Chapter 6

"It is comfortable for me," said he, moodily to himself; "and it's my own house. If she don't like it, let her--"

He did not finish the sentence, for he felt that his state of mind was not what it should be, and that to speak thus of his wife was neither just nor kind.

Unhappy young man! Is it thus you visit the light offence--for it was light, in reality--of the loving and gentle young creature who has given her happiness, her very life into your keeping? Could you not bear a word from her? Are you so perfect, that her eyes must see no defect? Is she never to dare, on penalty of your stern displeasure, to correct a fault--to seek to lift you, by her purer and better taste, above the ungraceful and unmanly habits consequent upon a neglected boyhood? What if her hand was laid rather heavily upon you? What if her feelings did prompt her to use words that had better been left unsaid? It was the young wife's pride in her husband that warmed her into undue excitement, and this you should have at once comprehended.

If Frederick Lee did not think precisely as we have written, his thoughts gradually inclined in that direction. Still he felt moody, and his feelings warmed but little toward Kate.

Thus he sat for some ten or fifteen minutes. At the end of this time, he heard light footsteps coming down the stairs. He knew them to be those of his wife. He did not move nor make a sound, but rather crouched lower in his chair, the back of which was turned toward the door. But his thought was on his wife. He saw her with the eyes of his mind--saw her with her clouded countenance. His heart throbbed heavily against his side, and he partially held his breath.

Now her footsteps moved along the passage, and now he was conscious that she had entered the room where he sat. Not the slightest movement did he make--not a sign did he give of his presence. There he sat, shrinking down in his chair, moody, gloomy, and angry with Kate in his heart.

Was she aware of his presence? Had she heard him enter the house? Such were the questioning thoughts that were in his mind.

Footsteps moved across the room. Now Kate was at the mantel-piece, a few feet from the chair he occupied, for he heard her lay a book thereon. Now she passed to the back window, and throwing it up, pushed open the shutters, giving freer entrance to the waning light.

A deep silence followed. Now the stillness is broken by a gentle sigh that floats faintly through the room. How rebukingly smote that sigh upon the ears of Lee! How it softened his heart toward Kate, the young and loving wife of his bosom! A slower movement in the current of his angry feelings succeeds to this. Then it becomes still. There is a pause.

But where is Kate? Has she left the room? He listens for some movement, but not the slightest sound meets his ear.

"Kate!" No, he did not utter the word aloud, in tender accents, though it was in his heart and on his tongue. Nor did he start up or move. No, as if spell-bound, he remained crouching down in his chair.

All at once he is conscious that some one is bending above him, and, in the next moment, warm lips touch his forehead, gently, hesitatingly, yet with a lingering pressure.

"Kate! Dear Kate!"

He has sprung to his feet, and his arms are flung around his wife.

"Forgive me, Frederick, if I seemed unkind to you," sobbed Kate, as soon as she could command her voice. "There was no unkindness in my heart--only love."

"It is I who most need to ask forgiveness," replied Lee. "I who have--"

"Hush! Not a word of that now," quickly returned Kate, placing her hand upon his mouth. "Let the past be forgotten."

"And forgiven, too," said Lee, as he pressed his lips eagerly to those of his wife.

How happy they were at this moment of reconciliation! How light seemed the causes which had risen up to mar the beautiful harmony of their lives! Haw weak and foolish both had been, as their acts now appeared in eyes from which had fallen the scales of passion!

Both were wiser than in the aforetime. Kate tried to look away, as much as possible, from the little faults which at first so much annoyed her; while her husband turned his thoughts more narrowly upon himself, at the same time that he made observation of other men, and was soon well convinced that sundry changes in his habits and manners might be made with great advantage. The more his eyes were opened to these little personal defects, the more fully did he forgive Kate for having in the beginning laid her hand upon them, though not in the gentlest manner.

"Six months have passed since you were married," said Mrs. Morton one day to Kate.

"Yes, six months have flown on wings of perfume," replied the happy wife.

"I saw Frederick yesterday."

