Something Romantic 



emerged, but of which seat of learning he seemed to have 

 preserved very limited and equivocal recollections) turned 

 out to be no young gentleman at all, and, by vi^ay of explana- 

 tion, was, to his great confusion, introduced to us as Lady 

 Jane A . 



" The fact is," said A , "Johnny, like most other new- 

 married young ladies, had a strong desire to travel, and do 

 something strictly romantic. I, who had observed, in the 

 course of my European experience, the misery and bother 

 of trailing about a cumbersome train of serving-men and 

 women, immediately laid it down as an irrefragable axiom 

 that nothing romantic could possibly be done with a courier 

 and lady's-maid. 



"I thought this would be final, and that we should have 

 gone down home and improved the place, which has been 

 a good deal neglected during my long minority. I laid out 

 a pretty little programme, in which I was to figure as the 

 gay backwoodsman, and Johnny was to come, stealing like 

 a sunbeam in among the crowded boles, to surprise me with 

 a nice little napkin-basket of sandwiches and grapes ; and 

 sit on mossy mounds, singing ' Woodman, spare that tree,' 

 while I thinned the timber ; which, I am sorry to say, is 

 sadly choked up. 



"But Johnny (who is getting a little wiser now from sad 

 experience, poor young man !) at that time infinitely pre- 

 ferred romance to reality. She observed, with some show 

 of plausibility, that she could do without her maid very well 

 (now that her bonny brown hair had been cut short in that 

 cruel scarlet fever) ; that is, if I could fasten her dress. Now, 

 if there is a strong point in my character, it is an inherent 

 aptitude for fastening hooks and eyes, especially in a small 

 cabin, where there is no room for one's elbows, and in a 

 rough sea. I, therefore, had my little shrimp of a yacht 



147 K 



