Prue and I | Page 4

to
say; nor will it be obliged to smother all the pleasant things that occur,
because they would be too flattering to express. My fancy perpetually
murmurs in Aurelia's ear, "Those flowers would not be fair in your
hand, if you yourself were not fairer. That diamond necklace would be
gaudy, if your eyes were not brighter. That queenly movement would
be awkward, if your soul were not queenlier."
You could not say such things to Aurelia, although, if you are worthy
to dine at her side, they are the very things you are longing to say.
What insufferable stuff you are talking about the weather, and the opera,
and Alboni's delicious voice, and Newport, and Saratoga! They are all
very pleasant subjects, but do you suppose Ixion talked Thessalian
politics when he was admitted to dine with Juno?
I almost begin to pity you, and to believe that a scarcity of white
waistcoats is true wisdom. For now dinner is announced, and you, O
rare felicity, are to hand down Aurelia. But you run the risk of tumbling
her expansive skirt, and you have to drop your hat upon a chance chair,
and wonder, en passant who will wear it home, which is annoying. My
fancy runs no such risk; is not at all solicitous about its hat, and glides
by the side of Aurelia, stately as she. There! you stumble on the stair,
and are vexed at your own awkwardness, and are sure you saw the
ghost of a smile glimmer along that superb face at your side. My fancy
doesn't tumble down stairs, and what kind of looks it sees upon
Aurelia's face, are its own secret.
Is it any better, now you are seated at table? Your companion eats little

because she wishes little. You eat little because you think it is elegant
to do so. It is a shabby, second-hand elegance, like your brittle behavior.
It is just as foolish for you to play with the meats, when you ought to
satisfy your healthy appetite generously, as it is for you, in the
drawing-room, to affect that cool indifference when you have real and
noble interests.
I grant you that fine manners, if you please, are a fine art. But is not
monotony the destruction of art? Your manners, O happy Ixion,
banqueting with Juno, are Egyptian. They have no perspective, no
variety. They have no color, no shading. They are all on a dead level;
they are flat. Now, for you are a man of sense, you are conscious that
those wonderful eyes of Aurelia see straight through all this net-work
of elegant manners in which you have entangled yourself, and that
consciousness is uncomfortable to you. It is another trick in the game
for me, because those eyes do not pry into my fancy. How can they,
since Aurelia does not know of my existence?
Unless, indeed, she should remember the first time I saw her. It was
only last year, in May. I had dined, somewhat hastily, in consideration
of the fine day, and of my confidence that many would be wending
dinnerwards that afternoon. I saw my Prue comfortably engaged in
seating the trowsers of Adoniram, our eldest boy--an economical care
to which my darling Prue is not unequal, even in these days and in this
town--and then hurried toward the avenue. It is never much thronged at
that hour. The moment is sacred to dinner. As I paused at the corner of
Twelfth Street, by the church, you remember, I saw an apple-woman,
from whose stores I determined to finish my dessert, which had been
imperfect at home. But, mindful of meritorious and economical Prue, I
was not the man to pay exorbitant prices for apples, and while still
haggling with the wrinkled Eve who had tempted me, I became
suddenly aware of a carriage approaching, and, indeed, already close by.
I raised my eyes, still munching an apple which I held in one hand,
while the other grasped my walking-stick (true to my instincts of dinner
guests, as young women to a passing wedding or old ones to a funeral),
and beheld Aurelia!
Old in this kind of observation as I am, there was something so
graciously alluring in the look that she cast upon me, as unconsciously,
indeed, as she would have cast it upon the church, that, fumbling

hastily for my spectacles to enjoy the boon more fully, I thoughtlessly
advanced upon the apple-stand, and, in some indescribable manner,
tripping, down we all fell into the street, old woman, apples, baskets,
stand, and I, in promiscuous confusion. As I struggled there, somewhat
bewildered, yet sufficiently self-possessed to look after the carriage, I
beheld that beautiful woman looking at us through the back-window
(you could not have done it; the