The stability of wedded happiness may be fairly tested in six years;
and that number has elapsed since the wedding-eve at Sunnybank;--a
month or two more--for hickory logs are heaped upon the carved
andirons, and the arrowy blaze sheds a red glare upon a group of
familiar faces:--Charley, unaltered, save that the benign lustre
of his eye--formerly seen only by his best friends, has become
habitual;--Morton Lacy, handsomer in the prime of manhood than as the
slender student; and, her elbow resting on his knee, sits upon a low
divan, his wife. If Time has dealt leniently with the others, he has
acted repentantly towards her. She is younger, in face and manner,
at twenty-seven, than she was at seventeen. Her husband's equal in
many respects, and treated by him as such--she has never endured the
servile subjugation of soul, which transforms intelligent women into
inane, mindless machines. In yielding to his superior judgment, when
in contrariety to hers, her will has parted with none of its strength
in the bend which proved its pliancy. Submission is a pleasure, not a
cross.
"I read to-day of a Mr. Latham, called to the ---- street Church,
Baltimore," says Charley. "Is it Emma's husband?"
"The identical personage!" replies Ida, with pride. "A high compliment
to so young a preacher!"
"He is a man of superior talents," pronounces Mr. Lacy; "a divine of
Ida's making."
"Of Mr. Lacy's, you mean--and maybe, after all, the Sabbath-school
is entitled to the honour of teaching him that the healing of men's
souls, not their bodies, was his vocation. Dr. Hall and I had a pitched
battle whenever we met, over our interference with his pupil, until
his trial-sermon, which was delivered in our church. The Doctor strode
across the aisle, at the close of the services, wiping his eyes. 'I
forgive you, madam, and that meddling husband of yours! My stars! what
a parson I was near spoiling!'"
"Does Miss Laura meet your wishes, as Mrs. Latham's successor?'"
"Entirely. Mr. Lacy supports her authority, or the stigma attached to
her father's memory would weaken her influence. She looks sad to-night.
It is the third anniversary of his miserable end."
"He was burnt alive--was he not?"
"It is supposed so. He was found dead--his body partly consumed--upon
the hearth of his room. Probably he fell down in a drunken fit. The
blow was almost too great for Laura's reason. Natural affection covered
the remembrance of all his faults. The children were taken by their
mother's relations, to whom he would not allow them to go, in his
life-time. Laura has continued with us."
"Still a passion for _proteges_! The last time I saw Miss Read, she
inquired what your newest hobby was."
"What did you reply?" inquires Mr. Lacy.
"That ladies dismissed hobbies, when they were provided with
'hubbies--' an execrable play upon words, which she may have construed
into an ill-natured fling at her single-blessedness."
"She ought not. _On dit_ that Ellen Morris has supplanted me in your
bachelor friendship; and she is not likely to marry."
"Any more than myself--but Ellen Morris is not Josephine Read. Old
maids are a much-abused class of the community; I trust to her to
redeem their character, but Josephine is a frightful counterpoise. If
you had remained single!"
"But I didn't!" says Ida, smiling archly at her liege lord. "And you
two have only yourselves to blame."
"And Lelia Arnold!" subjoins Mr. Lacy, teasingly. "There is another
enchanting spinster, Charley."
Ida is grave.
"You observe my wife nurses her jealousy yet."
"I pity her, Morton! not for losing you,--but I shall always think that
she loved Richard Copeland as sincerely as it was in her nature to do."
"Why dismiss him, then?" queries Charley.
"She had the credit of it. In my opinion, he made her discard Mr.
Lacy by threats or blandishments; then punished her perfidy to him and
others by violating his engagement."
"An unmanly act--but a just lesson! He is marvellously improved by his
marriage. Was it a love-match?"
"I believe so. Alice is a lovely girl; just the equable temperament to
balance his flightiness. What a contrast to his sister!"
"Has she taken the veil?"
"Alas! yes! She wrote to me, at her mother's death, that 'having lost
both parents, and her brother's marriage making him independent of her
cares, she should devote the remnant of her sorrowful days to prayer
and expiation of her sins--if penitence and mortification could atone.'"
"_If_, indeed!" says Mr. Lacy. "Yet she is more sinned against, than
sinning. Her remorse, much as it misguides her, is more creditable than
her step-daughter's insensibility."
"Poor Josephine!" sighs Ida.
"Why 'poor?'" asks Charley. "You, of all people, have least cause to be
sorry for her."
"I have most, because I know her best. She is not happy--never was--and
never will be unless her heart is changed. I have not forgotten the
misery of a part of my sojourn with her; yet I honestly preferred my to
state hers."
"You are very unlike."
"Now, perhaps--and I thought we were then; but my mother's training was
all that saved my disposition from adapting itself to Mr. Read's mould.
She had no talisman. I wish she had a hundredth part of my happiness. A
woman is so lonely without a home and friends! They are to us--I do not
say to you--necessaries of life."
"She can gain them," replies Morton. "You did."
"To be taught the inadequacy of perishable things to satisfy a soul
which must live forever!" muses Ida, gazing into the blaze. "I can
apply literally that text--'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.'"
"There are not many who can, in a temporal sense," says Charley.
"But who may not, spiritually? Why will men make a comfortless, doleful
mystery of our cheerful, life-giving, home Faith? Why not think, write,
talk of it?--"
"And _act_ it?" interrupts Charley.
FINIS.
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious errors and inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and
hyphenation have been corrected.
Archaic spellings have been retained.