Harry was just in this perilous point; he viewed danger as long past, his self-confidence was fully restored, and in his security he began to neglect those lighter outworks of caution which he must still guard who does not mean, at last, to surrender the citadel.
"Now, girls and boys," said Mrs. G. to her sons and daughters, who were sitting round a centre table covered with notes of invitation, and all the preliminary _et cetera_ of a party, "what shall we have on Friday night?--tea, coffee, lemonade, wine? of course not."
"And why not wine, mamma?" said the young ladies; "the people are beginning to have it; they had wine at Mrs. A."s and Mrs. B."s."
"Well, your papa thinks it won"t do,--the boys are members of the temperance society,--and _I_ don"t think, girls, it will _do_ myself."
There are many good sort of people, by the by, who always view moral questions in this style of phraseology--not what is right, but what will "_do_."
The girls made an appropriate reply to this view of the subject, by showing that Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. had done the thing, and n.o.body seemed to make any talk.
The boys, who thus far in the conversation had been thoughtfully rapping their boots with their canes, now interposed, and said that they would rather not have wine if it wouldn"t look shabby.
"But it _will_ look shabby," said Miss f.a.n.n.y. "Lemons, you know, are scarce to be got for any price, and as for lemonade made of sirup, it"s positively vulgar and detestable; it tastes just like cream of tartar and spirits of turpentine."
"For my part," said Emma, "I never did see the harm of wine, even when people were making the most fuss about it; to be sure rum and brandy and all that are bad, but wine----"
"And so convenient to get," said f.a.n.n.y; "and no decent young man ever gets drunk at parties, so it can"t do any harm; besides, one must have something, and, as I said, it will look shabby not to have it."
Now, there is no imputation that young men are so much afraid of, especially from the lips of ladies, as that of shabbiness; and as it happened in this case as most others that the young ladies were the most efficient talkers, the question was finally carried on their side.
Mrs. G. was a mild and a motherly woman, just the one fitted to inspire young men with confidence and that _home_ feeling which all men desire to find somewhere. Her house was a free and easy ground, social for most of the young people of her acquaintance, and Harry was a favorite and domesticated visitor.
During the height of the temperance reform, fathers and brothers had given it their open and decided support, and Mrs. G.--always easily enlisted for any good movement--sympathized warmly in their endeavors.
The great fault was, that too often incident to the gentleness of woman--a want of self-reliant principle. Her virtue was too much the result of mere sympathy, too little of her own conviction. Hence, when those she loved grew cold towards a good cause, they found no sustaining power in her, and those who were relying on her judgment and opinions insensibly controlled them. Notwithstanding, she was a woman that always acquired a great influence over young men, and Harry had loved and revered her with something of the same sentiment that he cherished towards his own mother.
It was the most brilliant party of the season. Every thing was got up in faultless taste, and Mrs. G. was in the very spirit of it. The girls were looking beautifully; the rooms were splendid; there was enough and not too much of light and warmth, and all were doing their best to please and be cheerful. Harry was more brilliant than usual, and in fact outdid himself. Wit and mind were the spirit of the hour.
"Just taste this tokay," said one of the sisters to him; "it has just been sent us from Europe, and is said to be a genuine article."
"You know I"m not in that line," said Harry, laughing and coloring.
"Why not?" said another young lady, taking a gla.s.s.
"O, the temperance pledge, you know! I am one of the pillars of the order, a very apostle; it will never do for me."
"Pshaw! those temperance pledges are like the proverb, "something musty,"" said a gay girl.
"Well, but you said you had a headache the beginning of the evening, and you really look pale; you certainly need it as a medicine," said f.a.n.n.y.
"I"ll leave it to mamma;" and she turned to Mrs. G., who stood gayly entertaining a group of young people.
"Nothing more likely," replied she, gayly; "I think, Harry, you have looked pale lately; a gla.s.s of wine might do you good."
Had Mrs. G. known all of Harry"s past history and temptations, and had she not been in just the inconsiderate state that very good ladies sometimes get into at a party, she would sooner have sacrificed her right hand than to have thrown this observation into the scales; but she did, and they turned the balance for him.
"You shall be my doctor," he said, as, laughing and coloring, he drank the gla.s.s--and where was the harm? One gla.s.s of wine kills n.o.body; and yet if a man falls, and knows that in that gla.s.s he sacrifices principle and conscience, every drop may be poison to the soul and body.
Harry felt at that very time that a great internal barrier had given way; nor was that gla.s.s the only one that evening; another, and another, and another followed; his spirits rose with the wild and feverish gayety incident to his excitable temperament, and what had been begun in the society of ladies was completed late at night in the gentlemen"s saloon.
n.o.body ever knew, or thought, or recognized that that one party had forever undone this young man; and yet so it was. From that night his struggle of moral resistance was fatally impaired; not that he yielded at once and without desperate efforts and struggles, but gradually each struggle grew weaker, each reform shorter, each resolution more inefficient; yet at the close of the evening all those friends, mother, brother, and sister, flattered themselves that every thing had gone on so well that the next week Mrs. H. thought that it would do to give wine at the party because Mrs. G. had done it last week, and no harm had come of it.
