Marion Harland

“ Love so beautiful and intense as this, like snow in its purity, like fire in its fervor, cannot be won to full and eloquent utterance but by answering love—a sentiment identical in kind, if not equal in degree; and Sarah Hammond's estimate of her husband's affection was, in consequence of this want in herself, cruelly unjust in its coldness and poverty. His patience with her transient fits of gloom or waywardness in the early months of their married life; his noble forgetfulness of her faults, and grateful acknowledgment of her most trifling effort to please him ”

“ I danced once with the Bullfinch—one of those solemn quadrilles that are only fit for grandmothers—and vowed to myself that I would not stand up again, except for a polka or the lancers. While I was sitting down by the window, saying 'Yes' and 'No,' when Bullfinch spoke, Mr. Newman introduced 'Mr. Benson' to 'Miss Hunt,' and the work was done!"
"No more waltzing, then!" was Victoria's slyly malicious sequel.
"I did not care so much for that as I thought I should!" replied easy-tempered Lucy. "You cannot find a man who has not some drawback. ”

“ Father looked grave when I was in his sight; but the children could laugh and talk as if nothing had happened, and I have seen mother and Lucy chattering merrily in the room with the dressmaker over my new dresses, while they were criticizing the crape trimmings. And I had buried my last earthly hope in my baby's grave! Then I remembered you, and how you had talked to me of your lost children, and how you had assured me of a home in your heart and house whenever I chose to claim it, and I believed in you, Aunt Sarah! There are not many whom I do trust ”

“ Is it, then, an easy lot that you have chosen, Sarah Hunt? You, whose pride and glory it was to be truthful, who spurned whatever assimilated in the least degree to deception, what think you of a life where a lie meets you on the threshold and must be accepted and perpetuated if you would preserve your name and position in his eyes and those of the world. "It is the way two-thirds of the married people live!" ”

“ Do you intend to seek a husband, boldly and unblushingly, in all public places? to degrade yourself by practising the arts they understand so well to catch an 'eligible' partner, who may repay your insincerity and mercenary views by insult and infidelity—at best by indifference! Child! you do not know the risk match-making mothers and husband-hunting daughters run; the terrible retribution that may be—that often is in store for such! I had rather see you and your sister dead, than the victims of that most hateful of heartless shows—a fashionable marriage! Poor Lucy! poor Lucy! ”

“ Like the fabled Lacedæmonian boy, Sarah carried the gnawing horror with a fortitude that looked like cheerfulness. Habit cannot lighten the weight of a clinging curse; but strength and hardness come in time, if the burdened one is not early crushed by his load.
The sisters spent most of the day in Lucy's room; the latter stretched upon the lounge, as she declared, "completely used up." Mrs. Hunt came around early in the forenoon, and into her sympathizing ears the spoiled child poured the story of her woes and wrongs; Sarah sitting by with a swelling, rebellious heart. ”

“ Not a man survived to tell the tale."
For an hour they sat thus and talked. The subject had, for Sarah, a fearful fascination, and, led on by her absorbed attention, Philip rehearsed to her wonders and stories of the mysterious old ocean, that to-day stretched before them, blanched and angry, under the veil of summer cloud, until to his auditor there were bitter wailings blent with the surge's roar; arms, strained and bare, were tossed above the dark, serpent-like swell of water, in unavailing supplication, and livid, dead faces stared upon her from beneath the curling crests of the breakers. ”

“ Sarah did not move or speak, yet upon her enchanted ground a cloud had fallen. She saw the high casement and its tearful gazer into the night, a night not of music, and moonlight, and love, but chill, and wet, and dreary. Rain dripped from eaves and trees; stone steps and pavements caught a ghastly gleam from street lamps; save that sorrowful watcher, there was no living creature abroad or awake. She grew cold and sick with looking into those despairing eyes; the gloom, the loneliness, the woe of that vigil became her own, and her heart sank swooning beneath the burden. ”

“ Victoria continued, patronizingly. "You must quite despise Lucy and myself for thinking of and doing so much for ourselves, while you are such a pattern of self-denial."
A blaze shot up in Sarah's eye; then she said, coldly: "I am not self-denying. Have I ever found fault with you or Lucy for doing as you like?"
"Oh, no, my dear. But you take no interest in what we enjoy. I dare say, now, you would think it a dull business to work day after day for three or four weeks together, crocheting a shawl which may go out of fashion before one has a chance to sport it at a watering-place." ”

