"Mr. Hurst is acting as master of ceremonies to-night, comme à l'ordinaire," observed Wyllys, moving on with his companion. "How will Hamilton parties get on after he dies—or marries—I wonder? There has been an addition to the ranks of fashion during my absence, I find. I had hardly finished my bow to Mrs. and Miss Provost, when Warren Provost presented me forcibly to Miss Sanford. I learned, before I went three steps farther, that this party is given to Miss Sanford, and now Mr. Hurst tells me that I am expected, presently, to dance with Miss Sanford. Who is Miss Sanford?"
Jessie comprehending, at once, that he shunned further reference to the state of his spirits at their parting, followed his lead away from the subject, with alacrity.
"Miss Sanford is the daughter of Judge Provost's sister, and such an heiress! An American Miss Burdett Coutts, if half the stories in circulation about her be true. She is the only child of a five-millionaire, and has, besides, a million in her own right, inherited from her mother. Poor thing! what a nuisance it must be to be so horribly rich!" commented the country girl who thought herself wealthy with her mother's wedding-portion of ten thousand dollars, carefully husbanded by her father against her majority or marriage.
"If another woman than Jessie Kirke had said that, I should have supposed she was in jest," said Orrin. "I believe you mean what you say. But why? Many and sweet are the uses of money."
"Why do I regard it as a misfortune for a woman to be immensely rich? Because she can never be sure of true friend or lover. Because she seldom escapes one of two evils, dupedom or misanthropy. It must be almost an impracticable task for a great heiress to satisfy herself that she is not wooed pour les beaux yeux de ses écus."
"But if there are no other beaux yeux in the case—her own being, we will say, leaden—should she not congratulate herself that she has one talisman that will win attention and regard?"
"Regard!" echoed Jessie, incredulously.
"And why not? She typifies bank stock, real estate, ready money, to the adorer of these. He worships them, it is true, but through her, as discriminating Romanists try to make us believe that they adore the Virgin Mary by the help of her images."
"And as Dr. Baxter told me, the other day, Aaron and his crew of apostate ingrates bowed down to the molten calf—as the representative of the Egyptian Apis," put in Jessie, sarcastically. "If a woman can content herself with that sort of worship, put herself on a par with the goose that laid the golden egg, she wants neither affection nor pity."
"Yet I'll warrant that the famous goose preened herself alongside of the most gorgeous peacock in the barnyard; accounted herself the equal of the stateliest swans. There are as many purse-proud women as men. Millionnaires of both sexes do not scorn the court paid to their money through themselves. On the contrary, they would be piqued and offended if their dollars were not duly appreciated. Novels and sentimentalists tell us that the unhappy possessors of princely fortunes desire to be loved and sought for their intrinsic virtues, whereas the great mass—especially of women—who are wedded for their riches, are quite alive to the truth that this is so, and are far from being wounded thereby. They are neither dupes nor misanthropes, but sensible practical bodies who regard their property as a part of themselves—soul of their soul—and unhesitatingly appropriate all the advantages it buys, pluming themselves, as a rule, upon their ability to command service and fidelity. You shake your head? Let me illustrate from real life. I was talking, some time ago, with a married lady whom nobody had ever, in my hearing, called weak-minded, even behind her back. I had known her for many years, and she opened up her mind to me freely, with regard to her courtship by, and marriage to, the man of her choice. 'I feared, at one time, that I had lost him forever,' she said. 'He was, quite assiduous in his attention to another young lady who was pretty, elegant, and accomplished. I was very unhappy, for he had never declared his intentions to me. But she had not money enough to suit his notions of the fitness of things,'—I quote literally. 'So he came back to me. Wasn't I thankful then that my dear father had provided for me handsomely and thus secured my happiness for life?'"