"That Leaning Tower, and that little Diana," suggested John.
"Oh, dear me, no! I broke those a month ago, and showed them to Mrs.
Seymour, and promised to mend them. Oh! she knows all about that."
"Ah!" said John, "I didn"t know that. Well, Rosa, put every thing up nicely, and divide this money among the girls for extra trouble," he added, slipping a bill into her hand.
"I"m sure there"s no trouble," said Rosa. "We all enjoyed it; and I believe everybody did; only I"m sorry it was too much for Mrs.
Seymour; she is very delicate."
"Yes, she is," said John, as he turned away, drawing a long, slow sigh.
That long, slow sigh had become a frequent and unconscious occurrence with him of late. When our ideals are sick unto death; when they are slowly dying and pa.s.sing away from us, we sigh thus. John said to himself softly,--no matter what; but he felt the pang of knowing again what he had known so often of late, that his Lillie"s word was not golden. What she said would not bear close examination. Therefore, why examine?
"Evidently, she is determined that this thing shall not go on," said John. "Well, I shall never try again; it"s of no use;" and John went up to his sister"s, and threw himself down upon the old chintz sofa as if it had been his mother"s bosom. His sister sat there, sewing. The sun came twinkling through a rustic frame-work of ivy which it had been the pride of her heart to arrange the week before. All the old family pictures and heirlooms, and sketches and pencillings, were arranged in the most charming way, so that her rooms seemed a reproduction of the old home.
"Hang it all!" said John, with a great flounce as he turned over on the sofa. "I"m not up to par this morning."
Now, Grace had that perfect intuitive knowledge of just what the matter was with her brother, that women always have who have grown up in intimacy with a man. These fine female eyes see farther between the rough cracks and ridges of the oak bark of manhood than men themselves. Nothing would have been easier, had Grace been a jealous _exigeante_ woman, than to have pa.s.sed a fine probe of sisterly inquiry into the weak places where the ties between John and Lillie were growing slack, and untied and loosened them more and more.
She could have done it so tenderly, so conscientiously, so pityingly,--encouraging John to talk and to complain, and taking part with him,--till there should come to be two parties in the family, the brother and sister against the wife.
How strong the temptation was, those may feel who reflect that this one subject caused an almost total eclipse of the life-long habit of confidence which had existed between Grace and her brother, and that her brother was her life and her world.
But Grace was one of those women formed under the kindly severe discipline of Puritan New England, to act not from blind impulse or instinct, but from high principle. The habit of self-examination and self-inspection, for which the religious teaching of New England has been peculiar, produced a race of women who rose superior to those mere feminine caprices and impulses which often hurry very generous and kindly-natured persons into ungenerous and dishonorable conduct.
Grace had been trained, by a father and mother whose marriage union was an ideal of mutual love, honor, and respect, to feel that marriage was the holiest and most awful of obligations. To her, the idea of a husband or a wife betraying each other"s weaknesses or faults by complaints to a third party seemed something sacrilegious; and she used all her womanly tact and skill to prevent any conversation that might lead to such a result.
"Lillie is entirely knocked up by the affair yesterday; she had a terrible headache this morning," said John.
"Poor child! She is a delicate little thing," said Grace.
"She couldn"t have had any labor," continued John, "for I saw to every thing and provided every thing myself; and Bridget and Rosa and all the girls entered into it with real spirit, and Lillie did the best she could, poor girl! but I could see all the time she was worrying about her new fizgigs and folderols in the house. Hang it! I wish they were all in the Red Sea!" burst out John, glad to find something to vent himself upon. "If I had known that making the house over was going to be such a restraint on a fellow, I would never have done it."
"Oh, well! never mind that now," said Grace. "Your house will get rubbed down by and by, and the new gloss taken off; and so will your wife, and you will all be cosey and easy as an old shoe. Young mistresses, you see, have nerves all over their house at first. They tremble at every dent in their furniture, and wink when you come near it, as if you were going to hit it a blow; but that wears off in time, and they learn to take it easy."
John looked relieved; but after a minute broke out again:--
"I say, Gracie, Lillie has gone and invited the Simpkinses and the Follingsbees here this fall. Just think of it!"
"Well, I suppose you expect your wife to have the right of inviting her company," said Grace.
