“Pooh, Ulpian! You need not preach me such a sermon, as if I were a heathen. Facts, when they happen to be real facts, are the best umpires in the world, and to their arbitrament I leave my character for charity. When Reuben Chalmers died, his wife was so overwhelmed with grief that she shut herself up like a nun; and when she drove out for fresh air wore two heavy crape veils, and never allowed any one to catch a glimpse of her countenance. Not even to church did she venture, until one morning, at the end of two years, she laid aside her weeds, clad herself in bridal array, was married in her own parlor, and the next Sunday made her first appearance in public after the death of her husband, leaning on the arm of her second spouse. Now, that is true,—is no libel,—pity it is not! Though ‘one swallow does not make a summer,’ I can’t help feeling suspicious of very young and hopelessly inconsolable widows, and am always reminded of Anastasia Chalmers. So you see, my blue-eyed preacher, when your old Janet talks of these things, she is not caught ‘reckoning without her host.’”
“One deplorable instance should not bias you against an entire class, and the beautiful constancy of Panthea ought to neutralize the example of a hundred Anastasia Chalmers. Is it not unfortunate that poor human nature so tenaciously recollects all the evil records, and is so oblivious of the noble acts furnished by history? Do cut the acquaintance of the huge family of on dits, who serve the community in much the same capacity as did the cook of Tantalus, when he dressed and garnished Pelops for the banquet table. Unluckily, devouring malice can not furnish the ‘ivory shoulder’ requisite to mend its mischief. We are all prone to forget the injunction, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ and instead of remembering that we are directed to bear one another’s burdens, we gall the shoulders of many, by increasing the weights we should lighten. Janet, don’t flay all the poor young widows; leave them to such measures of peace as they may find among their weeds.”
Miss Jane listened to her brother’s homily with a half-smile lurking about the puckered corners of her eyes and mouth, and putting her finger in the button-hole of his coat, drew him closer to her, as they sat together on the sofa.
“How long since you took the tribe of widows under your special protection?”
“Since the moment, that, owing to some inexplicable freak, my dear Janet suffered ‘evil communications to corrupt’ her ‘good manners,’ and absolutely forgot to be just and generous.”
He kissed his sister and rose, but the troubled look that settled once more on his countenance did not escape her observation.
“Ulpian, is Mrs. Gerome very ill?”
“Yes, I am exceedingly unhappy about her. She is dangerously ill with a low, nervous, fever that baffles all my remedies.”
Dr. Grey walked up and down the room, and Miss Jane pressed her spectacles closer to her nose, and watched him.