Aunt Sophy

“ I am not the sort of girl you think me. However grand and stately and like a lady Aunt Sophia is—and compared to you and me, Nancy, she is very stately and very grand and very noble—I would not give you up. Aunt Sophy is a lady with a great brave heart, and her ideas are up-in-the-air ideas, and she doesn’t know anything about mean and low and vulgar things. I’d have clung to you, Nancy, and always owned you as my friend, even if Aunt Sophy had taken me into good society. Yes, I’d have stuck to you whatever happened; but now”—Pauline pressed her hand to her heart—“everything is altered. ”

“ Nice, great, good, noble people are clean. Aunt Sophy says so, and she knows. Since Aunt Sophy came we have been very happy, and the house has been clean and nice. And I love Aunt Sophy, and so does Briar. I am very sorry, father, but I think when we made your room sweet and pretty as it is now we pleased Plato and Virgil—that is, if they can see us. ”

“ Besides, he knows how fond I am of Aunt Sophy, and what great care I take of her. I have saved her from serious injury many a time, and that doesn't suit Percy at all. He wants the dear old lady to fall about, and hurt herself, and die of shock, so that he can get her money, which I hope will be a curse to him."
"I understand the position," said Nellie. "You really are going?" she added.
"I must go," replied George gloomily. "It is hard on both of us, but you must try to be brave, for we shall soon meet again. Aunt Sophy won't live long when she hasn't me to look after her." ”

“ In the spring our sketchings and excursions were frequently shared by our cousins, Maria and Mary Shaw-Lefevre, who came to Rome with their maternal aunt, Miss Wright, whom I then saw for the first time, but who afterwards became the dearest of my friends—a nominal "Aunt Sophy," far kinder and far more beloved than any real aunt I have ever known. ”

“ Now what is the matter, Penelope?”
“Please, please, Aunt Sophy,” said that young person, rushing up at the moment.
“Hold yourself erect, my dear; don’t run quite so fast. There! you have got a rent already in your new frock. Now what do you want?”
“May I be a schoolroom little girl in the future?”
“What are you now?”
“Nursey says I’m nursery. But I don’t want to be nursery; I want to stay always with my own good Aunty Sophy. That is what I want. May I be a schoolroom child?”
“In the first place, you are not to call me ‘aunty.’ I am Aunt Sophia to you. ”

“ Flora, on shopping bent, and Sophy, seeking hats, had made the five-hour run from Chippewa to Chicago together. "She talks to everybody. You should have heard her with the porter on our train. Chums! And when the conductor took our tickets it was a social occasion. You know how packed the seven-fifty-two is. Every seat in the parlor car taken. And Sophy asking the colored porter about how his wife was getting along—she called him William—and if they were going to send her West, and all about her. I wish she wouldn't."
Aunt Sophy undeniably had a habit of regarding people as human beings. ”

“ I have often thought that with such a lot of you grown-up girls, 89 and all of you so very rampagious and not a bit inclined to obey or do your lessons nicely, poor Aunt Sophy, what is really a dear old duck of a thing, wants some one like me to spy round corners and find out what goes on ahind her back. ”

“ I always know what I see. Don’t you think Uncle John was the one to do something about it, Rex? And he has not done anything. It could never be thought that it was a thing for me.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sophy,” said Rex, almost losing his oars in his vehemence; “soon it’ll have to be a thing for me. I can’t let things go on like this with all Aunt Sophy’s muddlings and Uncle John’s. The children will be driven out of their senses; and Rosalind is just a romantic— I am the head of the family, and I shall have to interfere.” ”

“ I almost wished her birthday was at hand so that I could [Pg 178] celebrate the day by making her a present of the place; then the idea of giving it to her on Aunt Sophy's wedding-day entered my mind, and this seemed such a capital plan that I decided to carry it out. Few men, I meditated, would have thought of such a graceful acknowledgment of Aunt Sophy's kindness, and I felt that Marion would be doubly pleased that I should think of adding to the joy of the eventful day. ”