“ He was an elderly man, whose charity for fashionable mothers was very scant, and, having seen Mrs. Hammond in the ball-room the evening before, he was not prepared for the solicitude she manifested.
"You had better let the nurse take her!" he said, more gently, as Sarah, with difficulty, held down the struggling hands that might do hurt to the head and face.
"No! I will have no one touch her but myself!"
The morning broke, the day heightened into noon, and the paroxysms only abated in violence as the babe's strength declined. Steadfast to her word, the mother had not once resigned her. ”

“ There, resting among the pillows of the lounge, Aunt Sarah beside her, with the ubiquitous knitting-work in hand, lest too close observation should confuse her niece, the stricken one unfolded the whole of her sad history.
No more affecting proof could have been given of her prostrated mind and will than this unreserved recital. The secret she had sold conscience and liberty to preserve, she communicated now without a blush. Here—where she had formed the intimacy that had shadowed so darkly her after days—she detailed every step of the wrong course to which this weakness was a key ”

“ I must have beauty and grace as well. Yet," he continued, relentingly, "there are times when she would be quite handsome if she dressed better. It is a pity her love for the beautiful does not enter into her choice of wearing apparel!"
In ten minutes more he was asleep, and dreamed that he stood at the altar with his long sought ideal, when, as the last binding words were spoken, she changed to Sarah Hunt, arrayed in a light blue lawn of last year's fashion, that made her look as sallow as a lemon, and, to his taste, as little to be desired for "human nature's daily food." ”

“ It is to have you say—openly, fearlessly, as my wife has a right to do—'Lewis, I love you!'"
"It need be a source of no unhappiness to be married to a man whom one does not love, provided he is kind and generous!" say match-makers and worldly-wise mothers. Perhaps not, after one's conscience is seared in callosity by perjuries, and her forehead grown bold as brass; but the neophyte in the laudable work of adaptation to such circumstances will trip in her words and color awkwardly while acquiring this enviable hardihood.
Sarah's head fell, and her face was stained with blushes. ”

“ Do you ever catch yourself wishing that your husband were not such an old-fashioned piece of constancy, and would give some other fellow a chance to say a pretty thing, when you are in company?"
"I do not complain," said Sarah, demurely.
"Not in words, perhaps; your patience is wonderful in everything. But how do you feel when you see your old neighbor, Mrs. Bond, waltzing every set with the gayest gallant in the ball-room, while your jailor does not like to have you 'polk' at all, and favors your dancing only with men whom he knows to be respectable?" ”

“ The sitting-room door was open, and, aware that Victoria West was in there with Lucy, Sarah trod very softly as she neared it. Her own name arrested her as she was going by. She stopped involuntarily.
"I thought Sarah a girl of better regulated mind," said Victoria, in a tone of censorious pity. "Of course she suffers! It is the inevitable consequence of an unrequited attachment. Such miserable folly, such unpardonable weakness brings its punishment with it. But my sympathies are all yours, my dearest. I only wish you were not so sensitive. You are not to blame for her blind mistake." ”

“ Such was her mother, whose domestic virtues were extolled by all who knew her; such, behind her mask of tender grace and amiability, the sister who had won, by these factitious attractions, the heart for which Sarah would have perilled life, sacrificed ease and inclination, bowed her proud spirit to the estate of bond-servant to his every caprice, become the willing slave to his tyrannical behest. Yet Philip Benson was a professed judge of character; a man of sense, education, and experience, and, knowing both girls as he did, he had made his choice ”

“ It was an infant's shoe, a dainty little gaiter, that peeped, during the day, from beneath Baby Belle's white skirt. To Sarah's touch it seemed that the lining still retained the warmth of the child's foot.
Never, oh, never, was the patter of those baby feet to make glad music for the mother's ear! Others must guide and sustain her trial steps; others smooth her daily path; others direct the inexperience of the girl in the perilous passes where that mother had fallen and perished! ”

“ Philip, too, remembered that barren shore, the tumbling breakers, the solitary sea-bird's labored flight landward. Was this his work? It was but a flicker of truth—dashed out the next second by a blow of indignant will.
"You may forbid me to address you by this title, Sarah; but you cannot hinder me from sympathizing with you in your sorrow, and trying to befriend you. If my companionship is unwelcome, allow me to conduct you to your room. I cannot leave you alone here, where there is continual passing."
"You are right. Regard for appearances is the one thing needful," she said, mockingly. ”