The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-10-12
CHAPTER w.

The past week has been one of counsel
and uncertainty. am always involved
at such times, but as a sower only never
as reaper. Everybody seems to think
that it is just as much my duty to pre-
scribe for perplexing circumstances as
for physical disorders. 1t is true they do
not think it necessary to accept my pre-
scriptions unless with some such formula
as "Well, that is the conclusion had ar
rived at myself" But they would not
believe their ears if I were to turn the
tables upon them and consult them as to
what had better do.
Mother bore down upon me the other
day in her line of battle ship manner.
She is indeed an impressive and redoubt-
able old lady. My earliest recollections
of her are as tall and slender person,
dressed generally in white. and with a
cool, polished, rather sarcastic manner.
She was not cool when she got angry,
however. How her cheeks would redden
and her eyes flash, and what sharp things
would issue from her sharp cut lips!
These outbursts used to frighten me
thoroughly, and yet often deliberately
me that my mother was a human being
after all. How imperious and impetuous
she was! John is her own son. But she
was less generous in imparting her brains
to her firstborn-he never had half her
mental resources. She used to read many
abstruse and improving books in the old
days, and she could talk politics or phi
losophy or religion with anybody, though
I doubt whether she was ever more reli-
gious than the proprieties of her position
required. AZ.
OF late years she has eschewed the
higher walks Of literature and has aban-
doned herself to novels, and even in her,
choice of these she has gradually spbsid-
ed from the classic lucubrations of Wal
ter Scott to such humble wayside flow
ers as are to be culled from the Seaside
libraries, varied occasionally with an
odd volume from the Partisan publica-
tions Of Calmann, Levy & Gle. For my
part, SO far from blaming her, I applaud
her good sense. An amusing novel is
like the best kind of gossip. Gossip is
proper to those whose days Of youth and
activity are over, and as we see scarcely
any company no other gossip than thai
of novels is accessible to the dowager
Lady Mainwaring.
Well, then, when mother approached
me with the manner which / have de-
scribed, knew at once that we were
about to discuss domestic matters, nor
was much at loss to divine what the
particular matter would probably be.
John and Sinfre had gone out for ride.
We were about to converse concerning
Sinfre and John. Mother seated herself
in the large Japanese armchair-the one
made of split cane or bamboo. She just
fills it comfortably. She is very much
broader than she used to be, and her once
delicate complexion has acquired sub
stantial and permanent ruddiness. 1t
sometimes seems as if mother had not so
much enlarged as actually become pos
sessed CT different body from that in
which she spent her youth. If it were
not unbecoming to speculate about the
skeleton of ones parent, l should be in
clined to think that her present osseous
framework had been designed for Brit
ish fishwife. Except for this physical
expansion, however, she remains at least
as aristocratic as ever.
Rembrandt, or perhaps Rubens, would
have made splendid portrait of her.
Her eyebrows are set high in her fore
head; the spaces Immediately above and
below the eye are full, showing fluent
command of words; her nose is mod
crate but unmistakable aquiline; her up
per lip is thinner than the lower, which
is nodded on resolute chin; her gray
hair is covered with black lace cap, the
wide strings of which fall down on
either side her cheeks; sher summer cos
tune is ordinarily of some substance
which will venture to call black grena.
dine, with lace embellishments and some
glimpses Of white ruching at the throat
and wrists; 1t makes no attempt to
mold itself closely on her form, and its
antiquities are imposing - well as pru'
dent. Poor mother must suffer greatly