Here ends an act of Katharine’s life-comedy, and the chronicler leaves her with her beauty, her virtues and her imperfections to the judgment of that one reader, if perchance there be even one, who has had the patience to follow her so far, with little entertainment and no advantage to himself. And to that one reader—an ideal creation of the chronicler’s mind, having no foundation in his experience of humanity—the said chronicler makes apology for all that has been amiss in the telling of the events recorded, conscious that a better man could have done it better, and that better men are plentiful, but stout in asserting that the events were not, in themselves and in reality, without interest, however poorly they have been narrated.
Moral, there is none, nor purpose, save to please; and if any one be pleased, the writer has his reward. But besides moral and purpose in things done with ink and paper, there is consequence to be considered, or at least to be taken into account. In real life we take more thought of that than of anything else; for, consciously or unconsciously, man hardly performs any action, however insignificant, without intention—and intention is the hope of consequence.
All that happened to Katharine Lauderdale, and all that she caused to happen by her own will, had an effect upon her existence afterwards. She was entering upon married life with a much more varied experience than most young women of her age. She had been brought into direct and close relation with people influenced by some of the strongest passions that can rouse the heart. She had been hated by those who had loved her, and for little or no fault of hers. She had seen envy standing in the high place of a mother’s love, and she had seen the friendship of her girlhood destroyed by unreasoning jealousy. Above all, she had known the base hardness and the revolting cruelty which the love of money could implant in an otherwise upright nature. The persons with whom she had to do were not of the kind to commit crimes, but in her view there was something worse, if possible, than crime in some of the things they had done.
So much for the evil by which she had passed. For the good, she had love, good love, pure love, honest love—the sort of love that may last a lifetime. And if love can weather life it need not fear the whirlpool of death, nor the quicksands of the uncertain shore beyond. It is life that kills love—not death.
Therefore, as the chronicler closes his book and offers it to his single long-suffering reader, he says that more remains to be told of Katharine and of the men and women among whom she lived; namely, the consequences of her girlhood in her married life.
KATHARINE LAUDERDALE.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD,
Author of “Saracinesca,” “Pietro Ghisleri,” etc.