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shouted till doomsday, had not a passenger seen me and stopped the deaf old sinner. Out of breath, wet to the skin, covered with mud from head to foot, and not in the best humor from the loss of my breakfast, I mounted into the coach ; but the instant I placed my foot inside the vehicle all my sulkiness vanished, for there sat-the only passenger beside myself-one of the loveliest angels that ever blessed an old ricketty coach, or warmed the soul of a sour, breakfastless bachelor with her presence.

Did you ever fall in love ? Of course. And the lady was the loveliest of her sex ? To be sure. Then this stage-coach beauty was twice as handsome as your sweetheart ; and if, after this, you don't think my fellow passenger a cherub, then I give up all hope of making you appreciate her. Such eyes, such teeth, and then such lips !—egad, it almost makes me crazy to think of them. I put myself down for the luckiest dog in the world. She was dressed in a plain straw cottage bonnet with a green veil-" just such a costume," said I, 66 as a real lady wears when travelling"--and then she gave me such a sweet but half roguish smile as I tumbled into the coach in the plight I have described, that I knew her at once to be a paragon in the way of education, taste, fortune, and all that ; and I resolved- what knowing one wouldn't ? —to make the agreeable off hand, for there's nothing like meeting an heiress in a stagecoach, where she thinks she's unknown, and dreams that every attention paid to her springs from pure love -ahem !--on your part.

I was in clover. What cared I for the rain. Splash -splash- splash, aye ! rain away there like blazeswho cares ? One doesn't get tête-a-tête with a pretty girl every day of the week- so I determined to make the most of it. The storm without might rair and rustle Tom didna mind the storm a whistle."

And, faith, what with a few sly compliments, and my extraordinary good looks, I soon got as cozy with my unknown beauty, and she with me, as if we had been acquainted since the days of Noah. We talked of the wedding, for she too had been there-of the sceneryof the rain--and of whatever came uppermost ; and there was such a charming frankness in all she said that I really thought her the most winning little witch I had ever seen, and I verily believe if the floor had been softer or I had known the accurate number of houses to which I would be tenant in curtesy, I should have gone down on my knees to her at once. I hate shewing one's learning off in public, so I avoided any thing like literature, though I saw by the intelligent eyes of my charmer that she had a soul alive to all the finer sensibilities of nature. At length we got on the subject of house-keeping. Now, if there's any thing I hate it's

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a woman that can't keep house, and I trembled at every word lest my angel should confess her ignorance of these matters. Shade of Apicus ! how my heart leaped when she told me that hardly a day passed in which she didn't make bread, or pies, or sponge-cake, or some other of those shim-shaws that delight the heart of man ; and when, in expatiating on such delicacies, she rose to a pitch of eloquence that I never heard surpassed, I couldn't resist my feelings, but snatched her hand to my lips and kissed it. Yes ! I felt that she was destined to be mine ; for if there's any thing a wife ought to know it's this. I come of a race of eaters. My grandfather has lunched on half a dozen rabbits, and died at last of a surfeit produced by eating two young pigs. My father can break his fast on a brace of capons, or devour a pair of turkeys without having to pick his teeth ; and the way a brother of mine can tuck in the hundreds of pickled oysters and dishes of chicken salad, does credit to the family. My own exploits in this line modesty forbids me to mention. No wonder I loved this rosy little beauty who could get up such a choice fry, and bake such delicious cakes. Ah ! what a life of domestic happiness rose before my vision, when I pictured myself returning home from court at night, to meet a beefsteak ready boiled, or a bowl of the richest turtle soup, served up by the fair hand of the angel at my side. I resolved, if there was virtue in a pair of whiskers, in an eloquent tongue, or in my new blue coat, to win this seraph of pie-bakers. There's no place like a stage-coach for making love. It comes natural ! You do it, egad, in a sort of easy, dont-care-for-any-thing style, that you can't, for the life of you, assume in any other place. What betwixt sitting on the same seat to talk more conveniently, and putting your arm around her waist to keep her from jolting off, you soon get to be wonderfully cozy, and-ten to one--if you don't catch yourself squeezing her hand, or varying the entertainments in some other way, before you're aware of it. For my part, as I have said, I was ready to surrender at discretion, and I already fancied myself lightening the dear creature beside me of the troublesome duty of collecting the rents of her various fine houses. I was charmed to think of the progress I had made in her affections. What a delicately rosy cheek it was that I just then slyly kissed, she blushing the deeper at my warmth ! And then her saucy, pouting lips ; and her figure, just the very size for a man who hated your thin, weasel-shaped young misses as he hated epidemics. Ah ! what a wife she would make ! How I thanked my stars that I had hitherto set my face like a flint against every temptation to marry--for now my firmness was to be rewarded by this beauty and heiress dropping into my mouth. And then I preached to myself a mental homily on the shortsightedness of man, as I ventured to steal another kiss