"I tell the tale as it was told to me."
Stories enow of much the same cast will present themselves to the
recollection of such of my readers as have ever dabbled in a
species of lore to which I certainly gave more hours, at one
period of my life, than I should gain any credit by confessing.
AUGUST 1831.
*
AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR.
"There are times
When Fancy plays her gambols, in despite
Even of our watchful senses--when in sooth
Substance seems shadow, shadow substance seems--
When the broad, palpable, and mark'd partition
'Twixt that which is and is not seems dissolved,
As if the mental eye gain'd power to gaze
Beyond the limits of the existing world.
Such hours of shadowy dreams I better love
Than all the gross realities of life." ANONYMOUS.
My Aunt Margaret was one of that respected sisterhood upon whom
devolve all the trouble and solicitude incidental to the
possession of children, excepting only that which attends their
entrance into the world. We were a large family, of very
different dispositions and constitutions. Some were dull and
peevish--they were sent to Aunt Margaret to be amused; some were
rude, romping, and boisterous--they were sent to Aunt Margaret to
be kept quiet, or rather that their noise might be removed out of
hearing; those who were indisposed were sent with the prospect of
being nursed; those who were stubborn, with the hope of their
being subdued by the kindness of Aunt Margaret's discipline;--in
short, she had all the various duties of a mother, without the
credit and dignity of the maternal character.
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