unsophisticated character. After ringing the changes on _sentiment_
until his feelings were ‘like sweet bells jangled out of tune,’ it was
absolutely refreshing to find a damsel who had never hung enraptured
over the passionate pages of Byron, nor breathed the voluptuous songs of
Moore, but who, in the simplicity of her heart, admired and quoted the
gentle Cowper, as the prince of poets. “She has much to learn in the
heart’s lore,” said Wilford to himself, “and what pleasure it will be to
develop her innocent affections.” So he offered his hand to the pretty
Quakeress, and she, little versed in the arts of coquetry, modestly
accepted the gift.
One morning Rachel sat by the window, looking out upon the gay throng in
Broadway, when her cousin entered with a small packet in her hand.
“Here is something for you, Rachel, a love token I suppose,” said Mrs.
Hadley. Rachel blushed as she opened the envelope, but her color
deepened to an almost angry hue when she unclosed a morocco box, and
beheld an exquisite set of pearls.
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Mrs. Hadley.
“I shall not keep them,” said Rachel quietly.
“Not keep them! pray why?” asked her cousin.
“Because I should never wear them, and because Mr. Wilford has not kept
his word with me. He promised never to interfere with what he called my
style of dress, and I told him I would never lay aside my plain costume,
though I was willing to modify it a little for his sake.”
“Here he comes to answer for himself,” said Mrs. Hadley as Wilford
entered. “You are just in time,” she continued, “for Rachel is very
angry with you.”
Rachel could not repress a feeling of pride and pleasure as she looked
on the graceful form of her lover, who, taking a seat beside her,
whispered, “Are you indeed displeased with me, dearest? Pray what is my
offence?”
She replied by placing in his hand the box of pearls.
“Do you then reject so simple an offering of affection, Rachel?” said
Harry, “you should regard these gems not as the vain ornaments of
fashion, but as the most delicate and beautiful productions of the
wonderful world of ocean. Look, can any thing be more emblematical of
purity?” and as he spoke he placed a pearl rose upon the soft golden
hair which was folded above her white forehead.
Rachel did look, and, as the large mirror reflected her beautiful face,
she was conscious of an impulse, (almost her very first) of womanly
vanity.
“I cannot wear them, Harry,” said she, “necklace and bracelets would be
very useless to one who never unveils either neck or arms, and such
costly head-gear would be ill suited to my plain silk dress, and lawn
cape.”
Wilford had too much tact to press the subject. The box was consigned to
his pocket, and the offence was forgiven.
“_Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute_,” said he, as he walked home,
“my fifteen hundred dollars has been thrown away for the present; I must
proceed more cautiously in my work of reform.”
The morning fixed for the marriage at length arrived. Rachel was in her
apartment, surrounded by her friends, and had just commenced her toilet,
when a small parcel, accompanied by a delicate rose-colored note, was
placed in her hands. She, of course, opened the note first; it was as
follows:
“Forgive me, my sweet Rachel, if on this morning I venture to suggest a
single addition to your simple dress. There are always idle persons
standing about the church door on such an occasion as a wedding, and I
am foolish enough to be unwilling that the careless eye of every
indifferent spectator should scan the exquisite beauty of your face
to-day. There is something extremely painful to me in the thought that
the blushing cheek of my fair bride should be the subject of cold
remark. Will you not, for my sake, dearest, veil the rich treasure of
your loveliness for one brief hour? I know I am selfish in making the
request, but for once forgive my jealousy, and shade your brightness
from the stranger’s gaze.”
The parcel contained a Brussels lace veil of surpassing richness, so
delicate in its texture, so magnificent in its pattern that Rachel could
not repress an exclamation of pleasure at the sight.
Her toilet was at length completed. A dress of plain white satin,
finished at the neck by a chemisette of simple lace, her hair folded
plainly around her small head and plaited in a single braid
behind:—such was the bridal attire of the rigid little Quakeress.
“And the veil, Rachel,” whispered her cousin.
“Why, rather than shock Harry’s delicacy,” said she, half smiling, “I
believe I will wear it, but I shall look very ridiculous in it.”
The veil fell in rich folds nearly to her feet, and nothing could be
imagined more beautiful than her whole appearance in this plain but
magnificent costume.
“You want a pearl comb, or something of the kind, to fasten this veil
properly,” said one of the bridesmaids.
