“She may get a divorce. Besides, her present husband is not a citizen. If I go to the senate, I intend to introduce a bill to prevent any but citizens getting married. If foreigners want wives, let them be naturalized!”
“You talk like a simpleton! Another reason why you should not think of Mary Monson is that you are unsuited to be her husband?”
“In what particular, I beg leave to ask?”
“Oh! in several. You are both too sharp, and would quarrel about your wit, in the very first month,” returned Mrs. Gott, laughing. “Take my advice, Timms, and cast your eyes on some Duke’s county young woman, who has a natur’ more like your own.”
Timms growled out a dissent to this very rational proposition, but the discussion was carried on for some time longer. The woman made an impression at last, and when the attorney left the house, it was with greatly lessened hopes for the future, and with greatly lessened zeal on the subject of the divorce.
It was singular, perhaps, that Mrs. Gott had not detected the great secret of Mary Monson’s insanity. So many persons are going up and down the country, who are mad on particular subjects, and sane on most others, that it is not surprising the intelligence and blandishments of a woman like Mildred should throw dust into the eyes of one as simple-minded as Mrs. Gott. With the world at large, indeed, the equivoque was kept up, and while many thought the lady very queer, only a few suspected the truth. It may be fortunate for most of us that writs of lunacy are not taken out against us: few men, or women, being under the control of a good, healthful reason at all times, and on all subjects.
In one particular, Mad. de Larochefort was singularly situated. She was surrounded, in her ordinary associations, with newly married persons, who were each and all strenuously resolved to regard the relation in the most favourable point of view! Perhaps there is nothing on earth that so nearly resembles the pure happiness of the blessed, as the felicity that succeeds the entire union of two hearts that are wrapped up in each other. Such persons live principally for themselves, regarding the world at large as little more than their abiding place. The affinity of feeling, the community of thought, the steadily increasing confidence which, in the end, almost incorporates the moral existence of two into one, are so many new and precious ties, that it is not wonderful the novices believe they are transplanted to a new and ethereal state of being. Such was, in a measure, the condition of those with whom Mildred was now called on to associate most intimately. It is true, that the state of the doctor and his wife might be characterized as only happy, while those of the young people amounted to absolute felicity. Mildred had experienced none of the last, and very little of the first, on the occasion of her own marriage, which had been entered into more as a contract of reason, than a union of love. She saw how much she had missed, and profound was the grief it occasioned her.
“You seem very happy,” she remarked one day to Anna, as they were again threading the pretty little wood at Rattletrap—“more than that—delighted would be a better word.”
“Jack is very kind to me, and the only complaint I have to make of him is, that he is more fond of me than I deserve. I tell him I tremble lest our happiness may not last!”
“Enjoy it while you may. It is so rare to find married persons who are so completely devoted to each other, that it is a pleasant sight to look upon. I never knew any of this, Anna.”