Turn your eyes away, good society reader, lest they be offended at sight of a husband's kiss. Could I do less than breathe my tender love upon her lips again?
“And richer jewels were never worn in the diadem of a queen,” said I. “As a mother, woman attains her highest glory.”
“As wife and mother,” Constance answered quickly. And now she leaned against me, and I drew my arm tenderly around her.
“And all this,” she said, “a good society woman must give up; and for what? God help them in the time of life's bitter trials and painful experience, which all must endure in some degree!” She spoke with strong feeling. “On what arm can a woman lean, who has no husband in the true sense? Is she strong enough, standing alone, for life's great battles? What has she to sustain her, when all the external support, received from pride, is swept away? Alas! Alas! Is there a blinder folly than the pageantry of fashionable society? It is the stage on a grander scale, glittering, gorgeous, fascinating to the senses—but all a mere show, back from which the actors retire, each with an individual consciousness, and the sad words pressing to tremulous lips—'The heart knoweth its own bitterness.'”
Like ourselves, most of Delia's best friends were disappointed, and when she returned to New York, no hearts followed her with tender interest, except those of her own family. She had carried herself with an air of too much self-consequence; or, if she came down to the level of old friends and companions, it was with too evident a feeling of condescension.
I happened to fall into the company of Squire Floyd and Judge Bigelow, not very long after the return of Delia and her husband to New York. The conversation turned upon business, and I learned that the Squire had thought of enlarging his mill, and introducing steam—the water power being only sufficient for its present productive capacity. Judge Bigelow was very much interested, I found, in the particular branch of manufacture in which his neighbor was engaged, and inclined to embark some capital with him in the proposed extension of the works. They frequently quoted the Judge's nephew, Mr. Ralph Dewey, as to the extent to which goods could be put into market by the house of Floyd, Lawson, Lee & Co., who possessed, it was conceded, almost unlimited facilities.
I listened to their conversation, which involved plans of enlargement, statistics of trade, home and foreign production, capital, and the like, until I began to feel that I was moving in a narrow sphere, and destined, in comparison with them, to occupy a very small space on the world. And I will confess it, a shade of dissatisfaction crept over my heart.
A few months later I learned that my two neighbors were jointly interested in the mill, and that early in the ensuing spring steam-power would be introduced, and the capacity of the works increased to more than double their present range.
It was December when Wallingford returned from England. He brought back with him all the evidence required to prove the identity of Mrs. Montgomery. Up to this time only three persons knew of the existence of a will—Mrs. Montgomery, Blanche, and myself; and we formed a council on the question of what was now to be done. I gave it as my opinion, that, as Judge Bigelow was one of the executors, and must in consequence cease to act for Mrs. Montgomery, that we had better call in Mr. Wallingford, and get his view of the case before placing the will in Judge Bigelow's hands. The mother and daughter agreed with me. So a time of meeting was appointed, and a note sent to the young lawyer desiring his presence at the house of Mrs. Montgomery. He seemed very much gratified at the successful result of his visit to England, and referred to it with something of pardonable pride in his manner.
“We have every reason,” said Mrs. Montgomery, in response to this, “to be satisfied with the manner in which you have executed an important mission. Since you left America, however, a document has come into my hands, which, had it reached me earlier, would have saved you a long and tedious search among mouldy and moth-eaten papers. It was nothing less than Captain Allen's will.”