"Did you?"

"Yes; and I knew him the moment my eyes rested upon him."

"Knew him! Why shouldn't you know him?"

Kate looked a little surprised.

"I thought he was to be so changed under your hands in six months, that I would hardly recognise him."

There was an arch look in Mrs. Morton's eyes, and a merry flutter in her voice.

"Mrs. Morton! Now that is too bad!"

"Your experiment failed, did it not, dear?"

The door of the room in which the ladies were sitting opened at the moment, and Frederick Lee entered.

"Not entirely," whispered Kate, as she bent to the ear of her friend. "He is vastly improved--at least, in my eyes."

"And in others' eyes, too," thought Mrs. Morton, as she arose and returned the young man's smiling salutation.

"MY FORTUNE'S MADE."

My young friend, Cora Lee, was a gay, dashing girl, fond of dress, and looking always as if, to use a common saying, just out of a bandbox. Cora was a belle, of course, and had many admirers. Among the number of these, was a young man named Edward Douglass, who was the very "pink" of neatness in all matters pertaining to dress, and exceedingly particular in his observance of the little proprieties of life.

I saw, from the first, that if Douglass pressed his suit, Cora's heart would be an easy conquest, and so it proved.

"How admirably they are fitted for each other!" I remarked to my husband, on the night of their wedding. "Their tastes are similar, and their habits so much alike, that no violence will be done to the feelings of either in the more intimate associations that marriage brings. Both are neat in person and orderly by instinct, and both have good principles."

"From all present appearances, the match will be a good one," replied my husband. There was, I thought, something like reservation in his tone.

"Do you really think so?" I said, a little ironically, for Mr. Smith's approval of the marriage was hardly warm enough to suit my fancy.

"Oh, certainly! Why not?" he replied.

I felt a little fretted at my husband's mode of speaking, but made no further remark on the subject. He is never very enthusiastic nor sanguine, and did not mean, in this instance, to doubt the fitness of the parties for happiness in the marriage state--as I half imagined. For myself, I warmly approved of my friend's choice, and called her husband a lucky man to secure, for his companion through life, a woman so admirably fitted to make one like him happy. But a visit which I paid to Cora one day about six weeks after the honeymoon had expired, lessened my enthusiasm on the subject, and awoke some unpleasant doubts. It happened that I called soon after breakfast. Cora met me in the parlour, looking like a very fright. She wore a soiled and rumpled morning wrapper; her hair was in papers; and she had on dirty stockings, and a pair of old slippers down at the heels.

"Bless me, Cora!" said I. "What is the matter? Have you been sick?"

"No. Why do you ask? Is my dishabille rather on the extreme?"

"Candidly, I think it is, Cora," was my frank answer.

"Oh, well! No matter," she carelessly replied, "my fortune's made."

"I don't clearly understand you," said I.

"I'm married, you know."

"Yes; I am aware of that fact."

"No need of being so particular in dress now."

"Why not?"

"Didn't I just say?" replied Cora. "My fortune's made. I've got a husband."

Beneath an air of jesting, was apparent the real earnestness of my friend.

"You dressed with a careful regard to taste and neatness, in order to win Edward's love?" said I.

"Certainly I did."

"And should you not do the same in order to retain it?"

"Why, Mrs. Smith! Do you think my husband's affection goes no deeper than my dress? I should be very sorry indeed to think that. He loves me for myself."

"No doubt of that in the world, Cora. But remember that he cannot see what is in your mind except by what you do or say. If he admires your taste, for instance, it is not from any abstract appreciation thereof, but because the taste manifests itself in what you do. And, depend upon it, he will find it a very hard matter to approve and admire your correct taste in dress, for instance, when you appear before him, day after day, in your present unattractive attire. If you do not dress well for your husband's eyes, for whose eyes, pray, do you dress? You are as neat when abroad as you were before your marriage."

"As to that, Mrs. Smith, common decency requires me to dress well when I go upon the street or into company, to say nothing of the pride one naturally feels in looking well."

