CHAPTER III.
INSTANTANEOUS PHOTOGRAPHS.
"Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed and the insane levity of choosing our associates by other's eyes," read a lady, musingly, as Emerson's essays fall from her knees to the soft carpet under her cushioned feet.
"Yes, nothing is more deeply punished," she half chanted in a musical voice, while a grave, troubled look came to the dark eyes, and a quiver of pain to the sensitive lips. "And well do you and I know it, Tyr, though you are only a dog," she continued, as she patted a brown retriever beside her. "Yes, you and I, Tyr, like only affinities; the others seem to us mongrels, and to us don't seem good. I wonder if they were so pronounced in the first week when the world was young; but fancy is travelling without reason; they were all thorough-breds in the good old days, and one does not read of anything like Emerson's words on affinities, or a case similar to my own; but I am half asleep, Tyr; watch by me, good old dog."
And leaning her head back against the soft green velvet cushioned back of the rattan chair, Somnus is not wooed in vain; indeed, one might imagine the god of slumber had wound a garland of poppies about her brow, so does she sleep as an infant.
As she rests, a word of her. A Canadian; a native of Toronto, with far-away English kin; above the medium height; dark, comely, and slightly embonpoint; a woman of thirty, but with that troubled look at present on her face looking older; generous, warm-hearted and conscientious; with more than the average force of character; too sensitive in days past; too impulsive, even yet, in this world of "they daily mistake my words." Even at thirty, she has had years of trouble; has been dragged in the dust under Fortune's wheel, that others might ride aloft at her expense; earning her "dinner of herbs" that "Pooh Bah" in the plural, may have the "stalled ox." But at last she rests, and summer friends would again know her, who fled at her first out-at-elbow gown; but experience is a good teacher, she will cherish only those who have cherished her in her dark days. Society also now desires her company in polite bids to its various webs, in shape of dinners and lunches, with its other numerous distractions, knowing she is in possession of a rather pretentious little home, and is in a position to repay; for society is a debit and credit system.
"Once a widow always a widow" was not the motto of Mrs. Gower, and so she would have again wed, again gone to God's altar; but the angel of death forbade, using his scythe almost as the words of the church pronounced them man and wife, and the bridal gown of the morning gave place ere the sun had set to the black robes of a second widowhood. Truly, "Sorrow there seemeth more of thee than we can bear and live;" yet still we live, was her cry. The death of her friend, just at the time manly counsel would have saved her little fortune from vultures, habited as Christian pew-holders! was very hard, not to speak of that intense loneliness, the death of husband, wife, or betrothed, brings into one's life; one is as though struck mentally and physically blind, not knowing where to turn or whose hand to take; for until such relations are severed by death, one does not realize how one has leaned on the one in the multitude.
"But," she would say, "one must harden oneself to the inevitable, to Heaven's will, if one would keep one's reason;" and in time the sudden death of the man she had so passionately loved, was as some terrible dream. Not as she dreams away the moments now in her pretty restful library, with its rattan furniture, cushioned and trimmed in olive-green velvet; one side a library of her pet authors, with Davenport near; walls painted in alternate green and cream panels; on the light ground are lilies from nature, gathered from Ashbridge's Bay, and near the Island; nestling in their bed of green leaves an English ivy trails around the pretty Queen Anne mantel, with two tall palms, which bring content to the canary as the perfume from the blossoms on the stand give pleasure to the sleeping mistress of Holmnest.
Her own individuality is stamped upon its walls also, for on each alternate dark green panel is some pretty bits of painting, bric-a-brac, or motto; one reads, "Let ilka ane gang their ain gait," showing her dislike to meddling in another's business; another reads, "The greatest of these is charity;" and over a bust of Shakspeare are his own words, "No profit goes where is no pleasure taken; in brief, sir, study what you most affect."
But she dreams, and what a troubled expression. At this moment a coupé drives up a north-west avenue of our city, stops at the gate of Holmnest, when a gentleman, hurriedly springing out, saying, "come back for me in about an hour-and-a-half, Somers," enters the picturesque grounds, has reached the veranda and hall door on south side of pretty Holmnest, rings, when a boy, in neat blue suit, answers.