Prue and I | Page 8

stories that penetrate our
retirement, of the great people who actually dine out. Prue, with fine
womanly instinct, declares it is a shame that Aurelia should smile for a
moment upon ----, yes, even upon you, my friend of the irreproachable
manners!
"I know him," says my simple Prue; "I have watched his cold courtesy,
his insincere devotion. I have seen him acting in the boxes at the opera,
much more adroitly than the singers upon the stage. I have read his
determination to marry Aurelia; and I shall not be surprised," concludes
my tender wife, sadly, "if he wins her at last, by tiring her out, or, by
secluding her by his constant devotion from the homage of other men,
convinces her that she had better marry him, since it is so dismal to live
on unmarried."
And so, my friend, at the moment when the bouquet you ordered is
arriving at Aurelia's house, and she is sitting before the glass while her

maid arranges the last flower in her hair, my darling Prue, whom you
will never hear of, is shedding warm tears over your probable union,
and I am sitting by, adjusting my cravat and incontinently clearing my
throat.
It is rather a ridiculous business, I allow; yet you will smile at it
tenderly, rather than scornfully, if you remember that it shows how
closely linked we human creatures are, without knowing it, and that
more hearts than we dream of enjoy our happiness and share our
sorrow.
Thus, I dine at great tables uninvited, and, unknown, converse with the
famous beauties. If Aurelia is at last engaged, (but who is worthy?) she
will, with even greater care, arrange that wondrous toilette, will teach
that lace a fall more alluring, those gems a sweeter light. But even then,
as she rolls to dinner in her carriage, glad that she is fair, not for her
own sake nor for the world's, but for that of a single youth (who, I hope,
has not been smoking at the club all the morning), I, sauntering upon
the sidewalk, see her pass, I pay homage to her beauty, and her lover
can do no more; and if, perchance, my garments--which must seem
quaint to her, with their shining knees and carefully brushed elbows;
my white cravat, careless, yet prim; my meditative movement, as I put
my stick under my arm to pare an apple, and not, I hope, this time to
fall into the street,--should remind her, in her spring of youth, and
beauty, and love, that there are age, and care, and poverty, also; then,
perhaps, the good fortune of the meeting is not wholly mine.
For, O beautiful Aurelia, two of these things, at least, must come even
to you. There will be a time when you will no longer go out to dinner,
or only very quietly, in the family. I shall be gone then: but other old
book-keepers in white cravats will inherit my tastes, and saunter, on
summer afternoons, to see what I loved to see.
They will not pause, I fear, in buying apples, to look at the old lady in
venerable cap, who is rolling by in the carriage. They will worship
another Aurelia. You will not wear diamonds or opals any more, only
one pearl upon your blue-veined finger--your engagement ring. Grave
clergymen and antiquated beaux will hand you down to dinner, and the
group of polished youth, who gather around the yet unborn Aurelia of
that day, will look at you, sitting quietly upon the sofa, and say, softly,
"She must have been very handsome in her time."

All this must be: for consider how few years since it was your
grandmother who was the belle, by whose side the handsome, young
men longed to sit and pass expressive mottoes. Your grandmother was
the Aurelia of a half-century ago, although you cannot fancy her young.
She is indissolubly associated in your mind with caps and dark dresses.
You can believe Mary Queen of Scots, or Nell Gwyn or Cleopatra, to
have been young and blooming, although they belong to old and dead
centuries, but not your grandmother. Think of those who shall believe
the same of you--you, who to-day are the very flower of youth.
Might I plead with you, Aurelia--I, who would be too happy to receive
one of those graciously beaming bows that I see you bestow upon
young men, in passing,--I would ask you to bear that thought with you,
always, not to sadden your sunny smile, but to give it a more subtle
grace. Wear in your summer garland this little leaf of rue. It will not be
the skull at the feast, it will rather be the tender thoughtfulness in the
face of the young Madonna.
For the years