“O what a goodly outside falsehood hath.”—Shakspeare.
“I have been thinking, Henry, that I should like to invite cousin Agatha to spend the winter with us: what do you say to my plan?”
“Really, Alice, I can say nothing about it, since I know nothing of the lady.”
“Oh, I had forgotten that you had never seen her; she is only distantly related to us, but being left an orphan at an early age, she became an inmate of our family and continued to reside with us until she married. Agatha is several years my senior, and entered society while I was yet in the school-room; she married rather in opposition to the wishes of my parents, as they approved neither of the profession nor the character of her husband, who was an officer in the army, and known to be a man of dissolute habits. Poor thing! she has fully paid the penalty of her folly during seven years of poverty and discomfort. Her husband has been sent from one frontier station to another, until the health of both was destroyed, and at the time of his death they were both at Sackett’s Harbor.”
“Then she is a widow?”
“Yes, her vile husband died about a year since, and cousin Agatha is released from bondage, but reduced to actual penury. I received a letter from her yesterday, the first she has written since my marriage, and she alludes most touchingly to her desolate condition as contrasted with my happiness.”
“And that letter, I suppose, induced you to think of inviting her to spend the winter with us?”
“It did, Harry; for I felt as if it was almost selfish in me to be so happy when my early friend was pining in loneliness and poverty.”
“I love the kindliness of feeling which prompts you to such acts, dear Alice, but, to confess the truth, I would rather relieve your cousin’s distresses in any other way.”
“But there is no other way of doing so, Henry—she would not accept pecuniary aid from us: why do you object to her visit?”