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M-
JENNY_ AND
you: I wish you weren’t obliged to be in such haste; you are staying——”
“Out in Roxbury, on B—— street.”
“On B— street? at——”
- At my cousin, Robert Hall’s.”
“That is lucky! my own immediate neighbor- hood! I know Mr. Hall and his wife intimately. How long, let me ask, will you remain?”
‘*A few days; perbaps a week.”
“That is pleasant! I'll see you again then! We'll be in at once.”
He went down with me and helped me into the carriage. I asked cousin George if I had made him cross, staying; his answer was his ever pleasant-sounding laugh, as he bowed to Mr Cleaves and started his horse up.
“So that was Mr. Cleaves?” he said, playing his whip about his horse’s side.
“Yes; isn’t he a fine-looking man? Did you ever see him before?”
“*No; he lives out in Roxbury close by Robert’s though. He has one of the finest places out there; one of the best graperies. They had some of his grapes at Rotert’s one Sunday when I was out there in the fall. His wife sent them in to Har- riet.”’
‘¢He is married then?”
“Yes; he's got children; a girl of Het’s age, 1 should think.”
“That is good! I'm glad he is married! I have always supposed he was, he has been in the ‘Chronicle’ so long. But he isn’t so old as I expected; and something in his appearance— I don’t know what it was—made me afraid before J came away that he wasn’t. I’m glad!”
“Ha!” laughed George, in his quick, explo- sive way. George is an ‘‘old bach,” or, this is what we all call him. He is thirty-seven. 1 know,” he added, ‘all about how you feel. You're my cousin; perhaps we're alike in some things. At any rate, you've turned the first corner; and of course, you know as well as I, that some women at that age manage and work so—so outrageously hard to get married, as to put a sort of disgrace on all the rest. We who are out of the noose and so supposed to be in the market, as the women say of each other, are shy of them, of most of them. Oh! these dressed out, minced up, self-conscious, vain, proud, hus- band-catchera, with their eyes on every old bach and widower that comes near, how I hate ’em! I won't go near enough, if I can help it, to touch one of ’em with a pitch-fork!”
(Io passing, uncle Wingate, George's father, is a farmer, close by the old homestead up on the hills at F——-.)
“I know exactly how you feel,” he added, after a pause. ‘I’ve thought a hundred times— a hundred! I’ve thought ten thousand times, that it’s the only disagreeable thing, perhaps, about being unmarried, this forever recurring bother about marketable women. If these women only knew how ridiculous they make themselves, with never one natural look or action! I tell you, Jen, it makes me mad enough to swear!”
“Oh, now, cousin George, you distress me!” I cried out.
“You? why should I? it is nothing to yous”
“But I’m always worried for fear some old bachelor, or some widower will suspect me of manceuvring, of trying to get him, if I make one single friendly advance toward him, in the way of conversation, or in the way of anything, as] would do go composedly, and with so much real pleasure, both to myself’ and him, if he were married, or irrevocably engaged, or were monk of some anti-Benedictine order.”
“Oho! don’t you be troubled! You haven't the air, or look, or make of the husband-hun- ters.”
- 8o you think. You don’t su:pect me because
you know all about me; but you suspect others whose sentiments you dan’t know as well Per- haps others who don’t know my sentiments sus- pect me; and, as true ay I live, cousin George, Vd rather they would.”
- Come! here you are at the square, with tears
in your eyes blinding them to all the beauty.”
“I don’t care for beauty or anything when — it comes to this!” I replied, wiping my eyes stoutly, making, however, stout exertions to bring myself up out of my trouble. “I amas glad as I can be, at any rate, that Mr. Cleaves is married. Now 1 can let him see that I like him, like to talk with him, and still feel easy about it.”
“Yes, that you can. Now see if this isn’t s pretty piace.”
We had a delightful day. Going about at sight-seeing with a heavy-spirited man or woman, ov a super-energetic man or woman, drags me down. But good, large, genial cousin George: if my hand lay on bis arm, or my arm but touched his, or I looked into his face, or heard his voice, all my soul rested as if upon down. 1—perhaps I would be saved half the wear and tear I get, and shall get in life, wedded to a man like my cousin George. Only cousin George isn’t always | downy. This morning, for instance, before start- ing, when Robert and a neighbor were standing by to see how he would adjust a troublesome juint in the harness, he gave his thamb a bur, and then, snapping it, he said with roundest vexation, “Deuce take it!" My chamber window
