Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1873-12-27
MRS. ARDORY.
CHRISTMAS SKETCH IN THREE
CHAPTERS.
BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
CHAPTER |.


Mrs. ARDORN ) SENSIllIlIlES.
That had to be the subject of the first
chapter. That was always the first
chapter with Mrs. Adory. She was Il
woman of acute sensibilitics. Every
thing shocked her. For my part, can
never laugh ut people who have scnsi-
bility without being sensible. They
must suffer great deal, both from
their sensibility and their lack of sense.
1t is double misfortune let us pity
them. But if sclishness and Incidence
hide their heads behind sensibility, let
us blame, even at the risk of being
shocking to sensibility.
I did not say that Mrs. Ardory was
selfish. Some readers are always in a
hurry to jump to conclusions about peo-
pie. To say that Mrs. Ardory was
selfish would be IL libel, slander, a
defamation of most tender-hearted
creature. Poor. dear Mrs. Ardory.was
Il bundle of sympathy, an unfailing
fountain of pity, fathomless ocean of
philanthropy. She wept and lamented
over the condition of the poor, the sick,
the bercaved, the widow and the father
less. When her children came in of a
morning, shouting with delight because
the white snow was eagerly piling itself
up higher and higher and yet higher on
the garden fence, and fairly smothering
the dark green ccdars with massive and
matchless whitcness, poor Mrs. Ardory
claspcd her pale hands in distress, and
sighed, "What a day for people out of
coal y I'm sure you couldn't say she
wss not benevolent. She never failed
to burden everybody about her with her
sympathy for the poor. She wonldn t
suffer people who had comforts to enjoy
them so long as there were people who
hadn't them. She seemed to be saying
perpetually: "Let us all be unhappy
together"
Mrs. Ardory's sensibihties were phil
anthropic. Her husbands father had
the good fortune to be a simple hearted
old truckman, and though Mrs. Ardory's
husband was quite wealthy, Mrs Ardory
found it great thorn in her side that
Ardory the elder wouldn't give up his
low calling and be a gentlemanly de-
pendent of his son. 1t would seem so
much better. 1t was all an eccentricity
so she told her friends-the persist
ence of the old man in the ignoble bust
ness of earning an honest livelihood
when his son was ready to take care OF
his parents-that is, though she did not
= say it, to give them grudged pittance
to keep them i'll state of genteel good
for-nothingness. And, at last, when hel
mother-in-law, a woman of sturdy will
of her own, died, Mrs. Ardory attacked
the old man, who was of an easy temper
and besought and besieged him, for the
sake of her delicate and refined sensi
bilities, which were SO shocked by his
course, to yield to her entreaties, sci
his old truck, put faithful old Bob NJ
ut auction and come and live with them
1t made people ask SO many questions
you know, about the why and the
wherefore, for the old man to live alone
Questions that reflected upon her char
acter for benevolence were dreadfu
shock to Mrs. Ardory's sensibilities
And so the old man, unwilling to quit,
cut down the bridge behind him, hiret
ont his horse and truck, put "To Let
Furnished, over the door of his shabh,
little house, and became Il sort of chore
boy in his sons family he rolled tn,
baby-carrlage and hoed in the garden
and was miscellaneous-utility MAJ
about the house. All for the sake o
Mrs. Ardory's sensibilities.
But Mrs. Ardorys sensibilitics wer,
more than shocked by his lack of polish
She did not like to have her father-in
law in the house when there was com
pany; he was sure to do somethin,
very shocking. SO the old man VIII,
had too much sense to mention hi
sensiblities, who had never used tn
word sensibility in his life, and VIII
really thought it meant some fearful