“ I have wasted far too much time bothering about Aunt Sophy, Kezia, Bessie—"
"And me!!" cried Nellie. "Do let me come in somewhere."
"Not with them. You come in a class by yourself."
"The fourth," she murmured.
"As Aunt Sophy is so good and religious we cannot want her to live on, knowing how much happier she will be in the next world; and then I can settle down as the big man of Highfield—quite the biggest man in the place, and I hope the most respectable. Mr. and Mrs. George Drake, of Windward House, in the parish of Highfield and county of Devon, Esquire, as the lawyers say." ”

“ In these dreams she was always being pursued by a lover. "And then I woke up, screaming." Neither she nor the sewing girls knew what she was revealing in these confidences of hers. But Aunt Sophy, the shrewd, somehow sensed it.
"You're alone too much, evenings. That's what comes of living in a boarding house. ”

“ Called upon to describe Aunt Sophy you would have to coin a term or fall back on the dictionary definition of a spinster. "An unmarried woman," states that worthy work, baldly, "especially when no longer young." That, to the world, was Sophy Decker. Unmarried, certainly. And most certainly no longer young. In figure she was, at fifty, what is known in the corset ads as a "stylish stout." Well dressed in blue serge, with broad-toed health shoes and a small, astute hat. ”

“ Do all you could for her! A woman who has hordes of friends—charming, finished, cosmopolitan people of the world! Why, my dear girl, it’s she, let me tell you, who has given you more chances than you ever had in your life for meeting really interesting people! They’re not the sort you’d be likely to meet at your Aunt Sophy’s, certainly. They’d perish in her milieu!”
“Mrs. Dallas doesn’t perish in it,” Marian coldly commented. “On the contrary, I never saw her more alert. She didn’t seem to find Aunt Sophy in the least a bore. ”

“ I am heartily obliged to my dear Sophy—never mind, you need not turn to the direction, it is to Margaret, my dear, though it begins with thanks to Sophy—for being in such haste to relieve my mind from the agony it was in that Fashionable Tales should reach my aunt. I cannot by any form of words express how delighted I am that you are none of you angry with me, and that my uncle and aunt are pleased with what they have read of "The Absentee." ”

“ On the platform Aunt Sophy was talking earnestly to Jethro about farming affairs, and Nancy was staring at the enameled advertisement of a local seedsman.
“Come in here for a moment.”
She jerked her hand toward the open door. They went in. The window was of frosted glass.
“I can’t go with you,” she said, looking up hopelessly through her veil. “You see how it is! Aunt Sophy and Nancy are going up. Everything is against us. Perhaps it is as well. Good-by.”
He had never been so nearly disposed to sacrifice himself for a woman. ”

“ Being herself in the enthusiasm of a first love, she could not conceive such treachery possible as Sophy’s word seemed to imply. The girl had always been petted, and yet discontented with her situation; and had often made complaints which had no real foundation, and which in brighter moods she was likely to repudiate. And this night Andrew, instead of her Aunt Kilgour, was the object of her dissatisfaction—that would be all. To-morrow she would be complaining to Andrew of her aunt’s hard treatment of her, and Andrew would be whispering of future happiness in her ears. ”

“ But when any one gets—gets—why, gets her feelings enlisted you can't just count on her, you know. And with your Aunt Sophy ding-donging at you and flinging her sleek Count and her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head to resist her. ”

“ He succeeds so well in working upon her sympathies that even a knock at Aunt Sophy’s door is not enough to make her change her attitude. She now as obstinately refuses to 470 let him descend to certain death as previously he had refused to do it. The knocks are continued. Jane is rapidly losing her head when it suddenly occurs to her that if she stores Bobby away under the bed until Towser has departed or Aunt Sophy has gone to sleep, all may yet be well. ”

“ She turned passionately away with the words, and left the room. In fifteen minutes she went to the front door in her cloak and hood, and the carriage was waiting there. “You will drive me to my aunt Kilgour’s shop,” she said with an air of reckless pride and defiance. It pleased her at that hour to humble herself to her low estate. And it pleased Thomas also that she had done so. His sympathy was with the fisher girl. He was delighted that she had at last found courage to assert herself, for Sophy’s wrongs had been the staple talk of the kitchen-table and fireside. ”

