Pawtucket Herald, And Independent Inquirer

'Have you heard the news?' said Aunt Polly as she wiped her spectacles, and laid them on 'Sir Charles Grandison.' 'Don't you think Betty Farnsworth is going to be married! old as she is, she is fool enough to marry a man that has not a cent in the world. It didn't use to be so when I was young. I might have been married a dozen times over, if I had seen fit to do as women do now-a-days--drop a courtesy, and say, 'Yessir and thank you too.' '

I smiled, for two reasons--in the first place, it was evident that Aunt Polly was in no good humor with foolish Betty Farnsworth; and in the next place Aunt Polly was as gaunt, ill-favored a woman as you'd see in a thousand; and I thought to myself how easily suited love must have been in those days when she had offers by the dozen. 'If the man had good habits it would be some excuse for the foolish creature,' continued Aunt Polly; ' but he never goes to meeting, and they say he settles up his accounts on a Sunday.'

I think it is a chance if some lover don't try his luck with you, before next Valentine's day,' said I. 'Valentine's day, indeed!' exclaimed the ancient maiden, smiting her stays with great vehemence, and keeping her toes moving like the damper of a piano, 'Valentine's day indeed! Do you take me for a girl in her teens?'

I certainly was in no danger of making mistake; for Aunt Polly's face looked as weather beaten as the coast of Cornwall. and yellow as the charter of the Plymouth company. ' Oh no, you are too wise and too dignified by half to pass for such a young flirt as I am,' said noisy Sally Merriam, as she came into the room out of breath with snow-balling a neighbor's son who was for ever in her shadow. Now Sally Merriam was a good, thoughtless, healthy looking creature, with teeth like a calf, breath like a heifer, and cheeks like a good warm-looking winter apple; but I did not like her. She was too noisy and boisterous for a woman and seemed to have a sort of natural genius for intrigue. An intimacy had for a long time been growing up between these two characters, to the no small surprise of those who knew the mischievous nature of the one, and the rigid demeanor of the other.

I attribute Sally's friendship to the hopes of a legacy! for Polly had, during nearly thirty years, vegetated in the same spot, in a close attendance upon a cross, rheumatic old woman who had died and left her a life-lease of the house and a legacy of five hundred dollars. Aunt Polly was alone in the world, and very likely soon to quit it; and Sally, being about to be married, no doubt thought the five hundred would prove very convenient. ' She is the kindest creature!' Aunt Polly would say--' She comes and reads to me in the long evening, and waits upon me when I am sick, I should be a poor lonesome body without her,' and then Polly would sigh and grasp her handkerchief convulsively. It was an odd friendship--but the heart must have something to love--and Aunt Polly had neither cat, dog, nor parrot.

My occasional visits to the lone woman grew less and less frequent; for her house soon became infested with Sally's father, a poor, vicious imbecile, odious knave. Once when I passed the open window during the bright evenings of June, I saw Aunt Polly's wicker-backed chairs in unusually close companionship, a nearer observation convinced me that old Merriam, sat beside her, with her long bird-like fingers clasped in his--'twas a picture for Hogarth; though somewhat too disgusting even for his coarse pencil.

I had always made it a rule not to interfere with Cupid's joint stock companies; but now I felt it a duty to warn the simple honest creature against the deception, which Sally and her lover were evidently practising upon her for the sake of getting rid of a troublesome parent. I went for this purpose and found Mr. Merriam there,--evidently much intoxicated.--When he had gone, I remonstrated earnestly with Aunt Polly; and asked her if she had not just seen, before her own eyes, a proof of the man's bad habits.

'Oh, dear!' said Aunt Polly, ' you are entirely mistaken about that--it is all owing to a sort of fits he is troubled with, Sally says he has had them ever since she can remember.'

'Umph!' said I; 'I have no doubt of that. But is it possible, Aunt Polly, that you are going to be a greater fool than Betty Farnsworth?'--Aunt Polly covered her face with her handkerchief, and sobbed out, ' Mr. Merriam is such a good hearted man -and he is so fond of me--and then it is--it is--my first love! and it is hard for any body to conquer you know !'

I turned away in pity.--A week after Aunt Polly was married, and travelled off with Mr. Merriam, to spend her five hundred dollars in Ohio. 'Well,' said I, 'I would have as soon thought of a bed of oysters taking the fever of emigration and marching off to people the shores of the Pacific; but after all, it must be confessed there is a great deal of human nature in woman.'