In about a year after, the G."s began to notice and lament the habits of their young friend, and all unconsciously to wonder how such a fine young man should be so led astray.
Harry was of a decided and desperate nature; his affections and his moral sense waged a fierce war with the terrible tyrant--the madness that had possessed him; and when at last all hope died out, he determined to avoid the anguish and shame of a drunkard"s life by a suicide"s death. Then came to the trembling, heart-stricken mother and beloved one a wild, incoherent letter of farewell, and he disappeared from among the living.
In the same quiet parlor, where the sunshine still streams through flickering leaves, it now rested on the polished sides and glittering plate of a coffin; there at last lay the weary at rest, the soft, shining gray hair was still gleaming as before, but deeper furrows on the wan cheek, and a weary, heavy languor over the pale, peaceful face, told that those gray hairs had been brought down in sorrow to the grave.
Sadder still was the story on the cloudless cheek and lips of the young creature bending in quiet despair over her. Poor Ellen! her life"s thread, woven with these two beloved ones, was broken.
And may all this happen?--nay, does it not happen?--just such things happen to young men among us every day. And do they not lead in a thousand ways to sorrows just like these? And is there not a responsibility on all who ought to be the guardians of the safety and purity of the other s.e.x, to avoid setting before them the temptation to which so often and so fatally manhood has yielded? What is a paltry consideration of fashion, compared to the safety of sons, brothers, and husbands? The greatest fault of womanhood is slavery to custom; and yet who but woman makes custom? Are not all the usages and fashions of polite society more her work than that of man? And let every mother and sister think of the mothers and sisters of those who come within the range of their influence, and say to themselves, when in thoughtlessness they discuss questions affecting their interests, "Behold thy brother!"--"Behold thy son!"
THE CORAL RING.
"There is no time of life in which young girls are so thoroughly selfish as from fifteen to twenty," said Edward Ashton, deliberately, as he laid down a book he had been reading, and leaned over the centre table.
"You insulting fellow!" replied a tall, brilliant-looking creature, who was lounging on an ottoman hard by, over one of d.i.c.kens"s last works.
"Truth, coz, for all that," said the gentleman, with the air of one who means to provoke a discussion.
"Now, Edward, this is just one of your wholesale declarations, for nothing only to get me into a dispute with you, you know," replied the lady. "On your conscience, now, (if you have one,) is it not so?"
"My conscience feels quite easy, cousin, in subscribing to that sentiment as my confession of faith," replied the gentleman, with provoking _sang froid_.
"Pshaw! it"s one of your fusty old bachelor notions. See what comes, now, of your living to your time of life without a wife--disrespect for the s.e.x, and all that. Really, cousin, your symptoms are getting alarming."
"Nay, now, Cousin Florence," said Edward, "you are a girl of moderately good sense, with all your nonsense. Now don"t you (I know you _do_) think just so too?"
"Think just so too!--do you hear the creature?" replied Florence. "No, sir; you can speak for yourself in this matter, but I beg leave to enter my protest when you speak for me too."
"Well, now, where is there, coz, among all our circle, a young girl that has any sort of purpose or object in life, to speak of, except to make herself as interesting and agreeable as possible? to be admired, and to pa.s.s her time in as amusing a way as she can? Where will you find one between fifteen and twenty that has any serious regard for the improvement and best welfare of those with whom she is connected at all, or that modifies her conduct, in the least, with reference to it? Now, cousin, in very serious earnest, you have about as much real character, as much earnestness and depth of feeling, and as much good sense, when one can get at it, as any young lady of them all; and yet, on your conscience, can you say that you live with any sort of reference to any body"s good, or to any thing but your own amus.e.m.e.nt and gratification?"
"What a shocking adjuration!" replied the lady; "prefaced, too, by a three-story compliment. Well, being so adjured, I must think to the best of my ability. And now, seriously and soberly, I don"t see as I am selfish. I do all that I have any occasion to do for any body. You know that we have servants to do every thing that is necessary about the house, so that there is no occasion for my making any display of housewifery excellence. And I wait on mamma if she has a headache, and hand papa his slippers and newspaper, and find Uncle John"s spectacles for him twenty times a day, (no small matter, that,) and then----"
"But, after all, what is the object and purpose of your life?"
"Why, I haven"t any. I don"t see how I can have any--that is, as I am made. Now, you know, I"ve none of the fussing, baby-tending, herb-tea-making recommendations of Aunt Sally, and divers others of the cla.s.s commonly called _useful_. Indeed, to tell the truth, I think useful persons are commonly rather fussy and stupid. They are just like the boneset, and h.o.a.rhound, and catnip--very necessary to be raised in a garden, but not in the least ornamental."
"And you charming young ladies, who philosophize in kid slippers and French dresses, are the tulips and roses--very charming, and delightful, and sweet, but fit for nothing on earth but parlor ornaments."
"Well, parlor ornaments are good in their way," said the young lady, coloring, and looking a little vexed.
"So you give up the point, then," said the gentleman, "that you girls are good for--just to amuse yourselves, amuse others, look pretty, and be agreeable."