Gaut Gurley | Page 5

was ever made healthier? In the bad
air generated among so many breaths in confined apartments, the high
nervous excitement that usually prevails among the company, and the
exposure to cold or dampness to which their unprepared systems are
often subjected in returning home, Death has marked many a victim for
his own; while, at the best, lassitude and depression are sure to follow,
from which it will require days to recover.

In these strictures on overgrown parties, we would not, of course, be
understood as intending to include the smaller social gatherings, where
men and women do not, as they are prone to do in crowds, lose their
sense of personal responsibility, in deporting themselves like rational
beings; for such doubtless often lead to pleasing and instructive
interchange of thought, and the cultivation of those little amenities of
life which are scarcely less essential than the virtues themselves in the
structure of good society.
But it is time we had returned from this digression to the characters and
incidents immediately connected with the action of our tale.
A short time after the frosts of formality, which usually attend the
introductory scenes of such assemblages, had melted away and given
place to the noisy frivolities of the evening, and while the bustling host,
and pale, anxious-looking hostess, were together taking their rounds
among their three hundred guests, bestowing their attentions on the
more neglected, calling out the more modest, and exchanging civilities
with all,--while this was passing, suddenly there arose from without a
confused noise, as of quick movements and mingling voices, which,
from its character and the direction whence it came, obviously
indicated some altercation, or other disturbance, at the outer door. This
attracting the quickened attention of Mr. and Mrs. Elwood, the former
left his companion, and was threading his way through the throng,
when he was met by a servant, who in a flurried under-tone said:
"There is out here at the door, Mr. Elwood, a sort of a countryfied,
odd-looking old fellow, in rusty brown clothes, that has been insisting
on coming in, without being invited here to-night, and without telling
his business or even giving his name. And he pressed so hard that we
had to drive him back off the steps; but he refused to go away, even
then, and kept asking where Mark was."
"Mark! why, that is my given name: didn't you know it?" said Elwood,
rebukingly.
"No, sir, I didn't," replied the fashionable pro tempore lackey. "And if I
had, my orders has always been on sech occasions not to admit any but
the invited, who won't send in their names, or tell their business. And I
generally calculate to go by Gunter, and do the thing up genteel."
"Well, well," said Elwood, impatiently cutting short the other in the
defence of his professional character, and leading the way to the door,

"well, well, we had better see who he is, perhaps."
When they reached the front entrance, they caught, by means of the
reflected light of the entry and chambers, an imperfect view of the
object of their proposed scrutiny, walking up and down the bricked
pathway leading to the house. But, not being able to identify the
new-comer with any one of his acquaintances, at that distance, Elwood
walked down and confronted him; when, after a momentary pause, he
siezed the supposed intruder by the hand, and, in a surprised and
agitated tone, exclaimed:
"My brother Arthur! How came you here?"
"By steam and stage."
"Not what I meant: but no matter. We were not expecting you; and I
fear the waiters have made a sad mistake."
"As bad an one as I did, perhaps, in declining to be catechized at my
brother's door."
"No, you were right enough; but the waiters, being only here for the
extra occasion,--the bit of flare-up you see we have here to-night,--and
not knowing you, thought they must do as others do at such times. So
overlook the blunder, if you will, and walk in."
Mark Elwood, much chagrined and discomposed at the discovery of
such an untoward first reception of his brother, now ushered him into
the brilliantly-lighted hall, where the two stood in such singular
contrast that no stranger would have ever taken them for
brothers,--Mark being, as we have before described him, a good-sized,
and, in the main, a good-looking man; while the other, whom we have
introduced as Arthur Elwood, was of a diminutive size, with
commonplace features, and a severe, forbidding countenance, made so,
perhaps, by intense application to business, together with the
unfavorable effect caused by a blemished and sightless eye.
"Well, brother," said Mark, after a hesitating and awkward pause, "shall
I look you up a private room, or will you go in among the
company,--that is, if