Eight years later, feeling lonely and depressed--a man without
relatives, with many acquaintances but no friends--Ambrose Graye met
a young lady of a different kind, fairly endowed with money and good
gifts. As to caring very deeply for another woman after the loss of
Cytherea, it was an absolute impossibility with him. With all, the
beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they elude pursuit;
but with some natures utter elusion is the one special event which will
make a passing love permanent for ever.
This second young lady and Graye were married. That he did not, first
or last, love his wife as he should have done, was known to all; but
few knew that his unmanageable heart could never be weaned from useless
repining at the loss of its first idol.
His character to some extent deteriorated, as emotional constitutions
will under the long sense of disappointment at having missed their
imagined destiny. And thus, though naturally of a gentle and pleasant
disposition, he grew to be not so tenderly regarded by his acquaintances
as it is the lot of some of those persons to be. The winning and
sanguine receptivity of his early life developed by degrees a moody
nervousness, and when not picturing prospects drawn from baseless hope
he was the victim of indescribable depression. The practical issue of
such a condition was improvidence, originally almost an unconscious
improvidence, for every debt incurred had been mentally paid off with a
religious exactness from the treasures of expectation before mentioned.
But as years revolved, the same course was continued from the lack of
spirit sufficient for shifting out of an old groove when it has been
found to lead to disaster.
In the year 1861 his wife died, leaving him a widower with two children.
The elder, a son named Owen, now just turned seventeen, was taken from
school, and initiated as pupil to the profession of architect in his
father’s office. The remaining child was a daughter, and Owen’s junior
by a year.
Her christian name was Cytherea, and it is easy to guess why.