"Yes you can, though, for I've heard you many a time," said a smart young lady sitting on the opposite side of the room.
The blood mounted to the performer's cheeks. "Indeed you're mistaken though," half pettishly replied Miss Emma.
"But you can play 'Yankee Doodle,'" retorted the first speaker.
Miss Emma left the instrument in anger.
"I'll never speak to the pert minx again as long as I live," whispered Miss Emma in the ear of a friend.
Thus ended the musical exhibition for that evening. As the spirit of wine grew more active, the men became less formal in their attentions, and the young ladies less reserved. Before the company broke up, I almost blush to say, that there was scarcely a lady present who had not suffered her red-ripe lips to be touched by those of every young man in the room. And on all these proceedings, the parents of Julia looked on with keen satisfaction! They liked to see the young people enjoying themselves!
Then there were rambles by moonlight, during which soft things were whispered in the ears of the young ladies. These were the occasions on which Warburton loved most to steal away the fond confidence of Julia; and, by degrees, he succeeded in fixing her regard upon himself. Consent was asked of the parents, and given; and soon Julia Forrester was Mrs. Warburton. It was only six months after the marriage that a commercial crisis arrived; one of those reactions from prosperity which occur in this country with singular regularity, every ten or fifteen years, and swept from Julia's father the whole of his property. This sudden revulsion so preyed upon his mind, that a serious illness came on, which hurried him in a brief period to the grave. The mother of Julia soon followed him. Warburton, ere this, had neglected his wife, and wrung from her many a secret tear. He had married her for the prospect of worldly gain which the connection held out, and not from any genuine regard. And when all hope of a fortune was suddenly cut off, he as suddenly appeared in his real character of a heartless and unprincipled man.
He held the situation of clerk, at the time, in the same store where he had been for years. But immediately upon the death of his father-in-law, a flood of demands for debts due here and there came in upon him, and not having where with to meet them, he was thrown into jail, and obtained his freedom only by availing himself of the law made and provided for the benefit of Insolvent Debtors.
His poor wife knew nothing of the proceedings against him, until he was lodged in the jail. Hour after hour had passed since the time for his return to dinner, and yet she listened in vain for his well-known footsteps. She felt strangely oppressed in feeling when the dim twilight came stealing sadly on, and still he came not home. But when the clock struck nine, ten, eleven,—her distress of mind became heightened to agony. The question, so often asked of herself, "Where can he be?" could find no answer. All night long she sat listening at the window, and sunk into a heavy slumber, just as the grey light of morning stole into the window and paled the expiring lamp. From this slumber, which had continued for nearly two hours, she was aroused by the entrance of a servant, who handed her a note, addressed in the well-known hand of her husband. Tremblingly she tore open the seal; at the first words:
Jail.