The gentlemen now came to claim them for the cotillon. Marie was engaged to dance with Charles Elton, and Flora with Mr. Caulfield; but Mrs. Adair said to him, "I really think that Flora ought not to dance any more, she appears to be so tired."
Flora saw Mr. Caulfield's look of annoyance, and answered with a smile—although it was rather a weary one if the truth must be told—"Not so much so, mamma, that I cannot fulfil my engagement," and she took Mr. Caulfield's arm.
At last the cotillon came to an end, and it was with a feeling of relief at not being obliged to talk or dance any more that Flora followed her mother down the stairs and got into their carriage, Marie declaring that she wished the ball was going to begin again.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
The Eltons' ball, that ball to which our friends Flora Adair, Marie Arbi, and the two Elton girls had looked forward with so much eagerness, was over. Had it brought them pleasure or pain? To Helena and Marie it had brought pleasure; but to Flora and Mary, pain. Mary felt that, although she had succeeded in prejudicing Mr. Earnscliffe against Flora, she had not advanced one step towards winning his admiration for herself; and when Helena congratulated her on his having danced with her—that being an honour which he did not often confer on any one—she answered bitterly, "You mistake, Helena; Mr. Earnscliffe danced with his hostess's eldest daughter, and not with Mary Elton!"
Yet the more the attainment of the object upon which she had set her heart seemed remote, the more wildly did she long for it. To gain Mr. Earnscliffe's love, or even to hinder another from possessing it, she would stoop to any, even the most unworthy, means. Hers was a powerful passion, but it was a passion for evil rather than for good; it was not a passion of devotedness but of selfishness; she would sacrifice his happiness to her love, and not her love to his happiness. Evidently she did not know that a woman's happiness consists "in another's love become her own." The song of Solomon represents the love of the Saviour and His Church under the type of human love;—the Christian marriage ceremony says, "Let a woman be subject to her husband in all things, as the Church is subject to Christ;" and Saint Paul tells "wives" to "be subject to their husbands as unto God!" It is in such submission, and in such alone, that a woman's happiness consists. Short-sighted people call this bondage, but it is that bondage in which alone is true liberty!... To serve truly is indeed to reign!
"What?" we hear young ladies, ay, and old ones too, exclaim—"Are we never to do what we like,—never to think of pleasing ourselves? A curious notion of happiness indeed!" Nevertheless it is the only true one. Woman was created to be "a help meet for man;" her ministry in the world is one of love, and she can never be really happy save in fulfilling the end for which she was created. A mere preference, accompanied by calm affection and esteem, will never enable a woman to be to her husband what the Church is to her Lord. It must be a feeling such as Leibnitz speaks of when he says, "To love, is to place our happiness in the happiness of another;"—and as an illustrious French writer beautifully describes it, so beautifully that we would not venture to translate it, and must be pardoned for quoting somewhat at length in a foreign tongue—"L'amour ne s'arrête pas à l'acte de choix, il exige le dévouement à l'être choisi. Choisir, c'est préférer un être à tous les autres; se dévouer, c'est le préférer à soi-même. Le dévouement, c'est l'immolation de soi à l'objet aimé. Quiconque ne va pas jusque là n'aime pas. La préférence toute seule n'implique en effet qu'un goût de l'âme qui a besoin de s'epancher dans la cause d'où il sort, goût honorable et prècieux sans doute, mais qui se bornant là n'aboutit qu'à se rechercher soi-même dans un autre que soi. Si beaucoup d'affections s'arrêtent à ce point, c'est que beaucoup d'affections ne sont qu'un egoïsme deguisé, on eprouve un attrait, on s'y abandonne, on croit aimer, on a peut-être des lueurs de l'amour veritable, mais l'heure du dévouement arrivée, on reconnait à l'impuissance du sacrifice la vanité du sentiment qui nous préoccupait sans nous posséder."