“What a pity you had not kept the box,” whispered her cousin. Rachel
smiled as she replied, “if I had ever dreamed of wearing such an unusual
appendage as this perhaps I might have retained the rose at least.”
Rachel had taken the _first_ step when she consented to adopt the veil,
the second would have cost her less trouble.
Immediately after the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Wilford set off for the
Springs. A servant had preceded them with their baggage, and Rachel soon
found herself in the midst of a more brilliant circle than she had yet
seen. The day after their arrival she was preparing for a ride, and a
crowd had collected on the piazza to admire Wilford’s elegant equipage
and fine blood-horses. But an unforeseen annoyance had occurred to
disturb the bride’s feelings. Attired in a dress of dark
lavender-colored silk, she folded her white cashmere around her
shoulders, and opened the band-box which contained her bridal hat. This
had only been sent home on the morning of her marriage, and having been
instantly forwarded with the other baggage, she had not yet seen it. How
was she startled therefore to find, instead of the close cottage hat
which she had ordered, as the nearest possible approach to her Quaker
bonnet, a gay-looking French affair, trimmed with a wreath of lilies of
the valley. What was to be done? it was impossible to procure another,
and to despoil the bonnet of its flowers gave it an unfinished and
slovenly appearance. Harry affected to condole with her, and finally
persuaded her to wear it rather than expose herself to the charge of
affectation by assuming her travelling calash.
“_Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute_,” said he, to himself, as he
saw the blush mantle her lovely cheek when she contemplated her
reflection in the mirror.
“What shall I do?” exclaimed Rachel, “it does not half cover my head; I
never wore such a flaunting, flaring thing in my life: I wish I had my
veil, for I am actually ashamed of myself: ah, here it is, coz must have
put it into the box, and I dare say it is she who has played me this
trick about my bonnet.”
So, throwing on her splendid veil to hide her unwonted finery, Rachel
took her husband’s arm and entered the carriage, leaving the gentlemen
to admire her beauty and the ladies to talk about her magnificent
Brussels.
Six months after her marriage Mrs. Wilford was dressing for a party;
Monsieur Frisette had arranged her beautiful hair in superb ringlets and
braids, and was just completing his task when the maid accidentally
removing her embroidered handkerchief from the dressing-table discovered
beneath it the box of pearls.
“Ah voilà Madame, de very ting—dat leetle rose vill just do for fix
dese curl,” said Monsieur.
As she continued her toilet she found that Madame M*** had trimmed the
corsage of her dress in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of
wearing either cape or scarf according to her usual habit. She could not
appear with her neck quite bare, and nothing remained but to cover it
with the massy medallions of her pearl necklace. In short, when fully
dressed for the party, some good reason had been found for adopting
every ornament which the box contained.
“Just as I expected,” said Wilford, mentally, as he conducted her to the
carriage, “Rachel has taken the _first step_, she will never put on the
drab bonnet again.”
* * * * *
Three years after the events just recorded, the fatal red flag of the
auctioneer was seen projecting from one of the upper windows of a
stately house, and crowds of the idle, the curious, and the speculating
were entering the open door. It was the residence of Harry Wilford.
“Well, how things will turn out,” said a fat, frowsy dame, as she seated
herself on a velvet sofa and drew a chair in front of her to keep off
the throng, “sit down Charlotte,” continued she, addressing a newly
married niece, “sit down and let us make ourselves comfortable until the
auctioneer has done selling the kitchen furniture. Only think—the last
time I was here before Mrs. Wilford had a great party, and the young
folks all came in fancy dresses, and I sat on this very sofa. That is
only three months ago, and now everything has gone to rack and ruin.”
“How did it all happen?” asked a pleasant-looking woman who stood near.
“Oh, Mrs. Wilford was awfully extravagant, and her husband thought there
was no bounds to his riches, so they lived too fast; ‘burnt their candle
at both ends,’ as the saying is. They say Mrs. Wilford hurried on her
husband’s ruin, for he had been speculating too deeply, and was in debt,
but his creditors would have waited if she had not given that last
dashing party.”
“How do you know that fact!” asked the other.
“Oh, from the best authority, my husband is one of the principal
creditors,” replied the dame with a look of dignity, “he told me the
whole story as we were going to the party, and declared that he would
not stand such dishonest dealings, so the very next morning he was down
upon Mr. Wilford, and before twelve o’clock he had compelled him to make
an assignment.”
