Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.. Fern Fanny

Adonis of some ball, or theatre, or gay saloon: sometimes destitute as the humblest chiffonier, who suns himself in the public square, and solicits charity of the indifferent passer-by. In the rosy glow of morning, the bright stars paled while Harry sat at the enticing gaming table, till even those accustomed to breathe the polluted atmosphere of those gates of perdition, turned shuddering away, from the fiendish look of that youthful face.

      Nature revenged herself at last. Wearisome days of sickness came, and he who was nurtured in luxury, was dependent upon the charity of grudging strangers.

      Oh! what a broad, clear beam eternity throws upon the crooked by-paths of sin! how like swift visions pass the long forgotten prayer at the blessed mother’s knee; the long-forgotten words of Holy Writ; the soothing vesper hymn, of holy time; the first cautious, retrograding step – the gradual searing of conscience, till the barrier between right and wrong is ruthlessly trampled under foot; the broken resolutions, the misspent years, the wasted energies; the sins against one’s own soul, the sins against others; the powerless wish to pray, ’mid paroxysms of bodily pain; the clinging hold on life – the anxious glance at the physician – the thrilling question, “Doctor, is it life or death?”

      Poor Harry! amid the incoherent ravings of delirium, the good little grisette learned his sad history. Her little French heart was touched with pity. Through her representations, on his partial restoration to health, a sufficient sum was subscribed by the American consul, and some of his generous countrymen, to give him the last chance for his life, by sending him to breathe again his native air. Earnestly he prayed that the sea might not be his sepulchre.

      Tearfully he welcomed the first sight of his native shore. Tremblingly he penned those few lines to the brother whose face he so yearned to see – and on whose fraternal breast it would seem almost easy to die. Anxiously he waited the result, turning restlessly from side to side, till beaded drops of agony started from his pallid temples. Walter would not refuse his last request. No – no. The proud man would at least, at the grave’s threshold, forget that “vulgar rumor” had coupled his patrician name with disgrace. Oh, why had the messenger such leaden footsteps? when life and strength like hour-glass sands, were fleeting! A step is heard upon the stairs! A faint flush, like the rosy tinting of a sea-shell, brightens the pallid face.

      “No answer, sir,” gruffly says the messenger.

      A smothered groan of anguish, and Harry turns his face to the wall, and tears, such only as despair can shed, bedew his pillow.

      “Do go, dear Walter; ’tis your own brother who asks it. If he has sinned, has he not also suffered? We all so err, so need forgiveness. Oh, take back those hasty words; let him die on your breast, for my sake, Walter,” said the sweet pleader, as her tears fell over the hand she pressed.

      “That’s my own husband,” said the happy Mary, as she saw him relent. “Go now, dear Walter. Take away the sting of those cruel words, while yet you may, and carry him these sweet flowers, he used to love, from me. Quick, dear Walter.”

      “This way, sir, this way. Up another flight,” said the guide, gazing admiringly at the fine figure before him, enveloped in a velvet Spanish cloak. “Second door to the left, sir. Maybe the gentleman’s asleep now; he’s been very quiet for some time. Seen trouble, sir, I reckon. ’Tis not age that has drawn those lines on his handsome face. He’s not long for this world, God rest his soul. That’s right, sir; that’s the door. Good day, sir.”

      Walter stood with his finger on the latch. He had at all times a nervous shrinking from sickness – a fastidious horror of what he termed “disagreeables.” He half repented that he had suffered a woman’s tears to unsettle his purpose. Perhaps Harry would reproach him. (His own conscience was prompter to that thought.) There he stood, irresolutely twirling Mary’s lovely flowers in his nervous grasp.

      If Harry should reproach him!

      Slowly he opened the door. The flowers fell from his hand! Was that attenuated, stiffened form his own, warm-hearted, bright-eyed, gallant young brother?

      “Reproach?”

      Oh, Walter, there is no “reproach” like that passionless upturned face; no words so crushing as the silence of those breathless lips; no misery like the thought that those we have injured are forever blind to our gushing tears, and deaf to our sobs of repentance.

      CURIOUS THINGS

      Curious: The exaggerated anxiety of wives to see the women who were formerly loved by their husbands. —Exchange.

      Well, yes – rather curious; there are a great many curious things in this world. Curious, your husband always perceives that you are “sitting in a draft,” whenever one of your old lovers approaches you in a concert room; curious he insists upon knowing who gave you that pretty gold ring on your little finger; curious that you can never open a package of old letters, without having his married eyes peeping over your shoulder; curious he never allows you to ride on horseback, though everybody says you have just the figure for it; curious he always sends his partner on all the little business trips of the firm; curious such an ugly frown comes over his face when he sees certain cabalistic marks in a masculine hand, in the margin of your favorite poet; curious that he will not let you name your youngest boy Harry, unless you tell him your confidential reasons; curious he is always most gracious to the most uninteresting men who visit the house; and very curious, and decidedly disagreeable, that whenever you ask him for money, he is so busy reading the newspaper that he can’t hear you.

      THE ADVANTAGES OF A HOUSE IN A FASHIONABLE SQUARE

      “Whom did you say wished to see me, Bridget?”

      The broad-faced Irish girl handed her mistress a card.

      “‘Mrs. John Hunter!’ was there ever anything so unfortunate? had she called on any other day in the week, I should have been prepared to receive her, but of a ‘washing day,’ when nothing but a calico wrapper stands Master George’s clawings and climbings; when the nursery maid is in the kitchen, and the baby on my hands for the day; when my ‘Honiton collar’ is in soak, the parlor window curtains in the wash-tub, and the dimensions of the whole family, big and little, are flapping on the clothes-line, displaying their rents and patches in full view of the parlor windows! Was there ever anything so unfortunate? What could induce Mrs. John Hunter to call on a washing day?”

      But what was “washing day” to Mrs. John Hunter, who lived in St. John’s Square, kept four servants, and patronized a laundry? What did she know of Mondays’ picked up dinners and littered parlors, cluttered china closet, and untidied nurseries? Mrs. John Hunter, who came down to breakfast every morning in a fawn-colored silk morning dress, trimmed with cherry, over an elaborately embroidered white skirt; in a cobweb lace cap, silk stockings, and the daintiest of Parisian toilette slippers; how could she see the necessity of going down cellar, after breakfast, to see if the pork was under brine, the pickle jar covered, and the preserves unfermented? What did she know about washing up breakfast-cups, polishing the silver sugar bowl, filling the astral lamp, counting up the silver forks and spoons, or mending that little threadbare place in the carpet, that would soon widen into an ugly rent, if neglected? What did she know about washing children’s faces for school, or finding their missing mittens, or seeing that Webster’s spelling book and a big apple were safely stowed away in their satchels? How did she (whose family broadcloth the tailor mended) know that Monday was always the day when husbands threw their coats into wives’ lap “for just one stitch,” (which translated, means new sleeve-linings, new facings for the flaps, a new set of buttons down the front, and a general resuscitation of dilapidated button-holes.) How did she know that the baby always got up a fit of colic on washing days, and made it a point to dispense with its usual forenoon nap? – that all the collectors for benevolent societies, and bores in general, preferred it to any other day in the calendar? – that school teachers always selected it to ferule children for sneezing without permission – that milkmen never could spare you, on that day, your usual share of milk by two quarts – that the coal, potatoes, starch, soap, molasses, and vinegar always gave out on Monday – that “the minister” always selected it for his annual call, and country cousins