“Well, Harry, you were born for a barrister, or you could not run on so glibly. But it’s a shame that a gentleman who might command the choice of the market, and marry the richest heiress in Walnut street, should throw himself away upon a girl without a sixpence. Now there’s Charlotte Thornbury and her sister who are co-heiresses,—why can’t you take the one and I the other?”
“Merely because I love another. You smile; but despite the sneer I am a believer in love. Of Charlotte I have nothing to say, except that she is beautiful. You know how often we have discussed the matter. I only hope she will make you a good wife.”
“Allons! the ladies are awaiting us. You and I will never, on this question, agree.”
The foregoing conversation has given our readers a pretty accurate idea of the two young men to whose acquaintance we have introduced them. Henry Bowen was a young lawyer, with a small annual income, but of—what is called—an unimpeachable family. This, with his acknowledged talents, would have procured for him the hand of many a mere heiress, but he had wisely turned away from them all, and sought a companion for life in one, without name or fortune, but who, in every requisite for a good wife, was immeasurably their superior.
Charles Lowry, on the contrary, was a dashing young merchant, who by dint of attention in the counting-house, could afford to be luxurious in his style of living. He had imbibed many of the false notions of fashionable society, and among others the idea that a rich wife was indispensable. His sole object was to secure an heiress, as much for the éclat of the thing as for her fortune, although this latter was no slight temptation to the young merchant. And he had finally succeeded. Amid a host of rivals he had won the prize. Need we say that Charlotte Thornbury, the beautiful, the gay, but the careless heiress, was the guerdon?
The two friends were married in the same week. The one took his wife to a small, but neat and convenient house in one of our less fashionable streets,—while the other entered at once into a splendid mansion in Walnut street, whose furniture and decorations were the theme of general envy and admiration. The one bride kept but a single servant, the other had several. Yet the mansion of Mrs. Lowry, though always magnificent, was never tidy, while the quiet home of Mrs. Bowen was a pattern of neatness and simple elegance. The young merchant never went home without finding that his wife had been out all day either shopping, or making calls, and was in consequence tired and silent, or perhaps out of humor; while the young lawyer always found a neat dinner and a cheerful wife to welcome him. As for Charles, he had always sneered at love, and having married from motives of vanity and interest, a woman whose mind he despised, he had nothing of sympathy with her, nor was it long consequently before he found her society irksome. When the toils of the counting-house were over he went home, because it was the custom, but not because he expected to derive any pleasure from the conversation of his vain and flippant wife. He was glad when the season commenced with its round of dissipation, because then he found some relief in attending the fashionable entertainments of his own and his wife’s acquaintance. Since his marriage he had never enjoyed a single hour of real domestic felicity.
How different was the wedded life of Henry and his bride. All through the tedious duties of the day, the recollection of his sweet wife’s greeting at night, cheered the young lawyer on in his labors. And when evening came, and he had closed his office for the day, how smilingly, and in what neat attire, would Lucy preside at the tea-table, or, after their meal had been disposed of, bring out her work-stand, and sew at something, if only at a trifle for a fair, while Henry read to her in his rich, mellow voice. And then, sometimes, they would sit on the sofa, and talk of a thousand plans for the future, when their income should be extended, or, if it was in summer, they would stroll out for a walk, or call upon some one of their few intimate friends.
“Dear Henry,” said Lucy, one evening to her husband, as they sat talking together after tea, “how wearied Mr. Lowry looks of late. I think he must be in bad health. How glad I am you are always well. I know not what I should do if you were to be taken sick.”
“May that day be long averted, my own Lucy,” said the husband, as he kissed her pure brow, “but I have noticed something of the same look in Lowry; and have attributed it to the cares of business. His wife is a woman, you know, who could do little to alleviate a husband’s weariness.”
“Oh! how can she be a wife, and not wish to soften her husband’s cares. Indeed, indeed, if you only look the least worried I share your trouble until your brow clears up.”