So Dr Prosser had chosen his wife well. And yet he was disappointed in her; and why? Just because he had made the mistake—and how common a mistake it is in these days—of supposing that accomplishments acquired and a highly cultivated mind make the model woman, wife, and mother. Surely the mistake is a sad and fatal one—fatal to woman’s highest happiness and truest usefulness; fatal to her due fulfilment of the part which her loving Creator designed her to fulfil in this world!
There are two concentric circles in which we all move, an inner or domestic circle, an outer or social circle. We are too often educating our women merely for the outer circle. We crowd the mind and memory with knowledge of all sorts, that they may shine in society: we forget to teach them first and foremost how to make home happy. It was so with Mrs Prosser. She had overstrained her mind with the burden of a multitude of acquirements and accomplishments, which had not, after all, made her truly accomplished. One or two things for which she had real taste and ability thoroughly mastered would have been a far greater source of delight to her husband, and of satisfaction to herself, than the mere handful of unripe fruit which she had gathered from a dozen different branches of the tree of knowledge, and in the collecting of which she had, in a measure, impaired the elasticity of her mind and her bodily strength, and found no time for making herself mistress of a thousand little undemonstrative acquirements which tend to keep a steady light of joy and peace burning daily and hourly in the home.
What wonder, then, that, when a little one came to gladden the hearts of those who were already fondly attached to each other, the poor mother was unable to do justice to her child. Partly nourished by a stranger, and partly brought up by hand, and missing those numberless little attentions which either ignorance or a mind otherwise occupied prevented Mrs Prosser from giving to the frail being who had brought into the world with it a delicacy of constitution due, in a considerable degree, to its mother’s overstrain of mind and body, the baby pined and drooped, and, spite of medicine, prayers, and tears, soon closed its weary eyes on a world which had used it but roughly, to wing its way into a land unclouded by sin or sorrow.
How keenly he felt the loss of his child the doctor dared not say, especially to his wife, entertaining as he did a painful misgiving that she had hardly done her duty by it; while on the mother’s heart there rested an abiding burden, made doubly heavy by a dreadful consciousness of neglect on her part—a burden which no lapse of time could ever wholly remove. Thus a stationary shadow brooded over that home where all might have been unclouded sunshine.
Dr Prosser was disappointed; for he had hoped to find in his wife, not merely or chiefly an intellectual and highly educated companion, but one in whose society he could entirely unbend—one who would make his home bright by causing him to forget for a while science and the busy whirl of the world in the beautiful womanly tendernesses which rejoice a husband’s heart, and smooth out the wrinkles from his brow.
It was, then, as a disappointed man that Dr Prosser sat with his feet on the drawing-room polished fender with his chair tilted back. Moodily gazing at the cheerless fire, he had become sunk deep in absorbing meditation, when a rushing step on the stairs roused him from his reverie, and scattered for the time all painful thoughts.
“My dear, dear John, how delighted I am to see you back; I hardly expected you so soon!” exclaimed Agnes Prosser, after exchanging a most loving salutation with her husband.
“Why, I thought,” was the answer, with somewhat of reproach in its tone, “that you knew I should be here this afternoon.”
“Oh yes; but hardly so soon. Well, I am so sorry; it was too bad not to be at home to welcome you. And, I declare, they’ve nearly let the fire out. What can that stupid boy have been about? And the room in such confusion too! Well, dearest, you shan’t find it so again. Just ring the bell, please, and we’ll make ourselves comfortable.—William,” to the boy who answered the summons, “bring up a cup of tea, and a glass of sherry, and the biscuit box.—You’ll like a cup of tea, John.—And, by-the-by, William, tell Mrs Lloyd I should like dinner half an hour earlier.—You won’t mind dinner at half-past five to-day, dearest?”
“No, my dear Agnes, not if it is more convenient to yourself.”