The swift, animated, but noiseless glide of Mrs. Wilson into the room and onto a sofa, from which she flashed at him a gracious, electric look of attention with the words, "And now, my friend, I am entirely at your disposal. It was a note which had to be answered at once"—restored Mr. Prentiss's serenity. She was one of those pleasant persons in whose presence the world seems justified. When she entered a room people were apt to pay tribute by a pause in whatever they were doing, and she became the focus of attention. The effect of her graceful energy was largely responsible for this, suggesting the forceful but silent sweep of a ship. She had lost the figure and the countenance of youth, but though her abundant crinkly hair was grizzled no one ever thought of her age except to observe that she was handsomer than as a younger woman. She had never been a beauty; she was now a distinguished looking, comely, and effective matron. She was tall and rather willowy, but not thin, with a proud, resolutely carried head, an agreeable straight nose, short rather than long (her best feature) a spirited, sympathetic smile, eyes fundamentally gray, which changed as her thoughts changed, and ingratiating but elegant manners. Her face, notably the cheeks and lips, was a trifle full, suggesting dimples, and possibly to the critical a too-manifest desire to please. Her obvious pose—which, though deliberate was entirely genuine—was to be exquisite, sympathetic, and intellectual, and for the expression of this range of qualities she had serviceable allies in her musical voice, a bewitching way of showing just enough of her teeth, when she became vivacious, and her ornamental clothes, which always suited her. On this evening she wore an old-gold gown with jet and lace accompaniments, an aigrette of crimson gauze with which the plumage of her fan was in harmony, a band of magnificent pearls around her neck, and on her breast, though such ornaments were not strictly in fashion, a large brooch of fine workmanship containing a miniature of two children of tender age. Of these children one had died shortly after the miniature was painted, the other was her daughter Lucille. Her soul was dedicated to two interests, her joy and ambition as a mother, and to the cause of social human progress.
Mrs. Wilson had been for fifteen years a widow, and, though her husband held a hallowed place in her heart, even she was conscious that the broad scope of her present life dated from the period when, seeking a refuge from her own grief and loneliness, she had welcomed diverse social employment. Her husband, Randolph, a hero and a colonel of the Civil War, had claimed her on his return as a bride. They were ardent lovers, and they had never ceased to be so, certainly not in theory. Some of Mrs. Wilson's knowing friends were fond of insinuating, when the humor for gossip prevailed, that he had died just in time, which was their way of intimating that she had outgrown him. But these dissectors of hearts did not perhaps sufficiently remember that her own blossoming forth into the woman she now was had been subsequent to her husband's death. Nor did they take sufficiently into account the bewildering course of events which had attended her progress. Colonel Wilson, a man of small means at the time of their marriage, had become her brother's partner. The properties in which he was interested at the time of his death had subsequently proved so valuable that she had found herself presently the possessor of a million, a sum which had quadrupled in the keeping of her brother, Carleton Howard, one of the most powerful financiers in the country. Opportunity surely had waited on her widening aspirations, enabling her finally to establish herself in this magnificent home surrounded by all the æsthetic attractions and many of the treasures of modern civilization.
Probably Mrs. Wilson herself had never sought to analyze the past by the light of the present, realizing, as we all do, that life unbeknown to us has halting-places which become, as we look back, the dividing lines between what are almost separate existences. Though at her husband's death she had made no resolutions regarding the future, she had never felt the impulse to marry again, so engrossing were the concerns of motherhood and social responsibility.
"You spoke at dinner of wishing my assistance in some case in which you are interested. Will you tell me about it now before we look at the presents?" Mrs. Wilson continued with smiling interest.
"Ah, yes." Mr. Prentiss was glad to have this recalled to his mind. There was no chance here for doubt or perplexity. "It is rather out of the usual run of charity cases. The personality of the woman, I mean. The circumstance that her husband has run away and left her penniless, with two young children to support is, alas! only too common."
"Poor thing! How can I be of service?"
"The woman—her name is Mrs. Stuart—notwithstanding her disastrous marriage, seems to me distinctly superior. She came to Benham some six or seven years ago, and I knew her a little at St. Stephen's before she was a wife. Indeed, I married them, and made some inquiries at the time concerning the husband's circumstances, but learned nothing to his discredit. She has found him to be a godless, unscrupulous person with drinking habits, and recently he has deserted her on the grandiose plea that they would be happier apart. She will be happier; I am sure of that; but I have been exercised as to how to enable her to become self-supporting. She is called to higher usefulness than scrubbing or plain sewing, but though I have discerned in her capabilities and refinement, she is not at present equipped for any active employment."
"Which only tends to show, my friend, that every woman"—Mrs. Wilson paused an instant—"every woman who has not independent means of her own, I mean, should be educated to be self-supporting—should have some definite bread-winning occupation which would render her independent of the man she marries in case he dies or misbehaves. I was thinking the other day that a society formed to advocate this doctrine before clubs of girls as a condition of marriage would prove efficacious."
Mr. Prentiss nodded. "It is certainly the duty of Christian society to provide additional safeguards against the consequences of improvident wedlock. In this particular instance, the young woman plighted her troth while she was studying to become a kindergarten teacher. She was a country doctor's daughter, and is gentle and refined, as well as intelligent in appearance—one of those lithe, tense American personalities in which the spirit appears to burn at the expense of the body, but which, like the willow, bend but do not break under the stress of life."
"She sounds interesting, and I do not see that she has been to blame. We must raise a fund for her. With how large a subscription shall I head the list?" Though Mrs. Wilson gave freely on merely charitable grounds, she gave with more enthusiasm when the objects of her bounty had not offended her sense of the social fitness of things.