(See Plate.)
It has an excellent influence on one's moral health to meet now and then in society, or, better still, in the close communion of home life, such a woman as Catherine Grant. She influences every one that comes within the pure atmosphere of her friendship, and as unconsciously to them as to herself. She never moralizes, or commands reform. There is no parade of her individual principle in any way, but she always acts rightly; and, if her opinion is called forth, it is given promptly and quietly, but very firmly.
Yet, though even strangers say this of her now, there was a time when few suspected the moral strength of her character. Not that principle was wanting; but it had never been called forth. She moved in her own circle with very little remark or comment. She was cheerful, and even sprightly in her manner, and her large blue eyes, as well as her lips, always spoke the truth. I do not know that she was ever called beautiful; but there was an air of ladyhood about her, from the folding of her soft brown hair to the gloving of a somewhat large but exquisitely-shaped hand, that marked her at once as possessing both taste and refinement.
I remember that friends spoke of her engagement with Willis Grant as a "good match," and rather wondered that she did not seem more elated with the prospect of being the mistress of such a pleasant little establishment as would be hers, for she was one of a large family of daughters, and her father's income as a professional man did not equal that of Willis, who was at the head of one of our largest mercantile houses. But it was in her nature to take things calmly, though she was young, and all the kindness of his attentions, and the prospect of a new home, as much as any happy bride could have done. It was a delightful home—not so extravagantly furnished as Willis would have chosen it to be, but tasteful, and withal including many of those luxuries and elegancies which we of the nineteenth century are rapidly, too rapidly, learning to need. Willis declared that no one could be happier than they were; and, strange as it may seem, the envious world for once prophesied no cloud in the future.
But we have nothing to do with that first eventful year of married life—the year of attrition in mind and character, when two natures, differing in many points, and these sharpened as it were by education, are suddenly brought into immediate contact. There were some ideals overthrown, no doubt—it is often so; and some good qualities discovered, which were unsuspected before. The second anniversary of the wedding-day was also the birth-day of a darling child, and the home was more homelike than ever.
Yet Willis Grant was seldom there. It was not that he loved his wife the less—that her beauty had faded, or her temper changed. She was the same as ever—gentle, affectionate, and thoughtful for his wishes; and he appreciated all this. But before he had known her, in those wild idle days of early manhood, when the spirit craves continual excitement, and has not yet learned that it is the love of woman's purer nature which it needs, Willis had chosen his associates in a circle which it was very difficult to break from, now that their society was no longer essential to him. He was close in his attention to business; his great, success had arisen from industry as well as talent; but when the counting-house was closed, there was no family circle to welcome him, and the doors of the club-house were invitingly open.
True, it was one of the most respectable clubs of the city, mostly composed of young business men like himself, who discussed the tariffs and their effects upon trade over their recherche dinners, and chatted of European politics over their wine. And this reminds us of one thing that argues much, if not more than anything else, against the club-house system, that is so rapidly gaining favor in our cities. It accustoms the young man just entering life to a surrounding of luxury that he cannot himself consistently support when he begins to think of having a home of his own. He passes his evenings in a beautiful saloon, where the light is brilliant, yet tempered; where crimson curtains and a blazing fire speak at once of comfort and affluence of means. There are no discomforts, such as any one meets with more or less, inevitably, in private families—nothing to jar upon the spirit of self-indulgence and indolence which is thus fostered. The dinners, in cooking and service, are unexceptionable; and there are always plenty of associates as idle and thoughtless, and as good-natured, as himself, to make a jest of domestic life and domestic virtues. And, by-and-by, there is a stronger stimulus wanted, and the jest becomes more wanton over the roulette table or the keenly contested rubber; and the wine circulates more freely as the fire of youth goes out and leaves the ashes of mental and moral desolation. Ah no! the club-house is no conservator of the purity of social life, and this Catherine Grant soon felt, as night after night her husband left her to the society of her own thoughts, or her favorite books, to meet old friends in its familiar saloons, and show them that he at least was none the less "a good fellow" for being a married man!
It was all very well, no doubt, to be able to break away from the pleasant parlor, and the interesting woman who was the presiding genius of his household, and spend his evenings in the society of gay gallants who talked of horses and Tedesco's figure, or the gray-headed votaries of the whist table, who played the game as if the presidency depended upon "following lead," and each trump was a diamond of inestimable worth, to be cherished and reserved, and parted with only at the last extremity. Sometimes a thought of comparison would arise, as he sat with elevated feet beside the anthracite fire, and gazed steadfastly on his patent leathers. Sometimes the idle jests and the heartless laughter would jar upon his ear; and the cigar was suffered to die out as, in thoughts of wife and child, he forgot to put it to his lips. But the injustice of his conduct, in thus depriving them of his society, did not once cross his mind, until he was involuntarily made the witness of a visit between Catherine and a lady who had been her intimate friend before marriage.
He had returned hurriedly one morning in search of some papers left in his own room, dignified by the name of study, though it must be confessed that he passed but little time there. It communicated with Catherine's apartment, which was just then occupied by the two ladies in confidential chat.
"And so you won't go to Mrs Sawyer's to-night?" said Miss Lyons, who had thrown herself at full length upon a couch, and was idly teazing the baby with the tassel of her muff. "How provoking you are! You might as well be dead as married! It's well for your husband that I'm not in your place. Why, every one's talking about it, my child, how you are cooped up here, and Willis at the club-house night after night. Morgan told me he was always there, and asked me what kind of a wife he had—whether you quarreled or flirted, that he was away from you so much."