About the time that Alice left the store to become a wife another girl found employment with the same firm; a tall, stately girl whom to describe would be extremely difficult. Fair as a lily, ruddy as a rose, with a bearing almost haughty. One moment a laughing, rollicking sprite, the next if some unlucky individual dared to address her with a freedom she thought uncalled for her blue eyes would emit such scornful flashes that you almost felt their scorching heat. The color would rise in her cheeks until they were stained a dark hue; her lips would be compressed so firmly that they appeared almost white.
Sometimes it appeared as though two distinct and separate spirits inhabited the body of this girl, so utterly would the different moods change her from one to the other. We might go still farther, and say there were three spirits. Three in one, for there was still another phase of her character. In the first, she was the rollicking, teasing, mirth-provoking sprite, the next, she was soft, melting, a child of dreams, and in the last a proud, scornful, haughty woman. Talented and gifted by nature, her character was as yet unformed. Future events would determine which phase would predominate.
Such was Margaret Leland when first Imelda knew her. The two girls were soon strongly attached to each other. Margaret was very sympathetic and Imelda was in need of sympathy. Misery loves company, it is said. So when Imelda one evening told her the story of her life, with all its trials and shadows,—which revelation was made after the death of her father, Margaret reciprocated by giving a history that was fully as sad as her own. Interwoven with her life were just as bitter tears, and if Margaret had not stood above an open grave her life had nevertheless been overshadowed by such tragic events that it took all the innate pride of her nature to enable her to hold up her head. Probably to this very cause was due the fact that she sometimes let this pride carry her to extremes.
It was on a fine summer evening not long before wayward Cora had deserted them that Imelda and Margaret had been walking together and found a seat in beautiful Lincoln Park. Imelda had just finished relating her story, omitting nothing of the mistakes that had been so fatal to the happiness of her parents. “I cannot understand,” she concluded, “why it was they were so utterly unhappy. It often appeared to me that my mother almost hated my father, although he was far above her mentally, possessed of remarkable intelligence, having had the benefit of an education so thorough that often I have wondered how a match so unsuited was ever made. I have never known my father to be really unkind, although often impatient, as my mother could be very trying. However, I have often sought to excuse her for that; her health for years had not been of the best and the babies would come oh, so close! Poor mother! I suppose almost any woman would have broken down under it.”
“I should think so,” replied Margaret’s low sweet voice. “Only think! eight children in how many years?”
“Fifteen,” answered Imelda, “and you must remember, too, she had three miscarriages in that time. Yes, it was too much. Do you know,” she continued musingly, “that the thought often comes to me, that while lover’s love must be great, it is not great enough, not strong enough to withstand the storm of married woes. I have never had a lover, but have often dreamed of lover’s joys. But tell me, where do you see lovers among married people?”
“Married lovers are indeed a rare sight,” Margaret answered, “and,” she continued, startling the ear of the listening Imelda, “love certainly is a beautiful dream. I know of what I am speaking, for it has come to me, e’en that; but ‘marriage is a failure,’ and, as I think now, I do not believe I shall ever trust myself to its deceiving, cruel fetters.”
“Then what will you do?”
“Remain as I am, free as the birds of the air. No man shall ever say to me, ‘thou shalt’ or ‘thou shalt not’!”
Imelda stared at her friend in open-eyed wonder.