And it was among such people—men and women who would sit at the
hospitable board with murder in their hearts—who would share in the
festivities of a household even while meditating the destruction of that
pleasant home—it was among such as these that Wilford had lived—it was
for such as these that he had striven to change the simple habits and
artless manners of his true-hearted Rachel. It was the dread laugh of
such as these which had led him to waste her energies as well as his own
in the pursuit of fashion and folly.
Wilford had succeeded even beyond his intentions in imbuing his gentle
bride with a love for worldly vanities. His wishes delicately but
earnestly expressed, together with the new-born vanity which her
unwonted adornments engendered in the bosom of Rachel, gradually
overcame her early habits. One by one the insignia of her simple faith
were thrown aside. Her beautiful neck was unveiled to the admiring
eye—her ungraceful sleeve receded until the rounded arm was visible in
its full proportions—the skirt, following the laws of fashion, lost
several degrees of longitude, until the beauty of Mrs. Wilford’s foot
was no longer a disputable fact. In short, in little more than two years
after her marriage, her wealth, her beauty, her elegance of manners, and
her costly dress made her decidedly a leader of ton. Wilford could not
but regret the change. She was ever affectionate and devoted to him with
all the earnestness of womanly tenderness, but he was ashamed to tell
her that in obeying his wishes she had actually gone beyond them. He
hoped that it was only the novelty of her position which had thus
fascinated her, and yet he often found himself regretting that he had
ever exposed her to such temptations.
But new and unlooked-for trials were in store for both. The estate of
Mr. Wilford had always been managed by his uncle, a careful merchant,
who, through the course of his whole life, had seemed to possess the
Midas-like faculty of converting every thing he touched into gold; and
satisfied that, as he was the old man’s only heir, the property would be
carefully husbanded, Wilford gave himself no trouble about the matter.
But the mania for real estate speculation had now infected the whole
nation. The old gentleman found himself the ridiculed of many a bold
spirit who had dashed into the stream and gathered the gold dust which
it bore along; he had long withstood the sneers of those who considered
themselves wise in their generation, because they were pursuing a
gambling scheme of wealth; but at length he could no longer resist the
influence! He obtained the concurrence of his nephew, and thus furnished
with double means struck boldly out from the safe haven where he had
been ensconced. Every thing went on swimmingly for a time; his gains
were immense—_upon paper_, but the tide turned, and the result was
total wreck.
It was long ere Wilford became aware of his misfortunes. Accustomed to
rely implicitly on his uncle’s judgment, he reposed in indolent security
until the tidings of the old man’s bankruptcy and his own consequent
ruin came upon him like a thunderbolt. He had been too long the child of
prosperity to bear reverses with fortitude. He had no profession, no
knowledge of business, nothing by which he could obtain a future
livelihood; and now, when habits of luxury had enervated both mind and
body, he found himself utterly beggared. He brooded over his losses in
moody bitterness of spirit long before the world became acquainted with
his situation. He even concealed them from his wife, from that mistaken
and cruel kindness which thinks to lighten the blow by keeping it long
suspended. “How can I overwhelm her with sorrow and mortification by
telling her we are beggars?” he cried, in anguish. “How can I bid her
descend from the lofty eminence of wealth and fashion and retire to
obscurity and seclusion? How can I be sure that she will bear the
tidings with a patient spirit? I have sown within her young heart the
seeds of vanity, and how can I hope to eradicate now the evils which
have sprang from them? Her own little fortune is all that is now left,
and how we are to live on that I cannot tell. Rachel cannot bear it—I
know she cannot!”
His thoughts added new anguish to his regrets, and months of harrowing
dread and anxiety passed away before Wilford could summon courage to
face manfully his increasing misfortunes.
