Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some
gentle provocative; and therefore the tittivating
art is again in requisition, and again—done
honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted
and abetted by Mrs. Chopper. After supper, it
is ten to one but the last-named old lady becomes
worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint
in full vigour. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having
administered to her a warm cordial, which is something
of the strongest, then repair to their own room, where
Mr. Merrywinkle, with his legs and feet in hot water,
superintends the mulling of some wine which he is
to drink at the very moment he plunges into bed, while
Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments whose nature is unknown
to and unimagined by all but married men, takes four
small pills with a spasmodic look between each, and
finally comes to something hot and fragrant out of
another little saucepan, which serves as her composing-draught
for the night.
There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves,
and who do so at a cheaper rate and on more spare
diet, because they are niggardly and parsimonious;
for which reason they are kind enough to coddle their
visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them,
for our readers may rest assured of the accuracy of
these general principles:- that all couples who coddle
themselves are selfish and slothful,—that
they charge upon every wind that blows, every rain
that falls, and every vapour that hangs in the air,
the evils which arise from their own imprudence or
the gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,—and
that all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who
fall into exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and
forget their natural sympathy and close connexion with
everybody and everything in the world around them,
not only neglect the first duty of life, but, by a
happy retributive justice, deprive themselves of its
truest and best enjoyment.
THE OLD COUPLE
They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown
people and have great-grandchildren besides; their
bodies are bent, their hair is grey, their step tottering
and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose
wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed
grown old so soon!
It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host
of cares and griefs are crowded into the intervening
time which, reckoned by them, lengthens out into a
century! How many new associations have wreathed
themselves about their hearts since then! The
old time is gone, and a new time has come for others—not
for them. They are but the rusting link that
feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its
hold and dropping asunder.
It seems but yesterday—and yet three of
their children have sunk into the grave, and the tree
that shades it has grown quite old. One was an
infant—they wept for him; the next a girl,
a slight young thing too delicate for earth—her
loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man.
That was the worst of all, but even that grief is
softened now.
Copyrights
Sketches of Young Couples from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
