The patient was slumbering heavily under the influence of the medicine Dr. Ballard prescribed, when his wife rejoined her assistant nurse—lofty and unimpressible. She regarded the sleeper long and fixedly. His hair was nearly white, and his features pinched by sickness, but there was no softening of compassion in the rigid lines of her face. Setting her chair into the shade, she was speechless and motionless for hours. They watched him together all night; exchanging only brief remarks as to his situation, and the remedies to be employed. He rallied from this seizure, and Ida was as far from the brilliant worldling as before.
An unexpected event attracted her from the retirement in which her charitable functions had secluded her. Celestia Pratt was married! and to Ellen's chagrin, to a cousin of the Morris family. He was good-looking, ambitious and poor;—she susceptible a "Representative's" daughter, and rich. He wrote to his aunt that they would take Richmond in the wedding-tour; and she was obliged, nolens volens, to give them a party. Ida was disinclined to attend; but Ellen's solicitations conquered her reluctance. Mr. Cranleigh, the groom, was gentlemanly, even handsome, and accepted the customary greetings with as much complacency, as though his wife were not, as Ellen groaned to Ida—"Celestia, unmitigated Celestia!"
"A penny for your thoughts!" said Ida, tapping Charley's arm with her fan.
"I was thinking what falsehoods geologists tell us about the thickness of the crust of the earth, and how many years the mines of Peru have been worked."
"A profound subject for deep meditation, but I am at a loss—"
"Why, allowing a thousand brides a week in the civilized world, (and there are quadruple that number,) according to my rough computation, the miners ought to be within hail of the Chinese, or whatever nation is the antipodes of the Peruvians, by this time."
"Their kindred craft, the jewellers, have been called upon by the Celestia-ls," said Mr. Thornton.
"'Pon my word!" remarked Pemberton to Josephine, "I have heard of men who married 'for pretty,' but it's my opinion, Cranleigh married for ugly."
Josephine laughed, but her attention was absorbed by some object in another part of the room. "You know everybody," said she; "who is that gentleman talking with the bride?"
He knew everybody, and this must be nobody. He had certainly seen him somewhere before—it might have been at Newport—or perhaps in New Orleans, yet he could not call his name. Why did she inquire?