Eventide | Page 6

eloquent wife, as she glanced carelessly upon him, "where are the portmanteaus?"
"In the entry," answered the small man, raising his eyes for a moment to his fair consort's face.
"Bring them in and open them," said the lady, again sinking down in her soft seat.
The small man disappeared in a twinkling, and the portmanteaus were soon placed on the table, and their contents spread forth.
"I will now order some refreshment," said Mrs. Pimble;--"and while it is preparing, we can amuse ourselves with the documents. What would you prefer for your dinner, sister Simcoe?"
"Pea soup," returned the lady doctor; "that is my uniform dish,--simple and plain."
"And Mr. Simcoe, what would he choose?"
"O, he has no choice!--anything that comes handiest will do for him."
Mrs. Pimble glanced toward Mr. Simcoe. Mr. Simcoe simpered and bowed. So Mrs. Pimble swept into the kitchen to issue her commands. She started on beholding Dilly Danforth bending over a wash-tub filled to the brim with smoking linen, just out of a boiling suds. Darting one fiery glance toward her forceless husband, sitting humped up over the stove, his head supported on his hands, she exclaimed, "What does this mean?" Mr. Pimble looked up vacantly; Peggy turned round from her occupation of washing the dinner dishes, and Dilly kept to her wash-tub. No one seemed to understand to whom the stately mistress addressed her brief interrogatory. "Have you all lost your tongues?" at length exclaimed Mrs. Pimble, in a louder tone; and, seizing her husband's chair, she gave it a rough jerk, and demanded, "Are you dumb, Peter Pimble? What is that beggar-woman,"--pointing toward Dilly,--"doing here?"
"Don't you see she is washing?" returned the husband, rather ironically.
"Well, by whose leave?"
"Mine."
"Yours?--and why have you brought a washerwoman into the house in my absence, and without my permission?"
"Because all my linen was dirty."
"What if it was?"
"I wanted it washed."
"What for?"
"Because the spring courts are held in Olneyville next week."
"What if they are?"
"I would like to attend."
"You would, would you? No doubt, and confine me at home to superintend the domestic affairs. No, Mr. Pimble, you don't enslave me in that manner. I'm a free woman, and acknowledge no man master. I'll see if I'm not mistress in my own house. Here, Dilly Danforth, take your hands out of that wash-tub, and pack off home, instanter. There will be no more washing done in my house to-day, or ever again, unless I order it done. And you, Peggy Nonce, make a pea soup and broil a nice steak, with all the appropriate dishes, and have a dinner prepared in half an hour, to serve myself and guests."
There was an instant commotion in the kitchen, and the mistress swept back to her guests in the parlor.
CHAPTER III.
"She is a saucy wench, Somewhat o'er full Of pranks, I think--but then with growing years She will outgrow her mischief and become As staid and sober as our hearts could choose."
OLD PLAY.
Mr. Salsify Mumbles was a grocer in a small way, and his good wife took boarders,--young ladies and gentlemen from different parts of the country, who came to attend Cedar Hill Seminary, a school of high repute and extended celebrity. Her number was limited to three this summer, because she conceived her health to be delicate, and because Mr. Salsify had communicated to her in private that he was certainly "rising in his profession;" and the quick-sighted lady foresaw the day speedily approaching when she would no longer be obliged to perplex herself with so ungrateful a class of beings as boarders, but should roll through the streets of Wimbledon in her coach and four, the "observed of all observers."
Mrs. Mumbles had one fair daughter, Mary Madeline, upon whom she doted with true maternal fondness. This young lady was most perversely inclined to smile upon one Mr. Dick Giblet, a clerk in her father's grocery. Mrs. Mumbles was inconsolable, and Mr. Giblet was banished from the premises, and taken into employ by the firm of Edson & Co., the largest merchants in Wimbledon.
Rumor said these gentlemen were so well pleased with the young man, that they had offered him a yearly salary of several hundred dollars, and proposed, should he continue to perform his duties as well as hitherto, to take him into the firm, on his coming of age. Mrs. Salsify now began to regard Dick with different eyes, as what prudent mother would not? She sent Mary Madeline to the store of Edson & Co., whenever she was in want of a spool of cotton or yard of tape; but the young clerk had grown so vain with his elevation, that he looked very loftily down upon her, bowed in the most distant manner, and never exchanged more words with her than were necessary in the buying and selling of an article. So Mary