be any but those which naturally present themselves to the mind. If a certain round is not prescribed, we feel that all beyond it is proscribed. O, the unutterable weariness of this worse than dumb-show! No wonder we groan in spirit when there are visits to be made!
But some fair, innocent face looks up at us, out of a forest home, perhaps, or in a wide, unneighboured prairie,—and asks what all this means? “Is not a visit always a delightful thing—full of good feeling—the cheerer of solitude—the lightener of labour—the healer of differences—the antidote of life’s bitterness?” Ah, primitive child! it is so, indeed, to you. The thought of a visit makes your dear little heart beat. If one is offered, or expected at your father’s, with what cheerful readiness do you lend your aid to the preparations! How your winged feet skim along the floor, or surmount the stairs; your brain full of ingenious devices and substitutes, your slender fingers loaded with plates and glasses, and a tidy apron depending from your taper waist! Thoughts of dress give you but little trouble, for your choice is limited to the pink ribbon and the blue one; what the company will wear is of still less moment, so they only come! It would be hard to make you believe that we invite people and then hope they will not come! If you omit anybody, it will be the friend who possesses too many acres, or he who has been sent to the legislature from your district, lest dignity should interfere with pleasure; we, on the contrary, think first of the magnates, even though we know that the gloom of their grandeur will overshadow the mirth of everybody else, and prove a wet blanket to the social fire. You will, perhaps, be surprised to learn that we keep a debtor and creditor account of visits, and talk of owing a call, or owing an invitation, as your father does of owing a hundred dollars at the store, for value received. When we have made a visit and are about departing, we invite a return, in the choicest terms of affectionate, or, at least, cordial interest; but if our friend is new enough to take us at our word, and pay the debt too soon, we complain, and say, “Oh dear! there’s another call to make!”
A hint has already been dropt as to the grudging spirit of the
