MRS. Brick's Last Lodger.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 125, 21 July 1871, Page 6

MRS. Brick's Last Lodger.

Mes. Sophia Brick was a blonde, buxom widow, very fair, happily not very fat, and of a young forty ; she had been a belle, and was a beauty yet, in the present tense at least in her own eyes. Her almost Circassian loveliness revelled in all shades of blue; and she chiefly affected the azure and Eugenie tints of cerulean, so that she looked like a weighty angel that had broken through a very blue sky, with pieces of the firmament still adhering to her. The lovely Sophia was the daughter of a gardener, and even in the midst of a city her sweet, floral taste clung to her, and was conspicuous chiefly in the paper-flower line ; and in her chamber might be seen striking but not pre-Raphaelite copies of nature's stars in paper. While the young Sophia wandered amid the romantic flower beds of her sire's nursery garden, she had attracted the regards of a middle-aged hypochondriac tallow chindler, with an exhausted nervous system, but a replenished purse. She had also gained the affections of a young good-looking house painter, and to the latter did the maiden most incline. But not so her parents, for whom rich bile and wealthy ugliness had no terrors. So the natural (or unnatural) consequence was, that Sophia, who was very plastic in a golden mould, married the tallow chandler and gave a long farewell to the house painter, who immediately departed for Australia, registering a rash vow in Sophia's hearing, that he would not return till he was as rich as his bilious rival in the tallow trade.

Thus did John Potts depart and remain unheard of for more than twenty years. The tallow chandler died at last, after a vigorous search after health, for even hypochondriacs (tough though they be) die sometimes ; and left his widow alone with a fortune, a loveliness which was very congenial to her character, for, like Shylock, she "bettered the instruction" of her money-grubbing father and husband, and, not contented with the money lying in safe and barren security in a neighboring bank, she, like the Jew, wished them to breed, and so launched into numerous speculations, one of which was to let two of her apartments to single gentlemen, and at each arrival and departure of the Bohemian and wandering tribe (i.e., lodgers) she solemnly vowed—•'No; though I'd live to the age of Methusalem, and go to the workhouse, I'll never take no more lodgers; they are wenemous, low-lived wipers." But as two negatives make an affirmative, Mrs. Brick did harbor those reptiles, and stung the vipers more than they were able to sting her. She took dark and extreme views of the character of the nomadic race of modern times, and thought it an embodiment of human nature's worst traits ; while she regarded householders as the " salt of the earth " —an extreme view also. Her last lodger was a pale, reserved young man, of bashful manners and quiet habits; an architect, he said, devoted heart and soul to the planning of schools and churches. After a month's study of his character, Mrs. Brick was still suspicious.

"Mark my words," cried she, "that man has something he's afraid or ashamed on —mark my words, he's a cheat."

This was an old and unfulfilled prophecy of the charming widow's, which she had begun with the first lodger and harped on till now, with all the blind and persistent ardor of the true prophet; buf, like the millennium, the lodger "who didn't pay " tarried long. Mrs. Brick's other speculation was a small furnishing shop in an obscure street a shop which she had taken for its cheap-

