Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars
      The pewee’s life of cheerful ease! 
      He sings, or leaves his song to seize
    An insect sporting in the bars
      Of mild bright light that gild the trees. 
    A very poet he!  For him
    All pleasant places still and dim: 
    His heart, a spark of heavenly fire,
    Burns with undying, sweet desire: 
    And so he sings; and so his song,
    Though heard not by the hurrying throng,
      Is solace to the pensive ear: 
         “Pewee! pewee! peer!”

* * * * *

MRS. LEWIS.

A STORY IN THREE PARTS.

PART II.

VI.

In due time we found our way, through deafening clatter, to Miss Post’s door, a little below the Astor House, and in the midst of all that female feet the soonest seek.  In Maiden Lane and on Broadway it was easy to find all that a Weston fancy painted in the shape of dry goods; and I did my errands up with conscientious speed before indulging in a fashionable lounge on the Battery.

The first twenty-four hours were full of successive surprises, which ought to have been chronicled on the spot and at the time.  They affected me like electric shocks; but in a day or two I forgot to be surprised at the queer Dutch signs over the shops and the swine in the streets.  Now I only remember the oddity of Miss Post’s poverty in the water-line; and that she had to buy fresh water by the gallon and rain-water by the barrel.  Also, the faithlessness of the two brilliant black boys who waited on table and at the door, and who couldn’t be depended on to take up a bundle or carry a message to your room, so unmitigatedly wicked were they.

“If I owned ’em,” said Miss Post to me, confidentially, “I would have ’em whipped every day of their lives.  It’s what they need, and can’t do without.  They’re just like bad children!”

That was true enough.  However, she didn’t own them, and got very little out of them but show; and they looked like princes, with their white aprons and jackets, and their glittering, haughty eyes.  They played with their duties, and disdained all directions.  I used to follow them with my eyes at the table with amused astonishment.  It was very grand, and, as the Marchioness says, “If you made believe a good deal,” reminded one of barbaric splendor, and Tippoo Saib.  But poor Miss Post couldn’t order an elephant to tread their heads off, or she would have extinguished her household twice a day.  I looked back with a feeling of relief to Weston, and my good Polly, who would scorn to be an eye-servant or men-pleaser.

At the long table, where sat Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, Babbit, and so on, I looked sharply for Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.  But neither was there the first day.  All the people were childless and desolate-looking, though much bedecked with braids and curls, which ladies wore at that time without stint.  Nobody looked as if she could be Mr. Lewis’s wife.  However, the ladies all treated me with so much cordiality and politeness that I set New York down at once as a delightful spot.