"But, you know, Gracie, they are not at all our sort of folks," said John. "None of our set would ever think of visiting them, and it"ll seem so odd to see them here. Follingsbee is a vulgar sharper, who has made his money out of our country by dishonest contracts during the war. I don"t know much about his wife. Lillie says she is her intimate friend."
"Oh, well, John! we must get over it in the quietest way possible. It wouldn"t be handsome not to make the agreeable to your wife"s company; and if you don"t like the quality of it, why, you are a good deal nearer to her than any one else can be,--you can gradually detach her from them."
"Then you think I ought to put a good face on their coming?" said John, with a sigh of relief.
"Oh, certainly! of course. What else can you do? It"s one of the things to be expected with a young wife."
"And do you think the Wilc.o.xes and the Fergusons and the rest of our set will be civil?"
"Why, of course they will," said Grace. "Rose and Let.i.tia will, certainly; and the others will follow suit. After all, John, perhaps we old families, as we call ourselves, are a little bit pharisaical and self-righteous, and too apt to thank G.o.d that we are not as other men are. It"ll do us good to be obliged to come a little out of our crinkles."
"It isn"t any old family feeling about Follingsbee," said John. "But I feel that that man deserves to be in State"s prison much more than many a poor dog that is there now."
"And that may be true of many another, even in the selectest circles of good society," said Grace; "but we are not called on to play Providence, nor p.r.o.nounce judgments. The common courtesies of life do not commit us one way or the other. The Lord himself does not express his opinion of the wicked, but allows all an equal share in his kindliness."
"Well, Gracie, you are right; and I"ll constrain myself to do the thing handsomely," said John.
"The thing with you men," said Grace, "is, that you want your wives to see with your eyes, all in a minute, what has got to come with years and intimacy, and the gradual growing closer and closer together.
The husband and wife, of themselves, drop many friendships and a.s.sociations that at first were mutually distasteful, simply because their tastes have grown insensibly to be the same."
John hoped it would be so with himself and Lillie; for he was still very much in love with her; and it comforted him to have Grace speak so cheerfully, as if it were possible.
"You think Lillie will grow into our ways by and by?"--he said inquiringly.
"Well, if we have patience, and give her time. You know, John, that you knew when you took her that she had not been brought up in our ways of living and thinking. Lillie comes from an entirely different set of people from any we are accustomed to; but a man must face all the consequences of his marriage honestly and honorably."
"I know it," said John, with a sigh. "I say, Gracie, do you think the Fergusons like Lillie? I want her to be intimate with them."
"Well, I think they admire her," said Grace, evasively, "and feel disposed to be as intimate as she will let them."
"Because," said John, "Rose Ferguson is such a splendid girl; she is so strong, and so generous, and so perfectly true and reliable,--it would be the joy of my heart if Lillie would choose her for a friend."
"Then, pray don"t tell her so," said Grace, earnestly; "and don"t praise her to Lillie,--and, above all things, never hold her up as a pattern, unless you want your wife to hate her."
John opened his eyes very wide.
"So!" said he, slowly, "I never thought of that. You think she would be jealous?" and John smiled, as men do at the idea that their wives may be jealous, not disliking it on the whole.
"I know _I_ shouldn"t be in much charity with a woman my husband proposed to me as a model; that is to say, supposing I had one," said Grace.
"That reminds me," said John, suddenly rising up from the sofa.
"Do you know, Gracie, that Colonel Sydenham has come back from his cruise?"
"I had heard of it," said Grace, quietly. "Now, John, don"t interrupt me. I"m just going to turn this corner, and must count,--"one, two, three, four, five, six,""--
John looked at his sister. "How handsome she looks when her cheeks have that color!" he thought. "I wonder if there ever was any thing in that affair between them."
CHAPTER XIV.
_A GREAT MORAL CONFLICT_.
"Now, John dear, I have something very particular that I want you to promise me," said Mrs. Lillie, a day or two after the scenes last recorded. Our Lillie had recovered her spirits, and got over her headache, and had come down and done her best to be delightful; and when a very pretty woman, who has all her life studied the art of pleasing, does that, she generally succeeds.
John thought to himself he "didn"t care _what_ she was, he loved her;"