ness; for the lovely matron's sapphire orb& were constantly looking out for that deceptive thing, a bargain as delusive, indeed, as a long search for a " short cut." Now, a sequestered spot is very picturesque and romantic, but not at all adapted for trade ; and the word has a dreadful likeness to sequestrated, which is ominous in connection with a shop. This stagnate mart of commerce was kept by a fair, slight, pretty girl called Matilda Wood, who would have been a distant cousin of Mrs. Brick in Scotland (where one drop of blood makes a whole Clan kin), but no relation whatever in any other nation. She was left an orphan, without much health or any money, a year before our story opens ; and as the shop and the girl turned up at the same time, the one seemed as good a speculation as the other, and fitted into each other conveniently. So she made the girl an ill-fed, ill-lodged, and unpaid servant, without the liberty to change her service ; the occupant of a little back closet near the kitchen ; a dreary half-way house between servantgalism and ladyhood ; a dismal swamp of epicene existence, wherein one was not entitled to wages or affection. Such was Matilda at home ; and in the shop her life was as sad, for no customer ever darkened the door. Like another Tantalus stream the people flowed past the forlorn little shop, but she could grasp none of them. Like the wistful and weary watcher on a lighthouse that no ship ever came near—like the lost exile in a desert pining for the caravan to break his burning solitude —so sat poor Matilda day after day in the deserted shop, and still she never lost hope, although even hope itself in this desperate case was a kind of despair ; for a shop is as inexhaustible a source of hope as gambling. A person with a shop never despairs of getting a customer at some time, and it is only when bankruptcy itself stalks in that the pleasures of hope can truly be said to be at an end. Had Matilda been placed in a general shop, perhaps her trade had been better, for in that case her pretty, wistful face would have attracted some male customers ; but this was strictly a ladies' shop, full of all manner of women's work, and it is seldom that woman's beauty has a softening attraction for her own sex. So she sat out her cheerless vigil, and beheld with saddened eyes the bright embroideries of tea cosies, the gorgeous stripes of Berlin wool blankets, and the delicate crochet antimacassers lie dim, yellow, stained, and unbought, day after day. After the shop was closed, Matilda would return home disconsolate to meet the reproachful, nightly question of Mrs. Brick —

"Well, have you sold anything today?"

" No, not a thing," was the sad and invariable answer. Then Mrs. Brick would bend her white brows, and make her blue eyes anything but heavenly, at least in expression.

"I do believe you dawdle about, and don't mind the business a bit, Matilda Wood," cried the widow very fiercely one night; "it aint your shop, and you don't care ; and after me a-raising you from dirt into a shop, too !"

Mrs. Brick spoke as if this was a jumpfrom purgatory to paradise, for she had no personal experience of the horrid solitude of a deserted shop. But then this matron's language was always more inclined to vigor than reason or grammar. Poor Matilda had a high spirit; so that her eyes flashed brightly at this attack. " Can you think me so unprincipled and base ?" cried she, with raised voice. " I do my duty, Mrs. Brick, but no person comes to buy at the shop; not one." Just at this moment the footsteps of Mr. Jones, the lodger, passed the chamber door, and Mrs. Brick frowned.

"Why do you scream so loud, you

hussy?" exclaimed she, sharply; "the gentleman has heard you."

One day, while the poor little shopkeeping Maritana sat in the " lonely Grange '' of a furnishing shop, she beheld a young gentleman staring intently at her neglected wares in the window. He was a pale, gentle, benevolent-looking person, with beaming eyes, and a general expression of enthusiasm over his countenance. Now, what enthusiasm could the poor fading Berlin wool work and fly-stained antimacassars inspire, at least in the male breast ?

" I hope he is goin fc - to give a present to a sister or sweetheart," thought Matilda. " There, he has caught me looking at him." At last he entered the shop ind pointed to the chief glory of the window, a large, brilliant Berlin wool sofa blanket, rejoicing in stripes of every primary color, like a straight rainbow.

" I'll have tkat thing, please," said he. It was evident he did not know its name. Matilda's breath went quite away at this ambitious demand. This was a gigantic stroke of business at last; she was almost afraid to name the price, as other noncustomers seemed to think the charge exorbitant.

"Is that all it costs ?" cried this prince of customers. " Why, its a bargain ; it is gorgeous—lovely ;" And he gazed in her surprised and delighted face rather long and fixedly. So the bargain was struck, and a conversation ensued wherein the gentleman was so friendly and kind that Matilda was emboldened to tell him the depressed state of trade, and to beg that he would recommend his lady friends to the shop, which he readily promised to do.

" But I have few or no lady friends," answered he. Yet, despite this confession, the first customer returned day after day for purchases, as if he had troops of dear female friends, to whom he was always making appropriate gifts. (To be concluded in our next.)