At first she tried to convince Fred that he ought to give up all idea of being married for a considerable time; but poor Fred, who sorely missed his kind old father, longed for Janet's companionship, and would not hear of a long delay. Mrs. Rayburn felt that in a small suburban house, with a clerk's salary and a very tiny private income, there would be no home for her! So she set herself with the kindest zeal to persuade Messrs. Hopper and Mason to put Fred into his father's place. Now, it so happened that there was a young Mr. Hopper just home from Germany, who rather wished to fill that post himself, being fond of work, and thinking that the business might be very much increased by more enterprising ways. But, of course, the son of one of the principals could not live in the Gatehouse, and do all the plodding work of the manager. So the matter ended in Fred's being appointed manager, on the understanding that Mr. Francis Hopper was to be in a very special manner his chief and leader.
For the months that intervened between Mr. Rayburn's death and Fred's marriage, the widow kept house for her stepson, and made herself so pleasant to all parties that Janet told her lover that they ought to ask her to stay as long as she liked. So she stayed, and every one was delighted with the nice tact with which she helped the inexperienced young wife. Oh, she was a wonderful woman!
All the time this wonderful woman was quietly filling her purse, looking forward to the time when Fred's family would increase, and the Gatehouse might no longer suit her as a home. She had saved a good deal of money from her housekeeping allowance, though no one suspected it, because she always kept everything so comfortable. She now began to speculate cautiously with her hoards, and thanks to a brother who was in a stockbroker's office in London, she was very fortunate.
Little did any one think, as she sat so quietly at her work of an evening, listening to Fred reading aloud or playing the flute, or perhaps to the baby crying—even good babies cry sometimes—that she was mentally gazing at the sitting-room she meant to have at some not very distant time. She meant to live in London, and to enjoy herself; her rooms were to be models of comfort and elegance, and were to be all for herself; no one to please but herself, no one to flatter, no one to humour, no flute to listen to, no baby to cry. Everything that she liked, plenty of it, and all her very own, exclusively for her own use. Mrs. Rayburn was deeply attached to her "own dear self."
[CHAPTER II.]
THE ROAD TO RUIN.
I WONDER if any of my readers are wondering what is the want in my first chapter? For there is a want, and I feel it myself. For all that I have said, so far, there might be no such thing as religion in the world. Self-interest is the only "motive-power" that I have mentioned. To be respectable, to be comfortable, to make or save money, to be happy in a quiet way—these are the motives I have spoken of, because, alas! They are the motives that governed the lives of those of whom I was writing.
Is it not sad to think that, in a Christian country, after nineteen centuries of Christianity, people can contentedly live as if they had never learned the truths that our Saviour taught? I do not mean that their lives would have been the same if Christianity did not exist in the country. For Christianity gives us all of civilization that is worth having, and civilization is actually necessary before a quiet life is possible. But do you not think it is very ungrateful to accept the blessings and to ignore or to forget Him Who "ascended up on high to give gifts to men"?