SCENE THIRD.
ONE more eager, almost fierce struggle with alluring fortune, in which the worldling came near steeping his soul in crime, and then fruitless ambition died in his bosom.
"My brother said well," he murmured, as a ray of light fell suddenly on the darkness of his spirit: "Contentment _is_ better than wealth.
Dear brother! Dear old home! Sweet Ellen! Ah, why did I leave you?
Too late! too late! A cup, full of the wine of life, was at my lips; but I turned my head away, asking for a more fiery and exciting draught. How vividly comes before me now that parting scene! I am looking into my brother"s face. I feel the tight grasp of his hand.
His voice is in my ears. Dear brother! And his parting words, I hear them now, even more earnestly than when they were first spoken:--"Should fortune cheat you with the apples of Sodom, return to your home again. Its doors will ever be open, and its hearth-fires bright for you as of old." Ah! do the fires still burn?
How many years have pa.s.sed since I went forth! And Ellen? But I dare not think of her. It is too late--too late! Even if she be living and unchanged in her affections, I can never lay this false heart at her feet. Her look of love would smite me as with a whip of scorpions."
The step of time had fallen so lightly on the flowery path of those to whom contentment was a higher boon than wealth, that few footmarks were visible. Yet there had been changes in the old homestead. As the smiling years went by, each, as it looked in at the cottage-window, saw the home circle widening, or new beauty crowning the angel brows of happy children. No thorn in his side had Robert"s gentle wife proved. As time pa.s.sed on, closer and closer was she drawn to his bosom; yet never a point had pierced him. Their home was a type of paradise.
It is near the close of a summer day. The evening meal is spread, and they are about gathering around the table, when a stranger enters. His words are vague and brief, his manner singular, his air slightly mysterious. Furtive, yet eager glances go from face to face.
"Are these all your children?" he asks, surprise and admiration mingling in his tones.
"All ours. And, thank G.o.d! the little flock is yet unbroken."
The stranger averts his face. He is disturbed by emotions that it is impossible to conceal.
"Contentment is better than wealth," he murmurs. "Oh that I had earlier comprehended this truth!"
The words were not meant for others; but the utterance had been too distinct. They have reached the ears of Robert, who instantly recognises in the stranger his long wandering, long mourned brother.
"William!"
The stranger is on his feet. A moment or two the brothers stand gazing at each other, then tenderly embrace.
"William!"
How the stranger starts and trembles! He had not seen, in the quiet maiden, moving among and ministering to the children so un.o.btrusively, the one he had parted from years before--the one to whom he had been so false. But her voice has startled his ears with the familiar tones of yesterday.
"Ellen!" Here is an instant oblivion of all the intervening years.
He has leaped back over the gloomy gulf, and stands now as he stood ere ambition and l.u.s.t for gold lured him away from the side of his first and only love. It is well both for him and the faithful maiden that he can so forget the past as to take her in his arms and clasp her almost wildly to his heart. But for this, conscious shame would have betrayed his deeply repented perfidy.
And here we leave them, reader. "Contentment is better than wealth."
So the wordling proved, after a bitter experience--which may you be spared! It is far better to realize a truth perceptively, and thence make it a rule of action, than to prove its verity in a life of sharp agony. But how few are able to rise into such a realization!
MATCH-MAKING.
"YOU are a sly girl, Mary."
"Not by general reputation, I believe, Mrs. Martindale."
"Oh no. Every one thinks you a little paragon of propriety. But I can see as deep as most people."
"You might as well talk in High Dutch to me, Mrs. Martindale. You would be equally intelligible."
"You are a very innocent girl, Mary."
"I hope I am. Certainly I am not conscious of wishing harm to any one. But pray, Mrs. Martindale, oblige me by coming a little nearer to the point."
"You don"t remember any thing about Mrs. Allenson"s party--of course?"
"It would be strange if I did not."
"Oh yes. Now you begin to comprehend a little."
"Do speak out plainly, Mrs. Martindale!"
"So innocent! Ah me, Mary! you are a sly girl. You didn"t see any thing of a young man there with dark eyes and hair, and a beautiful white, high forehead?"
"If there was an individual there, answering to your description, it is highly probable that I did see him. But what then?"
"Oh, nothing, of course!"
"You are trifling with me, Mrs. Martindale."
"Seriously, then, Mary, I was very much pleased to notice the attentions shown you by Mr. Fenwick, and more pleased at seeing how much those attentions appeared to gratify you. He is a young man in a thousand."
"I am sure I saw nothing very particular in his attentions to me; and I am very certain that I was also more gratified at the attentions shown by him, than I was by those of other young men present."
"Of course not."
"You seem to doubt my word?"
"Oh no--I don"t doubt your word. But on these subjects young ladies feel themselves privileged to--to"----
"To what, Mrs. Martindale?"
"Nothing--only. But don"t you think Mr. Fenwick a charming young man?"
"I didn"t perceive any thing very remarkable about him."
"He did about you. I saw that, clearly."
"How can you talk so to me, Mrs. Martindale?"
"Oh la! Do hear the girl! Did you never have a beau, Mary?"
"Yes, many a one. What of it?"