"And does not the same common decency and natural pride argue as strongly in favour of your dressing well at home, and for the eye of your husband, whose approval and whose admiration must be dearer to you than the approval and admiration of the whole world?"

"But he doesn't want to see me rigged out in silks and satins all the time. A pretty bill my dressmaker would have against him! Edward has more sense than that, I flatter myself."

"Street or ball-room attire is one thing, Cora, and becoming home apparel another. We look for both in their places."

Thus I argued with the thoughtless young wife, but my words made no impression. When abroad, she dressed with exquisite taste, and was lovely to look upon; but at home, she was careless and slovenly, and made it almost impossible for those who saw her to realize that she was the brilliant beauty they had met in company but a short time before. But even this did not last long. I noticed, after a few months, that the habits of home were confirming themselves, and becoming apparent abroad. Her "fortune was made," and why should she now waste time or employ her thoughts about matters of personal appearance?

The habits of Mr. Douglass, on the contrary, did not change. He was as orderly as before, and dressed with the same regard to neatness. He never appeared at the breakfast-table in the morning without being shaved; nor did he lounge about in the evening in his shirt-sleeves. The slovenly habits into which Cora had fallen annoyed him seriously; and still more so, when her carelessness about her appearance began to manifest itself abroad as well as at home. When he hinted any thing on the subject, she did not hesitate to reply, in a jesting manner, that her fortune was made, and she need not trouble herself any longer about how she looked.

Douglass did not feel very much complimented; but as he had his share of good sense, he saw that to assume a cold and offended manner would do no good.

"If your fortune is made, so is mine," he replied on one occasion, quite coolly and indifferently. Next morning he made his appearance at the breakfast table with a beard of twenty-four hours' growth.

"You haven't shaved this morning, dear," said Cora, to whose eyes the dirty-looking face of her husband was particularly unpleasant.

"No," he replied, carelessly. "It's a serious trouble to shave every day."

"But you look so much better with a cleanly-shaved face."

"Looks are nothing--ease and comfort every thing," said Douglass.

"But common decency, Edward."

"I see nothing indecent in a long beard," replied the husband.

Still Cora argued, but in vain. Her husband went off to his business with his unshaven face.

"I don't know whether to shave or not," said Douglass next morning, running his hand over his rough face, upon which was a beard of forty-eight hours' growth. His wife had hastily thrown on a wrapper, and, with slip-shod feet and head like a mop, was lounging in a large rocking-chair, awaiting the breakfast-bell.

"For mercy's sake, Edward, don't go any longer with that shockingly dirty face," spoke up Cora. "If you knew how dreadfully you look!"

"Looks are nothing," replied Edward, stroking his beard.

"Why, what's come over you all at once?"

"Nothing; only it's such a trouble to shave every day."

"But you didn't shave yesterday."

"I know; I am just as well off to-day as if I had. So much saved, at any rate."

But Cora urged the matter, and her husband finally yielded, and mowed down the luxuriant growth of beard.

"How much better you do look!" said the young wife. "Now don't go another day without shaving."

"But why should I take so much trouble about mere looks? I'm just as good with a long beard as with a short one. It's a great deal of trouble to shave every day. You can love me just as well; and why need I care about what others say or think?"

On the following morning, Douglass appeared not only with a long beard, but with a bosom and collar that were both soiled and rumpled.

"Why, Edward! How you do look!" said Cora. "You've neither shaved nor put on a clean shirt."

Edward stroked his face and run his fingers along the edge of his collar, remarking, indifferently, as he did so--

"It's no matter. I look well enough. This being so very particular in dress is waste of time, and I'm getting tired of it."

And in this trim Douglass went off to his business, much to the annoyance of his wife, who could not bear to see her husband looking so slovenly.

Gradually the declension from neatness went on, until Edward was quite a match for his wife; and yet, strange to say, Cora had not taken the hint, broad as it was. In her own person she was as untidy as ever.

