KATE HARBELL, a high-spirited girl, who had a pretty strong will of
her own, was about being married. Like a great many others of her
age and sex who approach the matrimonial altar, Kate's notions of
the marriage relation were not the clearest in the world.
Ferdinand Lee, the betrothed of Kate, a quiet, sensitive young man,
had, perhaps, as strong a will as the young lady herself, though it
was more under the control of reason. He was naturally impatient of
dictation or force, and a strong love of approbation made him feel
keenly any thing like satire, ridicule or censure. To point him to a
fault was to wound if not offend him. Here lay the weakness of his
character. All this, on the other side, was counterbalanced by kind
feelings, good sense, and manly principles. He was above all
meanness or dishonour.
Of course, Kate did not fully understand his character. Such a thing
as a young girl's accurate knowledge of the character of the man she
is about to marry, is of very rare occurrence. She saw enough of
good qualities to make her love him with tenderness and devotion;
but she also saw personal defects that were disagreeable in the
object of her affections. But she did not in the least doubt that
all these she could easily correct in him after she became his wife.
From a defect of education, or from a natural want of neatness and
order, Ferdinand Lee was inclined to carelessness in his attire;
and also exhibited a certain want of polish in his manners and
address that was, at times, particularly annoying to Kate.
"I'll break him of that when I get him," said the young lady to a
married friend, alluding to some little peculiarity both had
noticed.
"Don't be too certain," returned the lady, smiling.
"You'll see."
Kate tossed her head in a resolute way.
"I'll see you disappointed."
"Wait a little while. Before I'm his wife six months, you'll hardly
know the man, there'll be such a change."
"The change is far more likely to take place in you."
"Why do you say that, Mrs. Morton?" inquired Kate, looking grave.
"Because I think so. Men are not so easily brought into order, and
the attempt at reformation and correction by a young wife generally
ends in painful disappointment. If you begin this work you will, in
all probability, find yourself tasked beyond your ability. I speak
from some experience, having been married for about ten years, and
having seen a good many young girls come up into our ranks from the
walks of single blessedness. Take my advice, and look away from
Frederick's faults and disagreeable peculiarities as much as
possible, and think more of his manly traits of character--his fine
sentiments, and honourable principles."
"I do look at them and love them," replied Kate, with animation.
"These won my heart at first, and now unite me to him in bonds that
cannot be broken. But if on a precious gem there be a slight blemish
that mars its beauty, shall we not seek to remove the defect, and
thus give the jewel a higher lustre? Will you say, no?"
"I will, if in the act there be danger of injuring the gem."
"I don't understand you, Mrs. Morton?"
"Reflect for a moment, and see if my meaning is not apparent."
"You think I will offend him if I point out a fault, or seek to
correct it?"
"A result most likely to follow."
"I will not think so poorly of his good sense," answered Kate, with
some gravity of manner. The suggestion half offended her.
"None are perfect, my young friend; don't forget that," said Mrs.
Morton, with equal seriousness. "To think differently is a common
mistake of persons circumstanced as you are."
"It's no mistake of mine, let me assure you," replied Kate. "I can
see faults as quickly as any one. Love can't blind me. It is because
I see defects in Frederick that I wish to correct them."
"And you trust to his good sense to take the work of correction
kindly?"
"Certainly I do."
"Then you most probably think him more perfect than he really is.
Very few people can bear to be told of their faults, and fewer still
to be told of them by those they love. Love is expected to be blind
to defects; therefore, when it is seen looking at and pointing them
out, the feeling produced is, in the very nature of things, a
disagreeable one. Take my advice, and let Frederick's faults alone,
at least for a year after you are married; and even then put your
hand on them very lightly, and as if by accident."
"Do you think I could see him lounge, or, rather, slide down in his
chair in that ungraceful way, and not speak to him about it? Not I.
It makes me nervous now; and, if I wasn't afraid he might take it
unkindly, would call his attention to it."
"Do you think he will be less likely to take it unkindly after
marriage?"
"Certainly. Then I will have a right to speak to him about it."
"Then marriage will give you certain rights over your husband?"
"It will give him rights over me, and a very poor rule that is which
doesn't work both ways. Marriage will make him my husband; and,
surely, a wife may tell her husband that he is not perfect, without
offending him."
"Kate, Kate; you don't know what you are talking about, child!"
"I think I do."
"And I know you don't."
"Oh, well, Mrs. Morton, we won't quarrel about it," said Kate,
laughing. "I mean to make one of the best of wives, and have one of
the best of husbands to be found. He will require a little fixing up
to make him just to my mind, but don't you fear but what I'll do it
in the gentlest possible manner. Women have more taste than men, you
know, and a man never looks and acts just right until he gets a
woman to take charge of him."
A happy bride Kate became a few months after this little
conversation took place, and Lee thought himself the most fortunate
of men in obtaining such a lovely, accomplished, and right-minded
woman for a wife. Swiftly glided away the sweet honey-moon, without
a jar of discord, though, during the time, Kate saw a good many
things not exactly to her mind, and which she set down as needing
correction.
One evening, it was just five weeks after the marriage, and when
they were snugly settled in their own house, Frederick Lee was
seated before the grate, in a handsome rocking-chair, his body in a
position that it would have required a stretch of language to
pronounce graceful or becoming. He had drawn off one of his boots,
that was lying on the floor, and the leg from which it had been
taken was hanging over an arm of his chair. He had slipped forward
in the chair--his ordinary mode of sitting, or, rather, lying--so
far that his head, which, if he had been upright, would have been
even with the top of the back, was at least twelve inches below it.
