If it were not for our Delilah's humble position, I don't see why she would not be a good match for any young man. But then it is so hard to take a young woman from so very lowly a condition as that of a “waitress” that it would require a deal of courage to venture on such a step. If we could only find out that she is a princess in disguise, so to speak,--that is, a young person of presentable connections as well as pleasing looks and manners; that she has had an education of some kind, as we suspected when she blushed on hearing herself spoken of as a “gentille petite,” why, then everything would be all right, the young Doctor would have plain sailing,--that is, if he is in love with her, and if she fancies him,--and I should find my love-story,--the one I expected, but not between the parties I had thought would be mating with each other.
Dear little Delilah! Lily of the valley, growing in the shade now,--perhaps better there until her petals drop; and yet if she is all I often fancy she is, how her youthful presence would illuminate and sweeten a household! There is not one of us who does not feel interested in her,--not one of us who would not be delighted at some Cinderella transformation which would show her in the setting Nature meant for her favorite.
The fancy of Number Seven about the witches' broomsticks suggested to one of us the following poem:
THE BROOMSTICK TRAIN; OR, THE RETURN OF THE WITCHES.
Lookout! Look out, boys! Clear the track! The witches are here! They've all come back! They hanged them high,--No use! No use! What cares a witch for a hangman's noose? They buried them deep, but they would n't lie, still, For cats and witches are hard to kill; They swore they shouldn't and wouldn't die, Books said they did, but they lie! they lie!
--A couple of hundred years, or so, They had knocked about in the world below, When an Essex Deacon dropped in to call, And a homesick feeling seized them all; For he came from a place they knew full well, And many a tale he had to tell. They long to visit the haunts of men, To see the old dwellings they knew again, And ride on their broomsticks all around Their wide domain of unhallowed ground.
In Essex county there's many a roof Well known to him of the cloven hoof; The small square windows are full in view Which the midnight hags went sailing through, On their well-trained broomsticks mounted high, Seen like shadows against the sky; Crossing the track of owls and bats, Hugging before them their coal-black cats.