"And they dare blame her! they whose every thought
Look, utterance, act, hath more of evil in 't
Than e'er she dreamed of or could understand,
And she must blush before them, with a heart
Whose lightest throb is worth their all of life!"
In a neat, but scantily furnished apartment of a small, white cottage
sat Louise Edson beside the low window which looked forth on a great
frowning building with grated bars and ponderous iron doors.
"Is this a prison across the yard, aunt?" she asked of a tall, solemn
woman, in a black head-dress, who had just entered the room, and stood
laying some fresh fuel on the fire.
"It is the county jail," replied she.
"How it makes me shudder to look at it!" said Louise, turning from the
window, and assuming a chair near her aunt, who was taking a quantity of
sewing from a work-basket.
"It reminds me of a lady who was my near neighbor in Wimbledon, and who
has been my sole companion for several months, to see you constantly
occupied with your needle," remarked Louise, looking on her aunt as she
assorted her cotton and arranged her work.
"What is the lady's name, of whom you speak?" inquired the woman.
"Mrs. Stanhope," answered Louise; "she is a kind soul. It pains me to
think I shall never see her again."
"Do you not intend to return to your late home?" inquired the aunt,
somewhat surprised at the words of her niece.
"Never!" returned Louise, with strong emphasis, "I could not endure it."
"Pshaw! you will get over this weakness in a little while," said her
aunt. "You have half-conquered it by coming away, and you will complete
the victory by returning."
"I tell you no," said Louise, somewhat angered by her aunt's
persistence. "I have already written to Mr. Richard Giblet, one of the
former firm of Edson & Co., to settle my affairs in Wimbledon, dispose
of my late residence, and remit the proceeds to me in drafts."
The aunt looked astonished at this piece of intelligence, and said, "You
have been rash and premature, my child, and I fear will regret your
hasty proceedings."
"If you knew how much it relieved me to get out of that place, aunt, you
would not fear I should ever wish to return. I was so near my enslaver
there, and my heart said all the time, 'O, I _must_ see him!' while
conscience whispered sternly, 'You _dare_ not do it.' There was a
constant war 'twixt love and reason, which threatened the extermination
of the latter."
"I am glad you have been ruled by your better judgment," said her aunt;
"passion always leads us astray when we listen to its voice."
"That is very true," answered Louise; "but O that I had known it only by
precept, and not by experience!"
"Experience is called the best teacher," remarked the aunt.
"It is the most bitter one," returned Louise. "How I wish you had been
with me through the few brief years of my married life! With your kind
care and admonitions I think I would never have strayed darkly into sin
and error."
"We all err sometimes in our lives," said her aunt; "and I cannot
discover as you have wandered so far from the paths of rectitude that
your return to them should seem a thing impossible."
"But did I not tell you how I deceived my husband?" asked Louise,
looking wofully in the face of her aunt.
"Yes," returned she, calmly. "Did he never deceive you?"
Louise paused a few moments, and answered, "I _was_ deceived when I
married him, but it was by my own blindness. However, the deception did
not last long," she added, with a spice of her old spirit.
"And when it passed away," said her aunt.
"Don't recall those terrible hours to my mind," interrupted Louise,
quickly, "lest I should forget the double share of respect I owe the
dead in that I failed to give them their due on earth."
"I would not have the dead wronged," returned her aunt; "but I would
have the living righted. You used to be free and unrestrained in your
intercourse with me in the glad days of childhood and youth. I often
feared some envious sorrow would overtake you to chill and despoil that
buoyant exuberance of life and gayety. You were too wildly rich in heart
and soul. You wasted more love on a pet rabbit than would eke out the
whole passion life of a score of poorer natures. O, Louise, I trembled
when you stood before the altar and took the vows of faithfulness to Mr.
Leroy Edson. I knew you fancied that you loved him, and thought in the
wild potency of your passion to bear him skyward on your soaring
pinions; but, ah! I saw how sadly his clogging weight would drag you to
the earth."
She paused, and Louise was silent, but her face showed traces of tears.
"Do not think me severe," resumed her aunt; "I am only just. Now tell me
with your old-time confidence, why did you love another man while your
husband lived?"
"It was because,"---- Louise hesitated, and then added, "because I was
wicked."
"And for what other reason?" pursued her aunt.
"And because I was tired," Louise went on in a dreamy tone, as if
thinking aloud to herself, "and because I was hungry."
"Your expressions begin to assume the old, quaint, humorous form," said
the aunt smiling. "I suppose you mean your soul was tired for want of
something on which to rest, and hungry for want of its proper
nourishment."
"That's what I mean, aunt; but then I do not seek excuse for the crime
of stealing to appease the cravings of my hunger."
"A famishing man has never yet been hung for stealing to sustain life."
"You draw a strong comparison, aunt," said Louise, laughing in spite of
herself.
"To meet a strong case," returned she. "It is a duty I owe you to use my
best efforts to destroy this morbid melancholy which is preying on your
spirits. I know nothing of the man you have loved. He may or may not be
worthy of your affections. It is not his cause I plead. But I would
divest you of the false glasses through which your sensitive brain,
wrought on by high excitement, and shocked by a sudden calamity, has
come to regard the events of your past life, and let you behold them
again with your own natural sight. If I can effect this, I confidently
trust to your good reasoning powers to set all right again."
Louise remained silent after her aunt ceased speaking, but her
countenance evinced far more energy and hopefulness than at the
commencement of the conversation. At length she rose and said, "Well,
aunt, I think I have as much logic as my weak brain can digest in one
night, so I'll retire to my bed-room, if you please."
In a few weeks, young Mrs. Edson, under the tuition of her
strong-minded, sensible aunt, regained a share of her former vivacity,
and declared she would be quite herself again were it not for that great
black jail in the adjoining yard, which frowned on her every morning and
loomed dismally in her dreams.