“Exactly so, Mr. Dunscomb.”
“I comprehend you, ma’am, and shall respect your position. You are not about to become my niece, and I can claim no right to exceed the bounds of friendship——”
“Nay, my dear sir, I do not wish to say this. You have every right to advise. To me, you have been a steady and well judging friend, and this, in the most trying circumstances. I am ready to hear you, sir, in deference, if not in your beloved humility.”
“That which I have to say refers solely to your own happiness, Mildred.[Mildred.] Your return to America has, I fear, been most inopportune. Among other innovations that are making on every side of us, even to the verge of the dissolution of civilized society, comes the liberty of woman. Need I tell you, what will be the next step in this downward career?”
“You needs must, Mr. Dunscomb—I do not comprehend you.—What will that step be?”
“Her licentiousness. No woman can throw off the most sacred of all her earthly duties, in this reckless manner, and hope to escape from the doom of her sex. After making a proper allowance for the increase of population, the increase in separated married people is getting to be out of all proportion. Scarce a month passes that one does not hear of some wife who has left her husband, secreted herself with a child perhaps, as you did, in some farm-house, passing by a different name, and struggling for her rights, as she imagines. Trust me, Mildred, all this is as much opposed to nature as it is to prescribed duties. That young woman spoke merely what an inward impulse, that is incorporated with her very being, prompted her to utter. A most excellent mother—oh! what a blessing is that to one of your sex—how necessary, how heavenly, how holy!—an excellent mother has left her in ignorance of no one duty, and her[her] character has been formed in what I shall term harmony with her sex. I must be plain, Mildred—you have not enjoyed this advantage. Deprived of your parent young, known to be rich, and transplanted to another soil, your education has necessarily been entrusted to hirelings, flatterers, or persons indifferent to your real well-being; those who have consulted most the reputation of their instruction, and have paid the most attention to those arts which soonest strike the eye, and most readily attract admiration. In this, their success has been complete.”
“While you think it has not been so much so, sir, in more material things?” said the lady, haughtily.
“Let me be sincere. It is due to my relation to you—to your grandmother—to the past—to the present time. I know the blood that runs in your veins, Mildred. You are self-willed by descent, rich by inheritance, independent by the folly of our legislators. Accident has brought you home, at the very moment when our ill-considered laws are unhinging society in many of its most sacred interests; and, consulting only an innate propensity, you have ventured to separate from your husband, to conceal yourself in a cottage, a measure, I dare say, that comported well with your love of the romantic——”
“Not so—I was oppressed, annoyed, unhappy at home, and sought refuge in that cottage. Mons. de Larocheforte has such a passion for snuff!—He uses it night and day.”
“Then followed the serious consequences which involved you in so many fearful dangers——”