“What good could I possibly do the infant?” was the reply to this kind expostulation of her doting husband; “you know Sarah is quite accustomed to her, and really I think it ridiculous that you should wish me to stay home; but lately you seem to rack your brains to contrive what means you can devise to thwart my wishes: if I ask for anything that will cost the slightest extra expense, the reply is: ‘we can’t afford it.’ Pray how do other people afford to live in more style than we do, with less income than ours?”
“Unfortunately, they cannot afford it,” said Mr. Worthington; “and we see the consequences daily. Many of the enormous failures that have lately occurred, might have been prevented, but for the spirit of rivalry that fashion has instilled into the families of many of our merchants and citizens.”
“So,” said Mrs. Worthington, “because people fail, I am to be deprived of everything I wish for, and kept at home to see whether the child is going to be sick. I am sure I have taken every precaution to prevent its crying after me, for I have carefully covered its eyes every time I have nursed it since its birth. Nay, I do not let it come into the room where I am without something thrown over its face, that it may not know me; so that if I was to remain home to watch it, it would neither be better nor wiser; nay, it might frighten her to see a strange face.”
Mr. Worthington paused for some time, confounded by his wife’s unnatural exultation, and want of affection for her infant, at last he exclaimed, with considerable sharpness,—“Have you a heart?”
“I once did, and do still, possess such an article, notwithstanding I presume you consider yourself the proprietor.”
“It must be small indeed,” said Mr. Worthington with a sigh.
“Large enough for it to admit the whole circle of my friends,” added the lady.
“I fear it will soon be untenanted, then,” uttered Mr. Worthington as he left the room, finding it was impossible to dissuade her from her purpose, and discovering, too late, the misery of being united to one whose education had unfitted her for a wife.
Maria Wilson was an only child. At an early age she was left to the direction of a mother, whose partiality for her daughter blinded her to all her errors. The best affections of her heart had been neglected, their place had been allowed to be usurped by pride, arrogance, and self-sufficiency. Their means were circumscribed and insufficient to enable her to shine in the gay world, although her beauty was well calculated to attract the admiration of those who moved in it, and her sole ambition seemed to be to gain pre-eminence there, so that when Mr. Worthington, young, handsome, and rich, offered his hand, it was not rejected:—he viewed her faults with the fondness of a lover, and deceived himself into the belief that, once his, he could mould her disposition to whatever he wished it to be; but, after marriage, she launched into the vortex of fashionable life with enthusiasm, regardless of consequences; she was courted and caressed; in vain he entreated, in vain he expostulated; the wish of her heart was gratified; the goblet of happiness, as she thought, was at her lips, and she was determined to quaff it to the dregs; misfortune had not yet taught him to despair, and hope still upheld him; he looked forward to the time when she would become a mother, when the bonds of nature would form a fresh tie with those of affection. But, alas! he was doomed to be disappointed; the little stranger was viewed as an intruder, whose smile was not allowed to meet the mother’s eyes; she mourned that the fashion was past for children to be put out to nurse, and never suffered it to be brought to her without its face being covered, that it would not fret for her absence. Every request from her husband to avoid unnecessary expenses, were recorded as evidences of his want of love, or as proofs of a contracted and narrow disposition.
She went to the ball,—and, when she returned, her little infant, Adela, lay at the point of death. For the first time, a pang of regret and remorse stung her bosom; repentance caused her tears to flow, as she became a voluntary watcher of its sick bed. Oh! how anxiously did she endeavor to behold one look from those eyes she had so often concealed from hers; she feared they were closed never to be opened again. She sat in silence and despair, endeavoring to catch the sound of that voice whose plaintive wail she had so often despised, but for two days its heavy breathing alone reached her ear.