UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENTS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1177, 13 May 1884, Page 3

UNPLEASANT PREDICAMENTS.

All of us can bring forward a catalogue of unpleasant predicaments, or as our Yankee inends would call them, the «fixes,' into which we have fallen during our passage through this troublesome world. Leaving out altogether any crushing calamities, the little awkwardnesses of daily social life often face ua with disagreeable importunity. We are driven into a corner ; it is of no use to shirk the difficulty : it must be met, and met at once. For instance, we are invited to oome social gathering in some friend s house, the letter is lost or put aside, we get confused about the date, and we think the date is Tuesday. Tuesday comes. Arrayed in our best garments, our faces wreathed with smiles, we arrive at what "we imagine to be the scene of festivity. Our host and hostess are in deshabile, no other guests appear, and the fact becomes more and more painfully evident that we hare mistaken the day. In point of fact, we were invited for Thursday. There is no help for it now; we must only make the best of an awkward situation, and try to be as agreeable as if nothinc were the matter. But there are few things more difficult than to be agreeable and cheerful under such very depressing circumstances as these. We may talk about the Egyptian war, but all the time we know, and our friends know, that we are inwardly reproaching our own carelessness, and saying, sotto voce, 'What fools we have made of ourselves.' Another unpleasant predicament is finding our seat in church preoccupied. We hurry in late, and make the unpleasant discovery that some one else has taken our accustomed corner. Being of a bashful temperament, we do not like to expel the intruder in the face of the congregation, and so there we remain, iostled in the crowded aisle, till at length we are shown into a dark corner, perhaps under a gallery, from whence we can neithar hear nor see. Another frequent cause of annoyancee is addressing a letter to the wrong person. Romances in three volumes might be based on this foundation. Conspiracies might be found out, and friendships napped, merely from the accidental substitution of one name and address for another. A young scapegrace lately received a haidsome present of money from a certain wealthy great-aunt. He immediately wrote off an acknowledgment of the present, and at the same time a piteous letter to his father, complaining of his scarcity of funds, and entreating a speedy remittance. The lettsr of thanks went to the father, and the letter of entreaty to the aunt. The result may be better imagined than described. There can hardly be a more unfortunate predicament- than for a bride to arrive on a visit to her husband's relations and to find that the trunks containing all her wedding finery have been left behind, and that some days must elapse before they can be recovered. Yet such a case has occurred, and the sufferer has had much to endure in consequence, for a bride without suitable change of raiment seems like a bird stripped of its plumage. Predicaments are something like toothache ; when they are over, they do not seem at all so dreadful as they did, and we can afford to laugh at them. The pressure once removed, we wonder why we felt it so much. Yot at the same time, the throbs which our predicaments give us are very keen while they last, and create many sharp pin-pricks, which wa would hardly care to have repealed.— Queen. _____________