OCR Text |
Show 226 UXCLJ:l TOM'S CABIN : on, would confine her to her room three dn.ys out of aix. As, of course, all family al'rangcmcnts fell into the hands of servants, St. Clare found his menage anything but comfortable. His only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he feared that, with no ono to look after her and attend to her, her health ami life might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother's inefficiency. Ilc had taken her with him on a tour to V crmont, and had persuaded his cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with him to his southern residence; and they arc now returning: on this boat, where we ha.ve introduced them to our readers. And now, while the distant domes and spires of New Orleans rise to our view, there is yet time for un introduction to Miss Ophelia. Whoever has tmvclled in the New England States will remember, in some cool village, the large farm-house, with its clean-swept grassy yard, shaded by the dense and massive foliage of the sugar maple; and remember the air of order and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose, that seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost, or out of order; not a picket loose in the fence, not a llarticle of litter in the turfy yard, with its clumps of lilac-bushes growing up under the windows. 'Vithin, he will remember wide, clean rooms, where nothing ever seems to be doing or going to be done, where everything is onco and forever rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements move with the punctual exactness of tho old clock in the corner. In the family ':keeping-room/' as it is termed, he will remember the staid, respectable old book-case, with its gloss doors, where Rollin's History, Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Scott's Family Bible, stand side by side in decorous order, with multitudes of other books, equally solemn and respectable. There are no servants in the house, LU'E AMONG Till!: LOWLY. 227 but tbo lady in the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits sewing every afternoon among her daughters, as if nothing ever had been done, or were to bo done,- she and her girls, in some long-forgotten fore part of the day, "did up tlw work," nnd for tho rest of the time, probably, at all hours when you would seo thorn, it is "done up." Tho old kitchen floor never seems stained or spotted i the tables, tho chairs, and the various cooking utensils, never seem deranged or disordered j though three and sometimes four meals a day are got thoro, though tho family washing and ironing is there performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in some silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence. On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin invited her to visit his southern mansion. ~rho eldest of a large family, she wa.• still considered by her father and mother as one of "the children," and the proposal that she should go to Orleans was a most momentous one to the family circle. 'fho old gray-headed father took down Morse's Atlas out of the book-case, unu looked out tho exact latitude and longitude; and read Flint'R Travels in the South and West, to make up his own mind as to the nature of the country. Tho good mother inquired, anxiously, "if Orleans wasn't an awful wicked place," saying, "that it seemed to her most equal to going to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere among the heathen." It was known at the minister's, and at the doctor's, and at Miss Peabody's milliner shop, that Ophelia St. Clare was "talking about" going away down to Orleans with her cousin; and of course tho whole village could do no less than help this very important process of talking about the matter. |