Chapter 4 - Page 2

do you think of his being engaged to Miss Garland? The
two ladies had given no hint of it all winter, but a fortnight ago, when
those big photographs of his statues arrived, they first pinned them up
on the wall, and then trotted out into the town, made a dozen calls, and
announced the news. Mrs. Hudson did, at least; Miss Garland, I suppose,
sat at home writing letters. To me, I confess, the thing was a perfect
surprise. I had not a suspicion that all the while he was coming so
regularly to make himself agreeable on my veranda, he was quietly
preferring his cousin to any one else. Not, indeed, that he was ever at
particular pains to make himself agreeable! I suppose he has picked up
a few graces in Rome. But he must not acquire too many: if he is too
polite when he comes back, Miss Garland will count him as one of the
lost. She will be a very good wife for a man of genius, and such a one
as they are often shrewd enough to take. She 'll darn his stockings and
keep his accounts, and sit at home and trim the lamp and keep up
the fire while he studies the Beautiful in pretty neighbors at
dinner-parties. The two ladies are evidently very happy, and, to do them
justice, very humbly grateful to you. Mrs. Hudson never speaks of you
without tears in her eyes, and I am sure she considers you a specially
patented agent of Providence. Verily, it 's a good thing for a woman to
be in love: Miss Garland has grown almost pretty. I met her the other
night at a tea-party; she had a white rose in her hair, and sang a
sentimental ballad in a fine contralto voice."

Miss Garland's letter was so much shorter that we may give it entire:--

My dear Sir,--Mrs. Hudson, as I suppose you know, has been for some time
unable to use her eyes. She requests me, therefore, to answer your favor
of the 22d of June. She thanks you extremely for writing, and wishes me
to say that she considers herself in every way under great obligations
to you. Your account of her son's progress and the high estimation in
which he is held has made her very happy, and she earnestly prays that
all may continue well with him. He sent us, a short time ago, several
large photographs of his two statues, taken from different points of
view. We know little about such things, but they seem to us wonderfully
beautiful. We sent them to Boston to be handsomely framed, and the man,
on returning them, wrote us that he had exhibited them for a week in
his store, and that they had attracted great attention. The frames are
magnificent, and the pictures now hang in a row on the parlor wall.
Our only quarrel with them is that they make the old papering and the
engravings look dreadfully shabby. Mr. Striker stood and looked at them
the other day full five minutes, and said,