About six months after their marriage, we invited a few friends to spend a social evening with us, Cora and her husband among the number. Cora came alone, quite early, and said that her husband was very much engaged, and could not come until after tea. My young friend had not taken much pains with her attire. Indeed, her appearance mortified me, as it contrasted so decidedly with that of the other ladies who were present; and I could not help suggesting to her that she was wrong in being so indifferent about her dress. But she laughingly replied to me--

"You know my fortune's made now, Mrs. Smith. I can afford to be negligent in these matters. It's a great waste of time to dress so much."

I tried to argue against this, but could make no impression upon her.

About an hour after tea, and while we were all engaged in pleasant conversation, the door of the parlour opened, and in walked Mr. Douglass. At first glance I thought I must be mistaken. But no, it was Edward himself. But what a figure he did cut! His uncombed hair was standing up, in stiff spikes, in a hundred different directions; his face could not have felt the touch of a razor for two or three days; and he was guiltless of clean linen for at least the same length of time. His vest was soiled; his boots unblacked; and there was an unmistakable hole in one of his elbows.

"Why, Edward!" exclaimed his wife, with a look of mortification and distress, as her husband came across the room, with a face in which no consciousness of the figure he cut could be detected.

"Why, my dear fellow! What is the matter?" said my husband, frankly; for he perceived that the ladies were beginning to titter, and that the gentlemen were looking at each other, and trying to repress their risible tendencies; and therefore deemed it best to throw off all reserve on the subject.

"The matter? Nothing's the matter, I believe. Why do you ask?" Douglass looked grave.

"Well may he ask, what's the matter?" broke in Cora, energetically. "How could you come here in such a plight?"

"In such a plight?" And Edward looked down at himself, felt his beard, and ran his fingers through his hair. "What's the matter? Is any thing wrong?"

"You look as if you'd just waked up from a nap of a week with your clothes on, and come off without washing your face or combing your hair," said my husband.

"Oh!" And Edward's countenance brightened a little. Then he said with much gravity of manner--

"I've been extremely hurried of late; and only left my store a few minutes ago. I hardly thought it worth while to go home to dress up. I knew we were all friends here. Besides, _as my fortune is made_"--and he glanced with a look not to be mistaken toward his wife--"I don't feel called upon to give as much attention to mere dress as formerly. Before I was married, it was necessary to be particular in these matters, but now it's of no consequence."

I turned toward Cora. Her face was like crimson. In a few moments she arose and went quickly from the room. I followed her, and Edward came after us pretty soon. He found his wife in tears, and sobbing almost hysterically.

"I've got a carriage at the door," said he to me, aside, half laughing, half serious. "So help her on with her things, and we'll retire in disorder."

"But it's too bad in you, Mr. Douglass," replied I.

"Forgive me for making your house the scene of this lesson to Cora," he whispered. "It had to be given, and I thought I could venture to trespass upon your forbearance."

"I'll think about that," said I, in return.

In a few minutes Cora and her husband retired, and in spite of good breeding and every thing else, we all had a hearty laugh over the matter, on my return to the parlour, where I explained the curious little scene that had just occurred.

How Cora and her husband settled the affair between themselves, I never inquired. But one thing is certain, I never saw her in a slovenly dress afterward, at home or abroad. She was cured.

THE GOOD MATCH.

"MY heart is now at rest," remarked Mrs. Presstman to her sister, Mrs. Markland. "Florence has done so well. The match is such a good one."

Mrs. Presstman spoke with animation, but her sister's countenance remained rather grave.

"Mr. Barker is worth at least eighty thousand dollars," resumed Mrs. Presstman. "And my husband says, that if he prospers in business as he has done for the last ten years, he will be the richest merchant in the city. Don't you think we have been fortunate in marrying Florence so well?"

"So far as the securing of wealth goes, Florence has certainly done very well," returned Mrs. Markland. "But, surely, sister, you have a higher idea of marriage than to suppose that wealth in a husband is the primary thing. The quality of his mind is of much more importance."

"Oh, certainly, that is not to be lost sight of. Mr. Barker is an excellent man. Every one speaks well of him. No one stands higher in the community than he does."

