This was bad enough for the daughter, who had neither strength of body nor mental capacity to cope with surrounding difficulties; and who, now that Walter was gone, had no one to encourage or comfort her. For she was at feud with Walter's family.
Her uncle Matthew looked coldly upon her. Her aunt treated her as if she were a puppet or a doll—so she said—when they met, which was not very often, but it sometimes could not be avoided; for Mrs. Matthew now and then looked in to see how Mr. and Mrs. Mark were getting on, and to report at home what she saw and heard. And these reports served only to widen the breach between the two brothers and their households.
As to her cousins, George, Alfred, and James, they plainly made it to be understood that they considered their brother Walter a fool for tying himself up to "a helpless bit of goods" like Sarah, though she was his cousin and theirs. And they were naturally enough bitter against their uncle Mark for having made off with so much of their father's cash.
All this was hard upon Sarah. Of course, if she had been made of the stuff of which heroines are supposed to be formed, she would have risen above all discouragements. But she was not a heroine. She was merely a farmer's daughter, poorly educated, but fond, and, we must add, feeble also, with no particularly vivid apprehension of the sterner duties of life, and with no very strong principle to help her on in a course of self-denial and self-sacrifice, should this be needed. She knew, however, or thought, that she loved Walter, and she had full faith in his fidelity.
One of Sarah's greatest trials was in the unkindness of her cousin Elizabeth, Walter's sister. With only a year difference in their ages, the two girls had been very close and intimate companions from childhood; and till within a year or two of the date of our history, their friendship had been unbroken. And it was Elizabeth who had been, first of all, the secret prompter of the engagement between the cousins, and then the private go-between of the two lovers until that engagement was ratified by the higher powers. Now, however, all old associations were severed; and Elizabeth, as Sarah well knew, had employed all her skill, though unsuccessfully as yet, to induce her brother Walter to break off the match which she prophesied would be an unhappy one.
Thus completely alienated from her former friends, and more sinned against than sinning, with an unhappy home, and more required of her in domestic duties than she had power to accomplish, poor Sarah Wilson would have given way to utter hopelessness but for the bright vision of Walter and the happy home—in nubibus; where we must leave her, while we take up the former thread of our drama.
[CHAPTER III.]
THE PICNIC.