It seemed as though
regretful remembrances of former times clung to him. There was no more
the _music_ of "the sounding horn" to awaken him from his drowse,
and he passed much of his time under the woodshed. But he was not the
sleek and canny dog of yore. He grew thin and weak. Long locks of
indifferent colored brown hair grew out of his sides, and hung loosely
down. His gait was slow and feeble, and it was not pleasant to look at
him. Finally, one cold day, at least a year after the general
departure, he was missing, and I could find nothing of him. Inquiries
were in vain. It was in the following spring that his bones were found
where either he himself had dug a burrow, or the hand of charity had
laid him. Good Carlo!
Some very happy marriages sprang from the acquaintance at Brook Farm.
There, in a few weeks or months, a better knowledge could be formed, a
truer and more absolute and certain estimate of character, than by
years of fashionable flirtation. And here let me add, that the women
were always well dressed: there were no party dresses, all shine, lace
and glitter, and household wrappers all slouched, torn and drabbled.
The situation of woman was such as to stimulate her ever to neatness in
personal appearance, even if the material was but a "ninepenny" calico;
and the same may be said to a marked extent of the men.
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