Instruments in their hands.

"So there _has_ been a dance, then!" sighed Caroline. "Oh, what we

have missed! It is really too provoking."

"So it is," said Edward; "but remember that to-morrow morning we set

off for Niagara."

"I will leave a note for Mrs. St. Leonard," said his mother,

"explaining that we were detained at Mrs. Watkinson's by our coachman

disappointing us. Let us console ourselves with the hope of seeing

more of this lady on our return. And now, dear Caroline, you must draw

a moral from the untoward events of to-day. When you are mistress of a

house, and wish to show civility to strangers, let the invitation be

always accompanied with a frank disclosure of what they are to expect.

And if you cannot conveniently invite company to meet them, tell them

at once that you will not insist on their keeping their engagement

with _you_ if anything offers afterwards that they think they would

prefer; provided only that they apprize you in time of the change in

their plan."

"Oh, mamma," replied Caroline, "you may be sure I shall always take

care not to betray my visitors into an engagement which they may have

cause to regret, particularly if they are strangers whose time is

limited. I shall certainly, as you say, tell them not to consider

themselves bound to me if they afterwards receive an invitation which

promises them more enjoyment. It will be a long while before I forget,

the Watkinson evening."

TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES

BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS (1824-1892)

[From _Putnam's Monthly_, December, 1854. Republished in the volume,

_Prue and I_ (1856), by George William Curtis (Harper & Brothers).]

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Prue and I do not entertain much; our means forbid it. In truth, other

people entertain for us. We enjoy that hospitality of which no account

is made. We see the show, and hear the music, and smell the flowers of

great festivities, tasting as it were the drippings from rich dishes.

Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our dinners, even on state

occasions, are strictly in keeping, and almost our only guest is

Titbottom. I buy a handful of roses as I come up from the office,

perhaps, and Prue arranges them so prettily in a glass dish for the

centre of the table that even when I have hurried out to see Aurelia

step into her carriage to go out to dine, I have thought that the

bouquet she carried was not more beautiful because it was more costly.

I grant that it was more harmonious with her superb beauty and her

rich attire. And I have no doubt that if Aurelia knew the old man,

whom she must have seen so often watching her, and his wife, who

ornaments her sex with as much sweetness, although with less splendor,

than Aurelia herself, she would also acknowledge that the nosegay of

roses was as fine and fit upon their table as her own sumptuous

bouquet is for herself. I have that faith in the perception of that

lovely lady. It is at least my habit--I hope I may say, my nature, to

believe the best of people, rather than the worst. If I thought that

all this sparkling setting of beauty--this fine fashion--these blazing

jewels and lustrous silks and airy gauzes, embellished with

gold-threaded embroidery and wrought in a thousand exquisite

elaborations, so that I cannot see one of those lovely girls pass me

by without thanking God for the vision--if I thought that this was

all, and that underneath her lace flounces and diamond bracelets

Aurelia was a sullen, selfish woman, then I should turn sadly

homewards, for I should see that her jewels were flashing scorn upon

the object they adorned, and that her laces were of a more exquisite

loveliness than the woman whom they merely touched with a superficial

grace. It would be like a gaily decorated mausoleum--bright to see,

but silent and dark within.

"Great excellences, my dear Prue," I sometimes allow myself to say,

"lie concealed in the depths of character, like pearls at the bottom

of the sea. Under the laughing, glancing surface, how little they are

suspected! Perhaps love is nothing else than the sight of them by one

person. Hence every man's mistress is apt to be an enigma to everybody

else. I have no doubt that when Aurelia is engaged, people will say

that she is a most admirable girl, certainly; but they cannot

understand why any man should be in love with her. As if it were at

all necessary that they should! And her lover, like a boy who finds a

pearl in the public street, and wonders as much that others did not

see it as that he did, will tremble until he knows his passion is

returned; feeling, of course, that the whole world must be in love

with this paragon who cannot possibly smile upon anything so unworthy

as he."

"I hope, therefore, my dear Mrs. Prue," I continue to say to my wife,

who looks up from her work regarding me with pleased pride, as if I

were such an irresistible humorist, "you will allow me to believe that

the depth may be calm although the surface is dancing. If you tell me

that Aurelia is but a giddy girl, I shall believe that you think so.

But I shall know, all the while, what profound dignity, and sweetness,

and peace lie at the foundation of her character."

I say such things to Titbottom during the dull season at the office.

And I have known him sometimes to reply with a kind of dry, sad humor,

not as if he enjoyed the joke, but as if the joke must be made, that

he saw no reason why I should be dull because the season was so.

"And what do I know of Aurelia or any other girl?" he says to me with

that abstracted air. "I, whose Aurelias were of another century and

another zone."

Then he falls into a silence which it seems quite profane to

interrupt. But as we sit upon our high stools at the desk opposite

each other, I leaning upon my elbows and looking at him; he, with

sidelong face, glancing out of the window, as if it commanded a

boundless landscape, instead of a dim, dingy office court, I cannot

refrain from saying:

"Well!"

He turns slowly, and I go chatting on--a little too loquacious,

perhaps, about those young girls. But I know that Titbottom regards

such an excess as venial, for his sadness is so sweet that you could

believe it the reflection of a smile from long, long years ago.

One day, after I had been talking for a long time, and we had put up

our books, and were preparing to leave, he stood for some time by the

window, gazing with a drooping intentness, as if he really saw

something more than the dark court, and said slowly:

"Perhaps you would have different impressions of things if you saw

them through my spectacles."

There was no change in his expression. He still looked from the

window, and I said:

"Titbottom, I did not know that you used glasses. I have never seen

you wearing spectacles."

"No, I don't often wear them. I am not very fond of looking through

them. But sometimes an irresistible necessity compels me to put them

on, and I cannot help seeing." Titbottom sighed.

"Is it so grievous a fate, to see?" inquired I.

"Yes; through my spectacles," he said, turning slowly and looking at

me with wan solemnity.