“Attention, girls!” said Mr. Byers, after the laugh had subsided—and putting on a more serious countenance, he assumed at once a lecturing attitude. “I have somewhat to say to you on this subject of matrimony. It is now more than sixty years that I have looked the world in the face, and I feel, by this time, that I have a right to say that I know something about it. From sixteen till twenty-one I sowed my wild oats like any young fellow. At twenty-five I married, and began life in real earnest. I was a poor man, and had to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow. As time passed on, and the little ones began to gather around my table, I thanked God and worked all the harder. But fortune often made wry faces at me, and sometimes cast me headlong into the slough of despond. I didn’t stay there long, however, for the thought of Hannah and the children set me on my feet again, and called up energies I never knew were mine. When Mary, the eldest, was sixteen, she went into a decline, and fading slowly like a spring violet, at length she died. It was a heart breaking thing to us, but before we had fairly recovered from it, Willie, our second child, was upset in a pleasure boat, and drowned. Scarcely a year after, our blue-eyed Charlie died of a fever. Then I cannot tell you how entirely we placed our affections upon sweet little Fanny, our last remaining one, nor how hopelessly we mourned, when we found that the hand of the Destroyer was upon her also. O, girls! Heaven grant that you may never know such hours of watching and anxiety as we experienced, when, one night in mid-winter, the dear child lay upon her pillow, suffering beneath the croup, that scourge of childhood. I never shall forget how piteously she moaned, stretching up her trembling hands to us, and praying us for relief. Our utmost exertions were in vain, and at length, after hours of suffering, the little creature sobbed and moaned her soul away into the hand of her Creator.” The old man was silent for a few moments, and then continued.
“It was too much for my poor Hannah, for the saddest, loneliest thing in this wide world, is the heart of a childless mother—one who has watched faithfully and tenderly over her little flock, and followed them one after another to the grave. She may carry a quiet face before the world, but inwardly the broken chords are still bleeding, and the busy fingers of memory, with frequent touches, keep the wound ever open. Thus it was with Hannah. She tried to be cheerful, but the blow was too heavy, and at length she sank beneath it. Twenty years she walked by my side, and shared the cup of my joy and sorrow. That score of years was full of toil, and care, and trouble. If I had never married, I might have escaped that experience. But no: I thank God for it! With all its shadows, the memory therof is pleasant, and I am twice the man that I should be without it. Girls! you will never know what real life is, till you have learned to love with all the heart and soul—- to live no longer for yourselves, but for others, never mind what the consequences may be.”
Kate Smiley looked up timidly, and in her own, gentle, unaffected manner, repeated these lines of Tennyson’s—
“I hold it true whate’er befall,—
I feel it when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.”
“That’s it, exactly!” exclaimed Mr. Byers; “God, knew when he placed us in this world, what was best for us, and all these sad experiences which spring from our hearts’ best affections, work out a wonderful weight of good at last. The ‘wise man’ says, ‘with all thy getting, get understanding;’ and I say to you girls, with all your getting, get husbands.”
“But,” said Kate Smiley, who had already refused several offers, “you certainly wouldn’t have a woman take up with anybody, for the sake of getting married, and may be if she refuses two or three offers, because they do not seem suitable, that she will have to be an old maid at last, in spite of herself?”
“No, girls, no!” said Mr. Byers with much emphasis, “don’t throw yourselves away, under any circumstances, but wait till Mr. Right comes along, if ‘tis half a century, and if he never comes, then die happy in the thought that you did the best you could.”
“But, supposing,” said Juliana, with a mischievous look, “that I, for instance, should think I had married Mr. Right, and in the course of a few years he should prove to be Mr. Wrong—perhaps take to drinking and other bad habits—abuse me shamefully—threaten my life, and make me in all things as miserable as possible.”
“O, that’s an extreme case,” said Mr. Byers.
“But then you know such things happen.”