I am afraid it may be suggested that I am drawing Number Five's portrait too nearly after some model who is unconsciously sitting for it; but have n't I told you that you must not look for flesh and blood personalities behind or beneath my Teacups? I am not going to make these so lifelike that you will be saying, This is Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. So-and-So. My readers must remember that there are very many pretty, sweet, amiable girls and women sitting at their pianos, and finding chords to the music of their heart-strings. If I have pictured Number Five as one of her lambs might do it, I have succeeded in what I wanted to accomplish. Why don't I describe her person? If I do, some gossip or other will be sure to say, “Oh, he means her, of course,” and find a name to match the pronoun.
It is strange to see how we are all coming to depend upon the friendly aid of Number Five in our various perplexities. The Counsellor asked her opinion in one of those cases where a divorce was too probable, but a reconciliation was possible. It takes a woman to sound a woman's heart, and she found there was still love enough under the ruffled waters to warrant the hope of peace and tranquillity. The young Doctor went to her for counsel in the case of a hysteric girl possessed with the idea that she was a born poetess, and covering whole pages of foolscap with senseless outbursts, which she wrote in paroxysms of wild excitement, and read with a rapture of self-admiration which there was nothing in her verses to justify or account for. How sweetly Number Five dealt with that poor deluded sister in her talk with the Doctor! “Yes,” she said to him, “nothing can be fuller of vanity, self-worship, and self-deception. But we must be very gentle with her. I knew a young girl tormented with aspirations, and possessed by a belief that she was meant for a higher place than that which fate had assigned her, who needed wholesome advice, just as this poor young thing does. She did not ask for it, and it was not offered. Alas, alas! 'no man cared for her soul,'--no man nor woman either. She was in her early teens, and the thought of her earthly future, as it stretched out before her, was more than she could bear, and she sought the presence of her Maker to ask the meaning of her abortive existence.--We will talk it over. I will help you take care of this child.”