To add to the effect of his position, he was swinging the bootless
leg that hung across the arm of the chair with a rapid, circling
motion. He had been reclining in this inelegant attitude for about
ten minutes, when Kate, who had permitted herself to become a good
deal annoyed by it, said to him, rather earnestly--
"Do, Frederick, sit up straight, and try and be a little more
graceful in your positions."
"What's that?" inquired the young man, as if he had not heard
distinctly.
"Can't you sit up straight?"
Kate smiled; but Lee saw that it was a forced smile.
"Oh, yes," he answered, indifferently. "I can sit up straight as an
arrow, but I find this attitude most agreeable."
"If you knew how you looked," said Kate.
"How do I look?" asked the young man, playfully.
"Oh! you look--you look more like a country clod-hopper than any
thing else."
There was a sharpness in Kate's tones that fell unpleasantly on the
ears of the young man.
"Do I, indeed!" was his rather cold remark. Yet he did not change
his position.
"Indeed, you do," said the wife, who was, by this time, beginning to
feel a good deal of irritation; for she saw that Frederick was not
inclined to respond in the way she had hoped, to her very reasonable
desire that he would assume a more graceful attitude. "The fact is,"
she continued, impelled to further utterance by the excited state of
her feelings, although she was conscious of having already said more
than was agreeable to her husband, "you ought to correct yourself of
these ungraceful and undignified habits. It shows a want of"--
Kate stopped suddenly. She felt that she was about using words that
would inevitably give offence.
"A want of what?" inquired Lee, in a low, firm voice, while he
continued to look his young wife steadily in the face.
Kate's eyes fell to the floor and she remained silent.
"Ungraceful and undignified. Humph!"
Lee was evidently hurt at this allegation, as the tone in which he
repeated the words clearly showed.
"Do you call your present attitude graceful?" Kate asked, rallying
herself under the reflection that she was right.
"It is comfortable for me; and, therefore, ought to be graceful in
your eyes," was the young man's perverse answer. Not the slightest
change had yet taken place in his position.
This was beyond what the high spirited lady could bear, and she
retorted with more feeling than discretion:
"Love is not blind in my case, I can assure you, Frederick, and
never will be. You are very ungraceful and untidy, and annoy me,
sometimes, excessively. I wish you would try to correct these
things."
"You do?"
There was something cool and provoking in the way Lee said this.
"I do, Frederick, and I'm in earnest."
The cheeks of Kate were in a glow, and her eyes lit up, and her lips
quivering.
"How long since you made the discovery that I was only a country
clod-hopper?" said Lee, who was particularly annoyed by Kate's
unexpected charges against his good-breeding.
"I didn't say you were only a country clod-hopper," replied Kate.
"I believe you used the words. My ears rarely deceive me. I must own
to feeling highly complimented."
"Do sit up straight, Frederick! Do take your leg from over the arm
of that chair! You make me so nervous that I can hardly contain
myself."
"Really! I thought a man was privileged to sit in any position he
pleased in his own house."
The excitement of Kate's mind had, by this time, reached a crisis.
Bursting into tears, she hurried from the room, and went sobbing up
to her chamber.
Here was a fine state of affairs, indeed! Was ever a man so perverse
and unreasonable?
Did Frederick Lee follow, quickly, his weeping wife? No; his pride
was too deeply wounded for that.
"A country clod-hopper! Undignified and ungraceful! Upon my word!"
Such were some of his mental ejaculations. And then, as his feelings
grew excited, he started up from his chair and began pacing the
floor, muttering, as he did so--
"It is rather late in the day to make this discovery! Why didn't she
find it out before? Humph!"
Meanwhile, Kate had thrown herself across her bed, where she lay,
weeping bitterly.
What a storm had suddenly been blown about their ears!
It was fully an hour before Frederick Lee's disturbed feelings began
to run at all clear. He was both surprised and offended. What could
all this mean? What had all at once come over his young wife?
"A country clod-hopper!" he muttered to himself over and over again.
"Ungraceful--ungenteel, and all that! Very complimentary, indeed!"
When Lee joined his wife in their chamber, two hours after she had
left him, he found that she had retired to bed and was sleeping.
On the next morning both looked very sober, and both were cold and
distant. A few words only passed between them. It was the same when
they met at dinner-time, and the same when Lee came home in the
evening. During the whole of this day, the thought of each was upon
the other; but it was not a forgiving thought. Kate cherished angry
feelings toward her husband; and Lee continued to be offended at the
freedom of expression which his young wife had ventured to use
toward him. Of course, both were very unhappy.
The formal intercourse of the tea-table having ended, Lee, feeling
little inclined to pass the evening with his reserved and
sober-looking partner, put on his hat, and merely remarking that he
would not return until bed-time, left the house. This act startled
Kate. With the jar of the closing door came a gush of tears. The
evening was passed alone. How wretched she felt as the hours moved
slowly on!
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Lee came home. By that time, the
mind of Kate was in an agony of suspense. More than once the thought
that he had abandoned her intruded itself, and filled her with fear
and anguish. What a relief to her feelings it was when she heard the
rattle of his night-key in the lock! But she could not meet him with
a smile. She could not throw her arms around his neck, and press her
hot cheek to his. No: for she felt that he was angry with her
without just cause, and had visited with unjust severity a light
offence--if, so far as she was concerned, her act were worthy to be
called an offence.
And so they looked coldly upon each other when they met, and then
averted their eyes.
The morning broke, but with no fairer promise of a sunny day. Clouds
obscured their whole horizon. Coldly they parted after the brief and
scarcely tasted meal. How wretched they were!
During the forenoon, Mrs. Morton, the friend of Mrs. Lee, called in
to see her young friend.
"Why, Kate! What has happened?" she exclaimed, the moment she saw
her.