Prue and I by Curtis, George William, 1824-1892

Then I look at those of us who are the spectators of the portraits. I know that we are made of the same flesh and blood, that time is preparing us to be placed in his cabinet and upon canvass, to be curiously studied by the grandchildren of unborn Prues. I put out my hands to grasp those of my fellows around the pictures. "Ah! friends, we live not only for ourselves. Those whom we shall never see, will look to us as models, as counsellors. We shall be speechless then. We shall only look at them from the canvass, and cheer or discourage them by their idea of our lives and ourselves. Let us so look in the portrait, that they shall love our memories--that they shall say, in turn, 'they were kind and thoughtful, those queer old ancestors of ours; let us not disgrace them.'"

If they only recognize us as men and women like themselves, they will be the better for it, and the family portraits will be family blessings.

This is what my grandmother did. She looked at her own portrait, at the portrait of her youth, with much the same feeling that I remember Prue as she was when I first saw her, with much the same feeling that I hope our grandchildren will remember us.

Upon those still summer mornings, though she stood withered and wan in a plain black silk gown, a close cap, and spectacles, and held her shrunken and blue-veined hand to shield her eyes, yet, as she gazed with that long and longing glance, upon the blooming beauty that had faded from her form forever, she recognized under that flowing hair and that rosy cheek--the immortal fashions of youth and health--and beneath those many ruffles and that quaint high waist, the fashions of the day--the same true and loving woman. If her face was pensive as she turned away, it was because truth and love are, in their essence, forever young; and it is the hard condition of nature that they cannot always appear so.

OUR COUSIN THE CURATE.

Prue and I have very few relations: Prue, especially, says that she never had any but her parents, and that she has none now but her children. She often wishes she had some large aunt in the country, who might come in unexpectedly with bags and bundles, and encamp in our little house for a whole winter.

"Because you are tired of me, I suppose, Mrs. Prue?" I reply with dignity, when she alludes to the imaginary large aunt.

"You could take aunt to the opera, you know, and walk with her on Sundays," says Prue, as she knits and calmly looks me in the face, without recognizing my observation.

Then I tell Prue in the plainest possible manner that, if her large aunt should come up from the country to pass the winter, I should insist upon her bringing her oldest daughter, with whom I would flirt so desperately that the street would be scandalized, and even the corner grocery should gossip over the iniquity.

"Poor Prue, how I should pity you," I say triumphantly to my wife.