Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

“ Guided by a master hand we watch with bated breath the unfolding of a story of unparalleled interest. Ever the unexpected happens, surprise follows surprise, plot is succeeded by counterplot. Vice and virtue, honor and knavery, true love and duplicity, struggle desperately and incessantly for mastery until the mind is bewildered and the heart and soul are stirred to their very depths.
Swept irresistibly along the seductive and entrancing streams of romantic fiction, never for one instant is the reader's interest allowed to flag. ”

“ The previous evening we—that is, the bride-elect, groom, bridesmaid, and groomsman, parents, and two or three friends—had a private rehearsal, one of the friends assuming the part of clergyman. All went merry as a marriage bell. I was the soul of ease and grace: Fred was the awkward one, stepping on the bride's train, dropping the ring, and so forth.
"I declare, Mr. Flutter, I never saw any one improve as you have," said Belle, aside to me, when we had returned to her house. "I do hope poor Fred will get along better to-morrow. I shall be really vexed at him if anything goes wrong." ”

“ Now, what I want to know is, why didn't they leave that caul where they found it? What business had they to meddle with the veil which beneficent nature gave me as a shield to my infirmity? Had they respected her intention, they would have let it alone—poked a hole in it for me to eat and breathe through, and left the veil which she kindly provided to hide my blushing face from the eyes of my fellow-creatures.
Nature knew beforehand that I was going to be born to be bashful. Therefore she gave me a caul. ”

“ If I had not caught my foot in the reins that time I got out of the buggy in front of her house—if I had not fallen in the water and had my clothes shrink in drying—nor choked almost to death—nor got under the counter—nor failed to "speak my piece"—nor sat down in that mud-puddle—nor committed suicide—nor run away from home—nor performed any other of the thousand-and-one absurd feats into which my constitutional embarrassment was everlastingly urging me, I declare boldly, "Belle might have been mine." ”

“ Never did I realized of what the human heart is capable until Belle came into the store, one lovely spring morning, looking like a seraph in a new spring bonnet, and blushingly—with a saucy flash of her dark eyes that made her rising color all the more divine—inquired for table-damask and 4-4 sheetings. ”

“ At all events, Buffalo Bill was very kind to me all the way out to the plains; he protected me as if I had been a timid young lady—took charge of my tickets, escorted me to and fro from the station eating-houses, almost cut up my food and eating it for me; and if a woman did but glance in my direction, he scowled ferociously. Under such patronage I got through without any accident.
It was the last day of our ride by rail. In the car which we helped to occupy there was not a single female, and I was happy. ”

“ I took Hetty to the hotel in father's fancy sleigh, in good style, and having got her safely to the door of the ladies' parlor without a blunder to mar my peace of mind, except that I stepped on her slippered foot in getting into the sleigh, and crushed it so, that Hetty could hardly dance for the pain, I began to feel an unusual degree of confidence in myself, which I fortified by a stern resolution, on no account to get to blushing and stammering, but to walk coolly up to the handsomest girls and ask them out on the floor [149] with all the self-possessed gallantry of a man of the world. ”

“ It's awful to be a bashful young man! Everybody takes advantage of you. You are the victim of practical jokes—folks laugh if you do nothing on earth but enter a room. If you happen to hit your foot against a stool, or trip over a rug, or call a lady "sir," the girls giggle and the boys nudge each other, as if it were extremely amusing. But to blow up a confiding Wall street [140] speculator, and to be swindled out of all your money by a pretty widow, is enough to make a sensitive man a raving lunatic. ”

“ Beauty may be only skin-deep; modesty, like mine, pervades the grain. If I really believed my bashfulness was only cuticle-deep, I'd be flayed to-day, and try and grow a hardier complexion without any Bloom of Youth in it. No use! I could pave a ten-thousand-acre prairie with the "good intentions" I have wasted, the firm resolutions I have broken. Born to be bashful is only another way of expressing the Bible truth, "Born to trouble as the sparks are to fly upward." ”

“ Consoling myself with the idea that this early adventure was an accident and not a blunder, I hastily dressed, and rejoined my new friend, with rod and line, and a box of flies.
We had a delightful morning. Knickerbocker was affable. Alone in the solitudes of nature with one of my own sex, I was tolerably at home, and flattered myself that I appeared to considerable advantage, especially as I really was a skillful angler, and landed two trout to my friend's landing one. ”

“ Even the child seemed astonished, ceasing to cry, and staring around upon the passengers as if in wonder and amazement at our predicament. Yet not one of those heartless travelers seemed to pity me; every mouth was stretched in a broad grin; not a woman came forward and offered to relieve me of my burden; and thus, in the midst of my embarrass [146] ment and horror, the train rolled up to the well-known station, and I saw my father and mother, and half the boys and girls of the village, crowding the platform and waiting to welcome my arrival. ”

“ With breathless interest we witness the struggle for an ancestral home, which finally passes into the possession of the scion of a noble house, the rightful heir, Sir Herrick Powis, thanks to the sacrifices of the heroine, than whom no more entrancing and beautiful character exists in the whole range of modern fiction. The ending of the story is, of course, a happy one, but this is not achieved until the trusting heart of the heroine has been sorely wounded, and she has passed through trials and tribulations, which win for her the love and sympathy of the spell-bound reader. ”

