“Well, Mrs. Tolladay,” said the vicar, who had laughed his laugh out, and bethought himself of what was due to his profession, “let us hope that young Mr. Austin’s desires will all be good ones, and that so we may pray God to give them to him, without anything amiss coming of it.”
“That’s just what I say, sir,” said Mrs. Tolladay, “it’s for all the world like the toasts as used to be the fashion in my young days, when folks drank not to your health, as they do now, but to your wishes, if so be as they were vartuous. Many a time that’s been done to me, when I was a young girl; and I am sure,” she added with a curtsey, taking the glass of wine with which the vicar usually rewarded the amusement her gossip gave him, “as I may say that to you and not be afraid; I drink to your wishes, sir.”
“As long as they are virtuous,” said the vicar, laughing; and for a long time after he was very fond of retailing old Sarah’s difference of opinion with her Maker, which perhaps the gentle reader may have heard attributed to a much more important person.
Miss Susan gave the almshouse people a gorgeous supper in the evening, at which I am grieved to say old John Simmons had more beer than was good for him, and volunteered a song, to the great horror of the chaplain and the chaplain’s wife, and many spectators from the village who had come to see the poor old souls enjoying this unusual festivity. “Let him sing if he likes,” old Sarah cried, who was herself a little jovial. “It’s something for you to tell, you as comes a-finding fault and a-prying at poor old folks enjoying themselves once in a way.” “Let them stare,” said Mrs. Matthews, for once backing up her rival; “it’ll do ’em good to see that we ain’t wild beasts a-feeding, but poor folks as well off as rich folks, which ain’t common.” “No it ain’t, misses; you’re right there,” said the table by general consent; and after this the spectators slunk away. But I am obliged to admit that John Simmons was irrepressible, and groaned out a verse of song which ran into a deplorable chorus, in which several of the old men joined in the elation of their hearts--but by means of their wives and other authorities suffered for it next day.
Thus Herbert’s birthday passed without Herbert, who was up among the pines again, breathing in their odors and getting strong, as they all said, though not strong enough to come home. Herbert enjoyed this lazy and languid existence well enough, poor fellow; but Reine since that prick of fuller and warmer life came momentarily to her, had not enjoyed it. She had lost her pretty color, except at moments when she was excited, and her eyes had grown bigger, and had that wistful look in them which comes when a girl has begun to look out into the world from her little circle of individuality, and to wonder what real life is like, with longing to try its dangers. In a boy, this longing is the best thing that can be, inspiriting him to exertion; but in a girl, what shape can it take but a longing for some one who will open the door of living to her, and lead her out into the big world, of which girls too, like boys, form such exaggerated hopes? Reine was not thinking of any one in particular, she said to herself often; but her life had grown just a little weary to her, and felt small and limited and poor, and as if it must go on in the same monotony forever and ever. There came a nameless, restless sense upon her of looking for something that might happen at any moment, which is the greatest mental trouble young woman have to encounter, who are obliged to be passive, not active, in settling their own fate. I remember hearing a high-spirited and fanciful girl, who had been dreadfully sobered by her plunge into marriage, declare the chief advantage of that condition to be--that you had no longer any restlessness of expectation, but had come down to reality, and knew all that was ever to come of you, and at length could fathom at once the necessity and the philosophy of content. This is, perhaps, rather a dreary view to take of the subject; but, however, Reine was in the troublous state of expectation, which this young woman declared to be thus put an end to. She was as a young man often is, whose friends keep him back from active occupation, wondering whether this flat round was to go on forever, or whether next moment, round the next corner, there might not be something waiting which would change her whole life.