, not Mrs., Grubb, she died, and was buried at sea, not
far from Cape Horn. Mrs. Cora enjoyed at first the dramatic
possibilities of her position on the ship, where the baby orphans
found more than one kindly, sentimental woman ready to care for them;
but there was no permanent place in her philosophy for a pair of
twins who entered existence with a concerted shriek, and continued it
for ever afterwards, as if their only purpose in life was to keep the
lungs well inflated. Her supreme wish was to be freed from the
carking cares of the flesh, and thus for ever ready to wing her free
spirit in the pure ether of speculation.
You would hardly suppose that the obscure spouse of Mrs. Grubb could
wash and dress the twins, prepare their breakfast, go to his work,
come home and put them to bed, four or five days out of every seven
in the week; but that is what he did, accepting it as one phase of
the mysterious human comedy (or was it tragedy?) in which he played
his humble part.
Mrs. Grubb was no home spirit, no goddess of the hearth. She graced
her family board when no invitation to refresh herself elsewhere had
been proffered, and that she generally slept in her own bed is as
strong a phrase as can be written on the subject. If she had been
born in Paris, at the proper time, she would have been the leader of
a salon; separated from that brilliant destiny by years, by race, and
by imperious circumstance, she wielded the same sort of sceptre in
her own circumscribed but appreciative sphere.
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