Mrs. Wilford had long intended to celebrate her husband’s birth-day by a
brilliant party, and, quite unconscious of the storm which impended over
her, she issued her cards nearly a month previous to the appointed
evening. Harry Wilford knew that the party ought not to be given; he
knew that it would bring discredit upon him, and perhaps censure upon
his wife, for he was conscious that his affairs were rapidly approaching
a fatal crisis; but he had not courage to own the truth. He watched the
preparations for the party with a boding spirit; he looked sadly and
fondly upon the brilliant attire of his young wife as she glided about
the gorgeous apartments, and he felt that he was taking his last glance
at happiness and comfort. The very next day his principal creditor, a
fat, oily-faced, well-fed individual, remarkable for the regularity of
his attendance, and the loudness of his responses at church—a man whose
piety was carried to such lengths that in the fear lest his left hand
should know the good which his right hand did, he was particularly
careful never to do _any_—a man who would sit first at a feast and
store up the careless sayings of convivial frankness to serve his own
interest in the mart and the market-place—this man, after pledging him
in the wine-cup and parting from him with the cordial grasp of
friendship, met him with a legal demand for that which he knew would
ruin him.
The fatal tidings could no longer be withheld from Mrs. Wilford, and she
was roused from the languor which the fatigue of the preceding evening
had left both on mind and body, by the tidings of her husband’s
misfortunes.
“It is as I feared,” thought Wilford, as he observed her overwhelming
emotion, “she cannot bear the degradation.”
But he was mistaken. There is a hidden strength of character which can
only be developed by the stroke of calamity, and such was possessed by
Rachel Wilford. A moment, and but a moment, she faltered; then she was
prepared to brave the worst evils of her altered fortunes. Wilford soon
found that she had both mind to comprehend and judgment to counsel. Ere
the morrow had passed half his sorrow was assuaged, for he had found
comfort and even hope in the bosom of his young and devoted wife. There
was only one thing over which she still deeply grieved, and this was her
fatal party.
“Had you only confided in me, Harry,” said she, “worlds would not have
tempted me to place you and myself in so dishonorable a light. How could
you see me so unconscious of danger and treading so heedlessly on the
verge of ruin without withdrawing me from it? Your own good name, Harry,
aye, and _mine_ too, have suffered. Our integrity has been doubted.”
“I did it for the best, Rachel; I would have spared you as long as
possible.”
“It was most ill-judged kindness, Harry; it has ruined you and deeply
injured me. Believe me, a wife is infinitely happier in the
consciousness that she possesses her husband’s confidence, than in the
discovery that she has been treated like a petted child; a being of
powers too limited to understand his affairs or to be admitted to his
councils.”
Mrs. Wilford did not merely meet her reverses with fortitude. She was
resolved to act as became a high-minded woman. Her jewels were
immediately disposed of, not stealthily, and as if she dreaded exposure,
but by going openly to the persons from whom they were purchased; and
thus realizing at least two-thirds of their original cost. This sum she
immediately appropriated to the payment of household debts; and with it
she satisfied the claims of all those who had supplied them with daily
comforts. “I could not rest,” she said, “if I felt there was one person
living who might say I wronged him out of the very bread I have eaten.”
The furniture was next given up—nothing was reserved—not even the
plate presented by her own friends, nor the work-box, the gift of Harry.
Lodgings quiet and respectable but plain and cheap were taken in a
private boarding-house. Every vestige of their former splendor was gone,
and when all was over, it was with a feeling of relief that the husband
and wife sat down together to form plans for the future. The past seemed
like a troubled dream. Scarcely six months had elapsed since their
stately mansion had been the scene of joyous festivity, and the very
suddenness with which distress had come seemed to have paralysed their
sense of suffering.
“I received a proposal to-day, Rachel, which I would not accept without
consulting you,” said Harry, as they sat together in their neatly
furnished apartment. “Edward Morton offers me the situation of
book-keeper, with a salary of a thousand dollars per annum.”
“Take it, by all means, dear Harry,” said his wife, “constant employment
will make you forget your troubles, and a thousand dollars,” added she,
with a bright smile, “will be a fortune to us.”
“I suppose I had better accept his offer,” said Wilford, gloomily, “but
it cuts down a man’s pride to be reduced to the condition of a
hireling.”
“Do not make me ashamed of my husband, dear Harry,” was the earnest
reply, “do not suffer me to blush for the weakness and false pride which
can think only of external show. We can live very comfortably on your
salary, especially when we have the consciousness of integrity to
sweeten our privations.”
“You forget that you are not quite so much a beggar as your husband,
Rachel. The interest of your twenty thousand dollars, added to my
salary, will give us something more than the mere comforts of life.”
“What do you mean, Harry?” asked his wife, turning very pale.
