She, on her side, felt that in setting these family disturbances right, she would find an object worthy of all her energies, and one only to be accomplished by herself living up to the strong Church principles and religious motives which, adopted perhaps as a matter of taste or education, were now to be tested by the trials of real life.
Chapter Two.
The Reading of the Will.
Mrs George Kingsworth had reigned for a year over Kingsworth House, her father-in-law had grown very fond of her, and the estate had prospered under George’s management. But James scarcely ever came home, and was no nearer than before to his father’s favour. Mr Kingsworth, though not old, was much broken in health, and it was not surprising that he should lean much on the son who was close at hand.
So mused the young wife as she sat in a little breakfast room in the second autumn after her marriage; her little four months old daughter on her knee. Her face had grown much graver and sterner since her wedding day, and she was only half attending to her lively cooing baby, as if her thoughts were not free to take pleasure in it.
“I don’t think George need have shown that angry letter to his father,” she thought, “what good could it do any one? I suppose such faults as James’s do seem intolerable to a person like George. They are horrible.” As these thoughts passed through her mind, her husband came into the room. He looked serious, said something about the weather, touched the baby’s cheek with his finger, and at length observed, “Well, I am afraid poor James has done for himself at last!”
“How, what has happened?” said Mary, in alarm.
“They say a man is never ruined till he is married!”