Walter Burton’s demeanor toward his young wife might, for all men, serve as a model of devoted, thoughtful deportment on the part of husbands. To amuse and entertain her seemed his all-absorbing idea and object. To exercise his brilliant mental gifts in gay and enlivening conversation was his chief pleasure. To use all the great musical talent that he possessed, to drive any momentary shadow of sadness from her spirit. To stroll about the garden in the moonlight, again whispering those words of love by which he had first won her, was blissful occupation to him.
Even good old Uncle John in far-off Haiti imbibed the spirit that seemed all pervading in the realm about the young matron. Great hampers of tropical fruits, plants and flowers came by trebly-paid expressage from the West Indies, speed alone being considered. They must be fresh when offered to Lucy. Then, too, almost daily messages came over the cable from Haiti, “How are all today,” signed “John,” and it was ordered at the office that each day should go a message to Port au Prince, unless especially forbidden, saying, “All is well,” this to be signed “James.”
Mrs. Church, the most sedate, composed and stately of old gentlewomen, too, is in a flutter of suppressed excitement, frequently closeted in deep and mysterious consultations with medical men and motherly looking women; giving strange orders about the preparation of certain dishes for the table, driving the chef almost distracted by forbidding sauces that should always accompany some favorite entree of that tyrant.
A suite of rooms in the Dunlap mansion has been newly decorated; nothing like these decorations has ever been seen before in Boston. In elegance, taste and beauty they are the _ne plus ultra_ of decorative art. One, while in the sacred precincts of the recently remodeled apartments, might readily imagine that spring had been captured and fettered here to make its sweet, bright presence perpetual in this favored place. Colors of the tinted sunbeam mingled with the peach blossom’s tender shade to make the spot a bower of beauty wherein a smiling cupid might pause and fold his wings to slumber, forgetful of his couch of pink pearl shell.
The cultured, artistic, delicate taste of Boston’s _arbiter elegantiarum_ never produced anything approaching the exquisite blending of colors and unique, airy, harmonious fittings seen in this, the ideal conception of the abode of angels.