“Why you do not suppose I was scoundrel enough to risk your little
property, Rachel; that was secured you by a marriage settlement, and no
creditor can touch it unless you should assign it.”
Rachel made no reply but fell into a long fit of musing.
It was but a few days after this conversation that Wilford, conquering
his false pride, entered upon his duties in the counting-room of his old
friend Morton. He returned early in the evening, wearied, sad, and
dispirited, but his wife met him with a face so bright that he almost
forgot the annoyances of the day.
“How happy you look, Rachel,” said he, as she drew her chair beside his
and laid her hand upon his arm.
“I am indeed happy, dear Harry, for I am now no richer than yourself.”
“I don’t understand you,” replied Wilford with a puzzled look.
“You gave me a most unpleasant piece of news yesterday, Harry, when you
told me that my paltry little fortune had been preserved from your
creditors, and now I am happy in the consciousness that no such reproach
can attach to us. I have been closeted with your lawyer this morning; he
told me about twenty thousand dollars would clear off all claims against
you, and by this time I suppose you are free.”
“What have you done?”
“Handed over my marriage settlement to your assignees, Harry”—
“And reduced yourself to a bare subsistence, Rachel, to satisfy a group
of gaping creditors who would swallow my last morsel if they knew I was
left to starve.”
“The debts were justly due, Harry, and I would rather that the charge of
illiberality should attach to them than of dishonesty to us.”
“You have never known the evils of poverty, my poor child,” said
Wilford, despondingly.
“Nor do I mean to experience them now, dear husband; you will not let me
want for comforts, and you seem to forget that, though you have tried to
spoil me, my early habits were those of economy and frugality.”
“So you mean to adopt your simple Quaker habits again, Rachel,” said
Wilford, more cheerfully; “will they include the drab bonnet also?”
“No,” returned the young wife, her face dimpled with joyous smiles, “I
believe now that as much vanity lurked under my plain bonnet as ever
sported on the wave of a jewelled plume; and yet,” said she, after a
moment’s pause, “when I threw off my Quaker garb I took my first step in
error, for I can trace all my folly, and extravagance, and waste of time
to the moment when I first looked with pleasure in that little mirror at
Saratoga.”
“Well, well, dearest, your first step has not led you so far astray but
that you have been able most nobly to retrace your path. I am poorer
than I ever expected to be, yet richer than I could ever have hoped, for
had I never experienced a reverse of fortune, I should never have
learned the worth of my own sweet wife.”
Harry Wilford was right, and the felicity which he now enjoys in his own
quiet and cheerful home—a home won by his own industry and
diligence—is well worth all the price at which it was purchased, even
though it cost him his whole estate.
* * * * *
AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.
IN THREE CHIMERAS.
BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.
CHIMERA II. (Continued.)
The ship! that self-same ship, that Julio knew
Had passed him, with her panic-stricken crew,
She gleams amid the storm, a shatter’d thing
Of pride and lordly beauty; her fair wing
Of sail is wounded—the proud pennon gone!
Dark, dark she sweepeth like an eagle, on
Through waters that are battling to and fro,
And tossing their great giant shrouds of snow
Over her deck.—Ahead, and there is seen
A black, strange line of breakers, down between
The awful surges, lifting up their manes
Like great sea-lions. Quick and high she strains
Her foaming keel—that solitary ship!
As if, in all her frenzy, she would leap
The cursed barrier: forward, fast and fast—
Back, back she reels; her timbers and her mast
Split in a thousand shivers! A white spring
Of the exulting sea rose bantering
Over her ruin; and the mighty crew
That mann’d her deck, were seen, a straggling few,
Far scatter’d on the surges. Julio felt
The impulse of that hour, and low he knelt,
Within his own light bark—a pray’rful man!
And clasp’d his lifeless bride; and to her wan,
Cold cheek did lay his melancholy brow.—
“Save thou a mariner!” he starteth now
To hear that dying cry; and there is one,
All worn and wave-wet, by his bark anon,
Clinging, in terror of the ireful sea,
A fair-hair’d mariner! But suddenly
He saw the pale dead ladye by a flame
Of blue and livid lightning, and there came
Over his features blindness, and the power
Of his strong hands grew weak,—a giant shower
Of foam rose up, and swept him far along;
And Julio saw him buffetting the throng
Of the great eddying waters, till they went
Over him—a wind-shaken cerement!