"Well, I was off in a brown study so deep about artificial sins, I didn"t hear Liddy come in, she shut the door so softly and trod on tiptoes so light on the carpet. The first thing I knew was I felt her hands on my head, as she stood behind me, a dividin" of my hair with her fingers.
""Why, Sam," said she, "as I"m a livin" sinner if you ain"t got some white hairs in your head, and there is a little bald patch here right on the crown. How strange it is! It only seems like yesterday you was a curly-headed boy."
""Yes," sais I, and I hove a sigh so loud it made the window jar; "but I have seen a great deal of trouble since then. I lost two wives in Europe."
""Now do tell," said she. "Why you don"t!--oh, jimminy criminy! two wives! How was it, poor Sam?" and she kissed the bald spot on my pate, and took a rockin"-chair and sat opposite to me, and began rockin"
backwards and forwards like a fellow sawin" wood. "How was it, Sam, dear?"
""Why," sais I, "first and foremost, Liddy, I married a fashionable lady to London. Well, bein" out night arter night at b.a.l.l.s and operas, and what not, she got kinder used up and beat out, and unbeknownst to me used to take opium. Well, one night she took too much, and in the morning she was as dead as a herring."
""Did she make a pretty corpse?" said Lid, lookin" very sanctimonious.
"Did she lay out handsum? They say prussic acid makes lovely corpses; it keeps the eyes from fallin" in. Next to dyin" happy, the greatest thing is to die pretty. Ugly corpses frighten sinners, but elegant ones win them."
""The most lovely subject you ever beheld," said I. "She looked as if she was only asleep; she didn"t stiffen at all, but was as limber as ever you see. Her hair fell over her neck and shoulders in beautiful curls just like yourn; and she had on her fingers the splendid diamond rings I gave her; she was too fatigued to take "em off when she retired the night afore. I felt proud of her even in death, I do a.s.sure you. She was handsome enough to eat. I went to amba.s.sador"s to consult him about the funeral, whether it should be a state affair, with all the whole diplomatic corps of the court to attend it, or a private one. But he advised a private one; he said it best comported with our dignified simplicity as republicans, and, although cost was no object, still it was satisfactory to know it was far less expense.
When I came back she was gone."
""Gone!" said Liddy, "gone where?"
""Gone to the devil, dear, I suppose."
""Oh my!" said she. "Well, I never in all my born days! Oh, Sam, is that the way to talk of the dead!"
""In the dusk of the evening," sais I, "a carriage, they said, drove to the door, and a coffin was carried up-stairs; but the undertaker said it wouldn"t fit, and it was taken back again for a larger one.
Just afore I went to bed, I went to the room to have another look at her, and she was gone, and there was a letter on the table for me; it contained a few words only.--"Dear Sam, my first husband is come to life, and so have I. Goodbye, love."
""Well, what did you do?"
""Gave it out," said I, "she died of the cholera, and had to be buried quick and private, and no one never knew to the contrary."
""Didn"t it almost break your heart, Sammy?"
""No," sais I. "In her hurry, she took my dressing-case instead of her own, in which was all her own jewels, besides those I gave her, and all our ready money. So I tried to resign myself to my loss, for it might have been worse, you know," and I looked as good as pie.
""Well, if that don"t beat all, I declare!" said she.
""Liddy," sais I, with a mock solemcoly air, "every bane has its antidote, and every misfortin its peculiar consolation."
""Oh, Sam, that showed the want of a high moral intellectual education, didn"t it?" said she. "And yet you had the courage to marry again?"
""Well, I married," sais I, "next year in France a lady who had refused one of Louis Philip"s sons. Oh, what a splendid gall she was, Liddy! she was the star of Paris. Poor thing! I lost her in six weeks."
""Six weeks! Oh, Solomon!" said she, "in six weeks."
""Yes," sais I, "in six short weeks."
""How was it, Sam? do tell me all about it; it"s quite romantic. I vow, it"s like the Arabian Nights" Entertainment. You are so unlucky, I swow I should be skeered--"
""At what?" sais I.
""Why, at--"
"She was caught there; she was a goin" to say, "at marryin" you," but as she was a leadin" of me on, that wouldn"t do. Doctor, you may catch a gall sometimes, but if she has a mind to, she can escape if she chooses, for they are as slippery as eels. So she pretended to hesitate on, till I asked her again.
""Why," sais she, a looking down, "at sleeping alone tonight, after hearing of these dreadful catastrophes."
""Oh," sais I, "is that all?"
""But how did you lose her?" said she.
""Why, she raced off," said I, "with the Turkish amba.s.sador, and if I had a got hold of him, I"de a lammed him wuss than the devil beatin"
tan-bark, I know. I"de a had his melt, if there was a bowie-knife out of Kentucky."
""Did you go after her?"
""Yes; but she cotched it afore I cotched her."
""How was that, Sam?"
""Why, she wanted to sarve him the same way, with an officer of the Russian Guards, and Mahomet caught her, sewed her up in a sack, and throwed her neck and crop into the Bosphorus, to fatten eels for the Greek ladies to keep Lent with."
""Why, how could you be so unfortunate?" said she.
""That"s a question I have often axed myself, Liddy," sais I; "but I have come to this conclusion: London and Paris ain"t no place for galls to be trained in."
""So I have always said, and always will maintain to my dying day,"
she said, rising with great animation and pride. "What do they teach there but music, dancing, and drawing? The deuce a thing else; but here is Spanish, French, German, Italian, botany, geology, mineralogy, icthiology, conchology, theology--"
""Do you teach angeolology and doxyology?" sais I.
""Yes, angeolology and doxyology," she said, not knowing what she was a talking about.
""And occult sciences?" sais I.
""Yes, all the sciences. London and Paris, eh! Ask a lady from either place if she knows the electric battery from the magnetic--"
""Or a needle from a pole," sais I.
""Yes," sais she, without listening, "or any such question, and see if she can answer it."
"She resumed her seat.
""Forgive my enthusiasm," she said, "Sam, you know I always had a great deal of that."
""I know," said I, "you had the smallest foot and ankle of anybody in our country. My! what fine-spun gla.s.s heels you had! Where in the world have you stowed them to?" pretendin" to look down for them.
""Kept them to kick you with," she said, "if you are sa.s.sy."
"Thinks I to myself, what next? as the woman said to the man who kissed her in the tunnel, you are coming out, Liddy.