"That may be. But the general estimation in which a man is held does not, by any means, determine his fitness to become the husband of one like Florence. I think that when I was here last spring, there was some talk of her preference for a young physician. Was such really the case?"

"There was something of that kind," replied Mrs. Presstman, the colour becoming a very little deeper on her cheek--"a foolish notion of the girl's. But that was broken off long ago. It would not do. We could not afford to let her marry a young doctor with a poor practice. We knew her to be worthy something much higher, as the result has shown."

"Doctor Estill, I believe, was his name?"

"Yes."

"I remember him very well--and liked him much. Was Mr. Barker preferred by Florence to Doctor Estill?"

"Why, yes--no--not at first," half-stammered Mrs. Presstman. "That is, you know, she was foolish, like all young girls, and thought she loved him. But that passed away. She is now as happy as she can be."

Mrs. Markland felt that it was not exactly right to press this matter now that the mischief, if any there were, had been done, and so remarked no further upon the subject. But the admission made in her sister's reply to her last question pained her. It corroborated a suspicion that crossed her mind, when she saw her niece, that all was not right within--that the good match which had been made was only good in appearance. She had loved Florence for the innocence, purity, and elevation of soul that so sweetly characterized her. She knew her to be susceptible of tender impressions, and capable of loving deeply an object really worthy of her love. This plant had been, she feared, removed from the warm green-house of home, where the earth had touched tenderly its delicate roots, while its leaves put forth in a genial air, and placed in a hard soil and a chilling atmosphere, still to live on, but with its beauty and fragrance gone. She might be mistaken. But appearances troubled her.

Mrs. Markland lived in a neighbouring city, and was on a visit to her sister. During the two weeks that elapsed, while paying this visit, she heard a great deal about the excellent match that Florence had made. No one of the acquaintances of the family had any thing to say that was not congratulatory. More than one mother of an unmarried daughter, she had good cause for concluding, envied her sister the happiness of having the rich Mr. Barker for a son-in-law. When she parted with her niece, on the eve of her return home, there were tears in her mild blue eyes. It was natural--for Florence loved her aunt, and to part with her was painful. Still, those tears troubled Mrs. Markland. She ought of them hours, and days, and months after, as a token that all was not right in her gentle breast.

Briefly let us now sketch a scene that passed twenty years from this period. Twenty years! That is a long time. Yes--but it is a period that tests the truth or falsity of the leading principles with which we set out in life. Twenty years! Ah! how many, even long before that time elapses, prove the fallaciousness of their hopes! discover the sandy foundation upon which they have built!

Let us introduce Mrs. Barker. Her husband has realized even more than he had hoped for, in the item of wealth. He is worth a million.

Rather a small sum in his eye, it is true, now that he possesses it. And from this very fact, its smallness, he is not happy--for is not Mr. T--worth three millions of dollars? Mr. T--, who is no better, if as good as he is? But what of Mrs. Barker? Ah, yes. Let us see how time has passed with her. Let us see if the hours have danced along with her to measures of glad music, or in cadence with a pensive strain. Has hers indeed been a _good match_? We shall see.

Is that sedate-looking woman, with such a cold expression upon her face, who sits in that elaborately furnished saloon, or parlour, dreamily looking into the glowing grate, Mrs. Barker? Yes, that is the woman who made a _good match_. Can this indeed be so? I see, in imagination, a gentle, loving creature, whose eyes and ears are open to all things beautiful in creation, and whose heart is moved by all that is good and true. Impelled by the very nature into which she has been born--woman's nature--her spirit yearns for high, holy, interior companionship. She enters into that highest, holiest, most interior relationship--marriage. She must be purely happy. Is this so? Can the woman we have introduced at the end of twenty years be the same being with this gentle girl? Alas! that we should have it to say that it is so. There has been no affliction to produce this change--no misfortune. The children she has borne are all about her, and wealth has been poured liberally into her lap. No external wish has been ungratified. Why, then, should her face wear habitually so strange an expression as it does?