pains
to caparison herself for any encounter with the other gender.
Strange! that she should be so solicitous about her personal ap
pearance, where she was to meet with one whom she had always
regarded with prejudice and the bitterest hostility. Yet, not
strange! Oh ! woman, after all, claim what you please for your
self; assert what rights you please ; estimate your charms at the
highest; pride yourself as you may upon your intrinsic worth;sup
pose yourself, if you please, of the purest and most precious porce
lain clay that ever afforded materials for celestial manufacture
then, put what rough estimate you may on man —suppose him all
that is rude, and wild, and rough, and tough,—all dough and
mortality if you think proper, —a mere savage in beaver and
breeches, —a mere beast of burden, with only half the usual al
lowanee of legs and ears—still, my dear creature, all your pains
taking are for him, even when he is of the rudest, and vou the
softest—all these careful caparisonings before the mirror, —all this
assiduous training of the tresses —all this nice adjustment of the
features, —the very dis]>osition of that scarf and tippet, the careful
twofold concealment and display of that white neck and bosom,
that adroit placing of the jewel just where it is best calculated to
inform him how much more precious is the jewel that hides be
neath, —that confining zone, —that flowing drapery, —that bracelet
spanning the snowy arm, —all, all, —the grace, the taste, the toil,
the care, the smile, the motion, —all, all are designed to win his
smile, to charm his fancy, provoke his admiration, compel his love.
1 alk of youtrights ! Confess the truth, for once, now r , at this holi
day season, and admit that the most precious of your rights, even
in your own estimation, is that of winning his affection, wild colt,
fierce tiger, beast of prey and burden as he is !
Dear, good, antique, frigid, stately, stiff, and bigoted Madame
Girardin, was not superior to her sex; and this, by the way, mv
dear, is the one most precious jewel of her humanity. She was a
good half hour in fixing, even after Paula Bonneau had descended
to the parlour. The latter has gone down to meet the Major after
the fashion of Nora Creina :
“ Oh ! my Nora’s gown for me.
That floats as wild as mountain breezes,
Leaving every beauty free,
To sink or swell as Heaven pleases.
Yes, my Nora Creina, dear,
My simple, graceful Nora Creina ;
Nature’s dress,
Is loveliness,
The dress you wear, my Nora Creina.”
sticking a pin in her dress, never adjusting tippet or ribbon,
