A peal of laughter followed the sally, for all the girls thought it very ridiculous, the idea of a poor little sewing girl aspiring to a rich husband. Fair colored high at their mirth, for she had been jesting, and now she said tartly:
“You needn’t any of you think I am expecting or hoping to get a rich husband, for I don’t desire it. I mean, I don’t want to marry anybody, rich or poor; but I may as well say what I think, and that is that I wouldn’t marry a poor man—no, not even if I loved him to distraction, for my mother says that when poverty comes in at the door love flies out at the window; and she ought to know, for her experience was hard enough.”
Fair had quoted “my mother” so often on this same subject that the girls were all familiar with her story, which was that of a pampered rich girl who had married beneath her own station in life, been disinherited, and then driven her impecunious husband to drink by her repinings after the luxuries she had lost, and reproaches because she had so hard a life. He was dead now, and his widow, battling for long years with the grim fiends of poverty and ill health, had industriously instilled into Fair’s pliant mind her own theories regarding marriage.
But the gray-haired, matronly forewoman of the room, who secretly despised Fair’s mother and openly loved the sweet young girl, now came forward, and said gently, but with latent sternness:
“My dear girl, I’ve heard you quote your mother so often on this subject that I feel like telling you a few plain facts. Will you listen to me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Fair obediently, and looking a little bit frightened at this arraignment by this dignified forewoman, who smiled at her kindly, and said:
“The experience of your mother is not universal, my dear. She was unhappy with her poor husband because she did not adapt herself to circumstances, and was dissatisfied and unreasonable. But other women have married poor men and led happy lives with them. I married a poor man myself, and, as I had been raised to work, I did not grumble because I had to help to keep our simple home, but was happy in seeing the neat and comfortable home we kept up by our united labors—he at his trade of carpenter, I at my sewing machine. He is dead now, but I never cast a stone at his memory by advising my young daughters not to marry any one who is not rich, and I will offer you the same advice that I do them.
“If you are asked to marry a poor man, whose only fault is his poverty, take him, if you love him, and do your part toward getting along and making a happy home for your husband. Besides, Fair, it would be easier for you to be happy as a poor man’s wife than it was for your mother, as she had been raised in luxury and did not know how to labor. But as you are a working girl, you would not expect anything else than to help your husband get along. Excuse me for speaking so plainly, but it is for your own good, as I can’t bear to see your little head filled with foolish fancies about getting a rich husband. You are very pretty, I own, but rich men do not often marry factory girls, no matter how pretty they are,” and, so saying, she turned away, followed by a murmur of approbation from everybody except Sadie Allen, who remained very silent, because she saw that Fair’s eyes were full of tears.
CHAPTER II.
HER MOTHER’S ADVICE.
Poor little Fair! It was quite true, as the forewoman intimated, that she had not had a judicious training, for her mother was a foolish, weak-minded woman, who had, indeed, filled her child’s head with romantic notions about marrying above her station.