How many people in all, grandchildren, great-grandchildren,
and one or two intimate friends of the family, dine
together to-day at the eldest son’s to congratulate
the old couple, and wish them many happy returns,
is a calculation beyond our powers; but this we know,
that the old couple no sooner present themselves, very
sprucely and carefully attired, than there is a violent
shouting and rushing forward of the younger branches
with all manner of presents, such as pocket-books,
pencil-cases, pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions,
sleeve-buckles, worked-slippers, watch-guards, and
even a nutmeg-grater: the latter article being
presented by a very chubby and very little boy, who
exhibits it in great triumph as an extraordinary variety.
The old couple’s emotion at these tokens of
remembrance occasions quite a pathetic scene, of which
the chief ingredients are a vast quantity of kissing
and hugging, and repeated wipings of small eyes and
noses with small square pocket-handkerchiefs, which
don’t come at all easily out of small pockets.
Even the peevish bachelor is moved, and he says,
as he presents the old gentleman with a queer sort
of antique ring from his own finger, that he’ll
be de’ed if he doesn’t think he looks
younger than he did ten years ago.
But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert
and wine are on the table, which is pushed back to
make plenty of room, and they are all gathered in
a large circle round the fire, for it is then—
the glasses being filled, and everybody ready to drink
the toast— that two great-grandchildren
rush out at a given signal, and presently return,
dragging in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched
stick, and trembling with age and pleasure. Who
so popular as poor old Jane, nurse and story-teller
in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as
she, striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey,
while tears of pleasure steal down her withered cheeks!
The old couple sit side by side, and the old time
seems like yesterday indeed. Looking back upon
the path they have travelled, its dust and ashes disappear;
the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly
again upon its borders, and they grow young once more
in the youth of those about them.
CONCLUSION
We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral
essays, twelve samples of married couples, carefully
selected from a large stock on hand, open to the inspection
of all comers. These samples are intended for
the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes,
and, for their more easy and pleasant information,
have been separately ticketed and labelled in the
manner they have seen.
We have purposely excluded from consideration the
couple in which the lady reigns paramount and supreme,
holding such cases to be of a very unnatural kind,
and like hideous births and other monstrous deformities,
only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.
Copyrights
Sketches of Young Couples from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