“ Let me dedicate my whole life to your service; let me be again your poor Sophy, and my whole business and pleasure be, as it hath been, to please and divert you.” “Lookee, Sophy,” answered the squire, “I am not to be choused in this manner. Your aunt Western would then have reason to think me the fool she doth. No, no, Sophy, I'd have you to know I have a got more wisdom, and know more of the world, than to take the word of a woman in a matter where a man is concerned.” “How, sir, have I deserved this want of confidence?” ”

“ Hatty went on, “there is no fun in teasing Sophy, for she just laughs with you, and gives you as good as you bring; and Fanny melts into tears as if she were a lump of sugar, and Father wants to know why she has been crying, and my Aunt Kezia sends you to bed before dark—so teasing her comes too expensive. ”

“ No one could punish me just for having seen her pass.”
“I think you are a great philosopher, my dear,” he said.
At this, Sophy looked very keenly at him, and deriving no satisfaction from the expression of his face, again began to cry. “You are making fun of me, Uncle John,” she said. “You would not laugh like that if it had been Rosalind. You always laugh at us children whatever we may say.”
“I have no wish to laugh, Sophy, I assure you. If your aunt or some one wakes and finds you gone from your bed, how shall you explain it?” ”

“ I have read in an American novel somewhere, "It is no use to pack up any worries to take with you; you can always pick up plenty on the way;" and I have always found it true.
To MISS WRIGHT and JOURNAL.
"Nice, Nov. 17, 1867.—My dear Aunt Sophy will be delighted to see this date. So far all our troubles and anxieties are past, and the sweet Mother certainly not the worse, perhaps rather better for all her fatigues. It is an extraordinary case, to be one day lying in a sort of vision on the portals of another world, the next up and travelling. ”

“ Sophy obeyed unwillingly, she was far too much incensed to forget. On her aunt’s taking leave, and Mr. Kendal offering his escort up the hill, she rose up again, and would have perpetrated a denunciation by letter, had not Albinia seriously argued with her, and finding ridicule, expediency, and Christian forgiveness all fail of hitting the mark, said, ‘I don’t know with what face you could attack Louisa, when you helped her to persecute poor Genevieve because you thought she had an instrument of torture in her drawer.’
‘It was not I who said that,’ said Sophy, blushing. ”

“ As a general rule, the worst creature in the world is a saint in comparison. What did Sophy steal out at night for? Tell me that. Why did she walk to Pittendurie so often? Why did she tell me she was going to walk to her aunt’s, and then never go?”
“Mother, Mother, are you telling me the truth?”
“Your inquiry is an insult, Archie. And your blindness to Sophy’s real feelings is one of the most remarkable things I ever saw. Can you not look back and see that ever since she married you she has regretted and fretted about the step? Her heart is really with her fisher and sailor lover. ”

“ As he stood there, dumb and miserable, he heard another tap at his door—a feeble one this time.
'Why,' cried his aunt, 'that must be poor old Sophy at last—you may not remember old Sophy, Frankie; you were quite a baby when she came out to us; but she remembers you, and begged so hard to be allowed to come and see you. Don't keep her standing outside. Come in, Sophy; it's quite right; Master Frankie is here!'
And at this a very old person in a black bonnet came in, and was overcome by emotion at the first sight of Flushington. ”

“ You tell me things when we are out walking, and then I have to answer, but I won’t if you’ll only let me go.”
“I really think you ought to stay at home this afternoon, Sophy,” interposed Honor. “You know Aunt Sophia is coming, and she will be disappointed if her namesake isn’t here to receive her.”
“I wish I hadn’t been named after her,” remarked Sophy, with an aggrieved air. “It’s an awful bother. When you’re named for people you always have to do things you don’t want to. Now there’s Peter can go to the woods this afternoon. He couldn’t if he was named for Aunt Sophia.” ”

“ Sophy, too, had her own particular visitors, Mabel Pomeroy, Mrs. Gregory and Fuchsia—Fuchsia, almost daily. To her it seemed that Sophy’s confidences were frozen; she rarely mentioned her aunt, and gave evasive answers to her friend’s probing inquiries. At last the brave American spoke out:
“You are frightfully changed, my Sophy girl—changed in a month. You have become so dull and absent-minded, and have lost all your pretty colour. ”