The Youths Companion | Page 5

We find a voice for all the loving praise For which, perhaps,
through weary, unblessed days The heart had hungered. We are slow to
prove The tenderness we feel, till some dark day We can do naught but
bow our head and pray That Heaven may teach us how to show our
love. May it not be that on the other side They wait for us, and, like us,
long to make The sad wrongs right, ready to give and take The
hand-clasps and the kisses here denied? Carlotta Perry.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For the Companion. CUSPADORES.
There is probably no human weakness that awakens more derisive
contempt than a false assumption of superior knowledge. The vanity of
young people frequently leads them into ludicrous positions, and
sometimes even into serious difficulties, through a pretence of knowing
things of which they are really ignorant. The experience of one of my
young friends is a case in point.
Silvia Morden is a girl of sixteen. She is both bright and pretty. Her
worst fault was the one I have mentioned,--a most ridiculous mania for
wishing to appear well acquainted with all subjects.
The flattery of her companions at Miss Hall's "Young Ladies'
Academy" no doubt had something to do with this folly; for she was
generous, end a great favorite with her schoolmates. It often led her
into difficulties, as falsehood in any form always does, and Silvia was
really becoming a confirmed liar when the little episode I am about to
relate, checked her on the very brink of the precipice.
The craze for "high art decorations" had spread from the great city
centres to the country town of Atwood, where Silvia's parents lived. Of
course every one understands that "high art" becomes very much
diluted in its country progress, and when it appears in out-of-the-way
places, where the people are neither wealthy nor well read, it is apt to
degenerate into very low art, indeed.

But the Atwood girls did what they could to follow the fashions. Old
ginger-jars were dragged down, covered with paint, and pasted over
with beetles, and birds, and flowers, in utter disregard of the unities.
Here Egyptian scarabaei were perched on an Alpine mountain; there a
clay amphora, of the shape of the Greeks or Romans, was adorned with
gaudy plates cut out of fashion magazines.
The merchants in Atwood, taking advantage of this furore, sent for all
shapes of pottery, but they could not import the taste to decorate it.
Atwood, however, was satisfied with its own style of art, and that was
sufficient.
Silvia's decorations were rather better than those of her acquaintances.
She read everything she could on the subject, but, with her usual
self-conceit, refused to ask any questions of those who might have
enlightened her, and in fact, set herself up as an oracle on art
decorations.
One day, she saw in a city paper a list of articles for decoration, among
which were "cuspadores."
"What on earth is a 'cuspadore'?" she asked herself.
Of course, something lovely, she judged, from the name. It was
high-sounding, and seemed classical. She concluded it must be one of
those lovely vases she had read descriptions of, and she determined to
buy one that very evening, for of course Morris had them among his
new lot of potteries.
She went to school that morning with her head full of cuspadores. She
missed all her lessons, and got a bad mark for inattention, but the
thought of a cuspadore kept her from worrying over her misfortunes.
"I do hope Miss Hall isn't going to keep us all the afternoon bothering
over that rhetoric," she said to her friend Anna Lee. "I want to go up
town this evening, and must go, if it's dark when I get home."
"What are you so crazy to go up town for?" asked Anna.

"Oh, I want to go to Morris's store to get a cuspadore."
"Cuspa---what?" inquired her amazed companion. "What on earth is
that?"
"You'll see when I get it," was the evasive answer.
"Oh, bother your mysteries! You needn't make a secret of it, Just tell
me what it is and what it's for."
With all her heart, Silvia wished that she could answer that question.
Thinking she could not be very far wrong, she ventured to say,--
"It's a lovely antique vase. I'm going to put a running border of roses
and pansies on it,--the sweetest pictures you ever saw,--and I'll put it on
the mantel for flowers."
"I never heard of them before," persisted Anna. "Where did you see
them, Sil?"
Another falsehood was required.
"I saw a great many pretty things when I was in the city last March, and
cuspadores