The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled to think how much
has happened since these events I was describing. Those two young
people would insist on having their own way about their own affairs,
notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the Model, insisted
that the age of twenty-five years was as early as any discreet young
lady should think of incurring the responsibilities, etc., etc. Long
before Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young Maryland
engineer, directing some of the vast constructions of his native
State,--where he was growing rich fast enough to be able to decline
that famous Russian offer which would have made him a kind of nabob in
a few years. Iris does not write verse often, nowadays, but she
sometimes draws. The last sketch of hers I have seen in my Southern
visits was of two children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a
silver goblet, like the one she held that evening when I--I was so
struck with her statue-like beauty. If in the later summer months you
find the grass marked with footsteps around that grave on Copp's Hill I
told you of, and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that Iris
is here on her annual visit to the home of her childhood and that
excellent lady whose only fault was, that Nature had written out her
list of virtues on ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out the lines.
One more thing I must mention. Being on the Common, last Sunday, I was
attracted by the cheerful spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat
youthful papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing a
stout baby. A buxom young lady watched them from one of the stone
seats, with an interest which could be nothing less than maternal. I at
once recognized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called John. He
was delighted to see me, introduced me to "Madam," and would have the
lusty infant out of the carriage, and hold him up for me to look at.
Now, then,--he said to the two-year-old,--show the gentleman how you
hit from the shoulder.--Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist
straight into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction.
Fust-rate little chap,--said the papa.--Chip of the old block. Regl'r
little Johnny, you know.
I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled in life, and
pushing about one of "them little articles" he seemed to want so much,
that I took my "punishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist with
great equanimity.--And how is the old boarding-house?--I asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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