The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-02-23
AUNT DEBORAH'S SHIP.
A Story of st. Valentines Eve.

UNCLE PETWOOD says Aunt Deborah
was a dreadful coquette, when young,
and wore the most bewitching coal
scuttle bonnets he ever beheld. That
was before my time, and | cannot con-
tradict him; but | can remember the
period when Aunt Deborah was not
bit old, was as pretty as fairy and as
gentle as fawn. She lived with us at
Sweetcross, then, and assisted my moth
CT in the housekeeping. My father used
to call her Deborah Doleful because she
was quiet and pale and sometimes sad;
but she never seemed bit doleful to
me, and | loved her as only very lit
tie boy in frocks and Open-work socks
can love kind and sympathetic nurse.
She filled life with nursery romance, and
if | dreamt of flowers and fruits and
fairies and golden sunshine it was be-
cause she had wooed me to sleep with
wondrously pretty stories or melodious
songs. | always recall Aunt Deborah
as the owner of a wonderful ship. |
can never forget that ship, because |
had a larger interest in its cargo than
all the underwriters at Lloyd's. When
ever / felt disposition to cry for any
thing, that ship had the very article on
board-that is, Aunt Deborah said so.
"Wait till my ship comes home" she
would tell me, land then my dear boy
shall have it" l can see that vessel
now as saw it then in my very little
minds eye. What stately galleon
she was! A golden ship on sunlit sea,
laden with sweets and spices and magic
toys from the far-off Land of Wonder.
Cleopatra's galley was a coal barge to
that fairy craft, and the ship in our old
clock that went up and down on three
green waves, and never got any farther,
was no more like it, aunt said, than
SIENNA was like barley-sugar. Aunt
Deborah's eyes would brighten as she
pictured it and went through the appar-
emily endless list of its treasures; but
it was very long while coming. l
said so once, and she sighed and gave
me a little lecture on patience. She
told me story of Princess-one of
those delightful Princesses that lived in
the year one-upon-a-time-who had
longed and longed for her ship to come,
through many years, till she had learned
the lesson of patience at last and found
in the lesson holy Joy.
That Princess, said Aunt Deborah,
was once hayward beauty who loved
herself better than anybody else in her
fathers dominions. She was surrounded
by everything that was rich and beau
tiful, from the palace of pearls and ru-
bies in which she lived to the natural
loneliness of land all flowers and
fruits and golden corn but she took
little heed of the beauty of the world
She loved of all things to gaze into
mirror of crystal, where she saw re-
Elected her pretty face with its sunny
F,mile and wealth of curling locks. Her
fshher's minstrels twanged their lutes
TO most seductive measures, and gilded
couriers moved about her breathing
honeyed words of fattery; but she
needed them not, and gazed in the mir
ror from morning till night, content to
center all her love on that dainty face.
Oh! said Aunt Deborah, what multitude
of people are content to live their lives in
shat little range of delusiye glass, till it
(1r4ps from the weakened hand and lies
q mass of brilliant fragments to LAGER
late the feet of the wanderer on his
weary pilgrimage into the shadow and
the darkness!
There came, one day, continued Aunt
deborah, to this Princess Il Prince of
manlyform and noble heart, who wooed
her in tire tender poetry of an honest
Love; buttshe took not her eyes from