“ I waltzed and waltzed and waltzed with Blue-Eyes, and every time I turned I stepped on her toes with my heavy boots, until they must have been jelly in her little satin slippers, and finally we fell down-stairs, and I went out of that fevered dream only to find myself again giving blazing kerosene to an estimable old gentleman, who swallowed it unsuspiciously, and then sat down on a powder keg, and we all blew up—up—up—and came down—down—bump! I never want to have brain fever again—at least, not until I have conquered myself. ”

“ The first time I remarked, "We are going to have a warm day"; the second, "I think the day will be quite warm"; the third time I launched out boldly: "Don't you think, Miss Marigold, we shall have it rather warm about noon?"
"You seem to feel the heat more than I do," she answered, demurely, which was true, for she looked as cool as a cucumber and as comfortable as a mouse in a cheese, while I was mopping my face every other minute with my handkerchief.
When we reached the picnic grounds she offered to hold the reins while I got out. ”

“ In this matchless volume of irresistible, rib-tickling fun, the Bad Boy, an incarnate but lovable imp of mischief, records his daily exploits, experiences, pranks and adventures, through all of which you follow him with an absorbing interest that never flags, stopping only when convulsions of laughter and aching sides force the mirth-swept body to take an involuntary respite from a feast of fun, stupendous and overwhelming. ”

“ I never did like a turn-up nose in a man. But his father's pretty well off. It would be nice to marry a whole store full of dry-goods and have a new dress every time you wanted one. I wonder where they have gone to! I believe I'll rap."
The last speaker seized the yard-stick and thumped on the counter directly over my head.
"Oh, girls! let's go behind, and see how they keep things. I wonder how many pieces of dress-silk there are left!"
"I guess I'll go behind the counter, and play clerk. If any one comes in, I'll go, as sure as the world! and wait on 'em. Won't it be fun? ”

“ CHAPTER VI. HE IS DOOMED FOR WORSE ACCIDENTS.
It may seem strange for you to hear of me again, after the conclusion of the last chapter of my blunders. But it was not I who made the last blunder—it was the druggist. Quite by mistake the imbecile who waited upon me put up four ounces of the aromatic syrup of rhubarb. I felt myself gradually sinking into the death-sleep after I had taken it; with the thought of Belle uppermost in my mind, I allowed myself to sink—"no more catastrophes after this last and grandest one—no more red faces—big mouth—tea-napkins—wonder—if she—will be—sorry!" ”

“ I purchased a four-ounce vial of laudanum, went to my room, and wrote a letter to my mother:
"Mother, I am tired of life. My nose is turn-up, my mouth is large; I pocket other people's saucers and napkins; I am always making blunders. This is my last blunder. I shall never blush again. Farewell. Let the inscription on my tombstone be—'Died of Bashfulness.' John." ”

“ A wife like that would be some comfort to a bashful man. Besides, she was rich! Had she not said it? I have seldom had a happier hour than that of our swift, exhilarating drive. The colored driver, gorgeous in his handsome livery, kept his eyes and ears to himself. I lolled back in [137] the luxurious carriage beside my charmer. I forgot the unhappy accident of the blasting-powder—all the mortifications and disappointments of my life. I reveled in bliss. For once, I had nothing to do but be courted. How often had I envied the girls their privilege of keeping quiet and being made love to. ”

“ Why should I not be as graceful, as easy? I would make a desperate effort to "assume a virtue if I had it not." I, too, sauntered elegantly, lifted my hat killingly, and approached my charmer just as if I didn't realize that I was turning all the colors of the chameleon.
"Miss Knickerbocker," I began, "will you deign to accept the champion trout of the season?" ”

“ Aunt rushed forward and gave me a shake.
"Another blunder, John," she said; "it's plain as the nose on a man's face that Providence never intended you to commit suicide."
And then Blue-Eyes, repressing her mirth, came forward, half shy and half coaxing, and said to me:
"How my sister and I would feel if you had killed yourself on our account! Come! do please show us the way to our boarding-house. Mamma will be so anxious about us."
Cunning witch! she knows, how to twist a man around her little finger.
"Come," she continued, "let me untie this ugly rope." ”

“ Still, she was pretty, with dark eyes that looked into yours in a wonderfully confiding way—melting, liquid, deep eyes, that even a man who is perfectly self-possessed can not see to the bottom of soon enough for his own good. ”

“ Babbletown began to be very lively as soon as the weather got cool, the fall after I came home. We had a singing-school once a week, a debating society that met every Wednesday evening, and then we had sociables, and just before Christmas a fair. All the other young men had a good time. Every day, when some of them dropped in the store for a chat and a handful of raisins, they would aggravate me by asking:
"Aren't we having a jolly winter of it, John?"
I never had a good time. I never enjoyed myself like other folks. ”

“ Did you ever see a bashful young man hold a strange baby? I expect I furnished—I and the baby—a comic opera, music and all, for the entertainment of the three girls, as they nibbled their cold chicken and pound-cake. ”

“ The course now open for me to pursue was to forever steel my heart to the charms of the other sex, to attend strictly to business, to grow rich and honored, while, at the same time, I hardened into a sort of granite obelisk, incapable of blushing, faltering, or stepping on other people's toes. ”