"Black, blue, and gray, with all their trumpery;"
and really the variety was so great that the office of selection seemed far from an easy one. The younger ladies were in high spirits, and proceeded to canvass the peculiar merit of each article with great energy. There certainly is something very attractive in unsunned fabrics, even though they appertain not to ourselves. I felt quite interested in the debate, and when the discussion became warm, on the comparative merits of French gray or French lavender, I could hardly forbear from offering a casting vote on the subject.
Meantime the person most interested in the decision sat by silent and abstracted, her eyes fixed on the face of the boy--her thoughts probably in the tomb of her husband. At length it became necessary to make a selection. The lady was appealed to. She seemed as though awaking from a dream, and, glancing at the shining heaps before her, said, "Too gay, much too gay." Her sister, in a low voice, appeared to expostulate with her, for the words "two whole years" were distinctly audible. The animated look of the little girl became subdued as she gazed on her mother's face. She pushed aside the brighter colors and drew some black silk over them, and was silent. Not so, however, her aunt! She had evidently resolved that the children at least should mourn no longer; with a tone of authority she desired the lavender silk to be cut off, and with a look of mingled pity and contempt heard her sister order another "Paramatta." Too indignant to interfere further, she contented herself with adding "and crape, I suppose." The lady did not reply--the shopman, probably inferring her wishes from her silence, produced the anathematized material, a liberal quantity was cut off, and the party slowly retired.
A merry-eyed, dandyfied-looking young sailor, with a complexion much bronzed beneath a fervid sun, was the next member of the _dramatis personæ_. He desired to see some silk pocket-handkerchiefs; India silk--no other would do. A variety was placed before him, together with some of British manufacture, greatly superior to the veritable Bandanas! It might be so--they were more beautiful, certainly; but India handkerchiefs he must have--ay, and with the true peculiar spicy smell; that odor only to be acquired by a four months' voyage in company with cinnamon and sandal-wood. After a little delay, even this desideratum was achieved. A dozen were cut off, each folded in a separate paper, and each and every one directed by his own hand! During this ceremony, a very contagious smile irradiated his features, which, gathering strength with every name he wrote, finally exploded into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Grave people turned round to stare and frown; and the youth, rather abashed by the sound of his own laugh, murmured something in an apologetic tone, and, hastily paying for his purchase, quitted the shop. There was something odd in all this. At length the truth flashed on my mind. The youth had just returned from India, and was gifted with a goodly train of unreasonable cousins, all of whom "had expected some trifle from the Land of the East." Poor fellow!--as though a hundred a year were a greater fortune in Hindoostan than in England, or self-denial a whit easier of practice on the banks of the Ganges than the banks of the Thames. At length, his means admitting of a partial satisfaction of his expectants, he had taken the only means in his power to amend his short-comings. Poor fellow!--may his pious fraud meet with a rich harvest of gratitude; and, above all, may he have wit enough to keep his own counsel!