Suburban Sketches eBook

“I don’t know, Sallie,” said Frank, when he had given all the eagerly demanded particulars about the child’s father,—­“I don’t know whether I should want many such holidays as this, in the course of the summer.  On the whole, I think I’d better overwork myself and not take any relaxation, if I mean to live long.  And yet I’m not sure that the day’s been altogether a failure, though all our purposes of enjoyment have miscarried.  I didn’t plan to find a lost child here, when I got home, and I’m afraid I haven’t had always the most Christian feeling towards him; but he’s really the saving grace of the affair; and if this were a little comedy I had been playing, I should turn him to account with the jaded audience, and advancing to the foot-lights, should say, with my hand on my waistcoat, and a neat bow, that although every hope of the day had been disappointed, and nothing I had meant to do had been done, yet the man who had ended at midnight by restoring a lost child to the arms of its father, must own that, in spite of adverse fortune, he had enjoyed A Day’s Pleasure.”

[Illustration:  “A gaunt figure of forlorn and curious smartness.”]

A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE

It was long past the twilight hour, which has been already mentioned as so oppressive in suburban places, and it was even too late for visitors, when a resident, whom I shall briefly describe as a Contributor to the magazines, was startled by a ring at his door.  As any thoughtful person would have done upon the like occasion, he ran over his acquaintance in his mind, speculating whether it were such or such a one, and dismissing the whole list of improbabilities, before he laid down the book he was reading, and answered the bell.  When at last he did this, he was rewarded by the apparition of an utter stranger on his threshold,—­a gaunt figure of forlorn and curious smartness towering far above him, that jerked him a nod of the head, and asked if Mr. Hapford lived there.  The face which the lamp-light revealed was remarkable for a harsh two days’ growth of beard, and a single bloodshot eye; yet it was not otherwise a sinister countenance, and there was something in the strange presence that appealed and touched.  The contributor, revolving the facts vaguely in his mind, was not sure, after all, that it was not the man’s clothes rather than his expression that softened him toward the rugged visage:  they were so tragically cheap, and the misery of helpless needlewomen, and the poverty and ignorance of the purchaser, were so apparent in their shabby newness, of which they appeared still conscious enough to have led the way to the very window, in the Semitic quarter of the city, where they had lain ticketed, “This nobby suit for $15.”

But the stranger’s manner put both his face and his clothes out of mind, and claimed a deeper interest when, being answered that the person for whom he asked did not live there, he set his bristling lips hard together, and sighed heavily.