“But the drab bonnet, Harry:—can you, the pride of your tailor and the envy of your less tasteful friends,—you, the very prince of Broadway exquisites,—you, the American Brummel, who would as willingly have been caught picking a pocket, as wearing a glove two days, a hat two weeks, or a coat two months,—can you venture to destroy the reputation which you have acquired at such cost, by introducing a drab bonnet to the acquaintance of your be-plumed and be-flowered female friends?”
“Wait awhile, Edward; Rachel has not yet learned to admire the gayeties of our city; her eyes have been too long accustomed to the ‘sober twilight gray,’ and she is rather dazzled than pleased with the splendor of fashionable society, but she has too much of womanly feelings to continue long insensible to womanly vanity.”
“Well, success to you, Harry, but let me beg you to lay an interdict on that ugly bonnet as soon as you have a right to exercise your marital authority.”
Wilford laughed, and the two gentlemen parted; the one to fulfil an engagement with the pretty Quakeress, and the other to smoke a cigar, drink a mint julep, and laugh at his friend’s folly.
Harry Wilford had been so unlucky as to come into possession of a large fortune as soon as he attained his majority. I am not in error, gentle reader, when I say he was unlucky, for daily experience bears witness to the fact, that in this country, at least in nine cases out of ten, a large inheritance is a great misfortune. The records of gay life in every large city prove that the most useless, most ignorant, most vicious, and often the most degraded among the youth, are usually the sons of plodding and hoarding parents, who have pawned health and happiness, aye, and sometimes integrity—the very life of the soul—to procure the gold which brings the destruction of their children. Wilford had passed through college with the reputation of being one of the most gifted and most indolent of scholars, while his eccentric fits of study, which served to give him the highest rank in his class, only showed how much more he might have done, if industry and perseverance had been allowed to direct his pursuits. Like his career in the university had been his course through life. With much latent energy of character he was too infirm of purpose to become distinguished either for virtue or talent. The curse of Ephraim seemed to have fallen upon the child of prosperity, and the impressive words of the ancient Patriarch: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel,” might have shadowed forth his destiny. His fine talents were wasted in empty witticisms; his classical taste only served to direct his lavish expenditure, and his really noble feelings were frittered away in hollow friendship, or in transitory attachments. Handsome, brilliant, and, above all, rich, he became the idol of a coterie, and intoxicated by the incense which smoked before him, he did not perceive that its subtle influence enervated all his nobler faculties. Yet Wilford had escaped the contagion of vice. The dark stain of criminal excess, which too often sullies the cloth of gold more deeply than it does the coat of frieze, had never fallen upon his garments. He could not forget the trembling hand which had been laid upon his infant head when he offered up his innocent prayers at a mother’s knee. He remembered her dying supplication that her child might be kept “unspotted from the world,” and her gentle face, beaming with unutterable purity and love, often interposed itself between his and his tempter, when his heart would have failed from very weakness.
Harry Wilford had completed his thirtieth summer and yet he was a bachelor. The artillery of bright eyes and brighter smiles had been levelled at him in vain; the gentler weapons of sweet words and soft glances had been equally ineffectual. His heart had been captured again and again, but it was a far easier task to gain than to keep it. Indeed it was like an ill-garrisoned border fortress, and generally surrendered at discretion to the first enemy that sat down before it, who was sure to be soon driven out in turn by another victorious assailant. He was too universal a lover, and until, like Apelles, he could unite in one woman the charms which he admired in twenty, there seemed little probability of his ever being won to wear the chain. The truth was, that of the many who courted the attentions of the handsome Mr. Wilford, there was none that seemed to have discovered the fine gold which lay beneath the surface of his character. The very exuberance of flowers and fruit which the soil produced, prevented one from expecting any hidden treasure, for it is not often that the precious things of earth are found beneath its gay adornments. We look for the diamond, not under the bank of violets but in the rugged bosom of the mountain, and thus Wilford’s friends, content with the beautiful blossoms of fancy and wit which he lavishly flung around, suspected not the noble gifts of intellect which he possessed.
Wilford had frequently imagined himself in love, but something had always occurred to undeceive him and to resolve his pleasant fancies with very disagreeable facts. He had learned that the demon of selfishness often lurks under the form of an angel of light, and he began to distrust many of the fair beings who bestowed upon him their gentle smiles. He had received more than one severe lesson in human nature, and it was very soon after officiating as groomsman at the bridal of a lovely girl whose faith had once been pledged to him, that he first met the young and guileless Quakeress. There was something so pure and vestal-like in the delicate complexion, soft blue eye, and simply braided hair of the gentle Rachel, that Wilford was instantly charmed. His eye, so long dazzled with the gorgeous draperies, glittering jewels, and well-displayed beauties of fashionable belles, rested with a sense of relief on the sober French gray silk, and transparent lawn neckerchief which so carefully shaded the charms of the fair rustic. He saw the prettiest of tiny feet peeping from beneath a robe of far more decorous length than the laws of fashion then allowed—the whitest of white hands were unadorned by a single jewel—and the most snowy of necks was only discovered by the swan-like grace which rendered it visible above its envious screen of muslin. Even in the society of Friends, where a beautiful complexion is almost as common to the females as a pair of eyes to each face, Rachel was remarkable for the peculiar delicacy of hers. It was not of that waxy, creamy tint, so often considered the true fashionable and aristocratic complexion, because supposed to be an evidence that the “winds of heaven” have never visited the face except through the blinds of a carriage; nor was it the flake-white and carmine-red which often claims for its possessor the reputation of a brilliant tincture of the skin. Even the old and worn-out similes of the lily and the rose, would have failed to give an idea of the delicate hues which added such a charm to Rachel’s countenance, for the changing glow of her soft cheek, and the tracery of blue veins which adorned her snowy brow could never be imaged by a flower of the field. Harry Wilford thought he had never seen anything so exquisitely lovely, so purely fair, as that sweet face when in perfect repose, or so vividly bright as it seemed when lighted by the blush of modesty. There are some faces which require shadows to perfect their beauty; the eye, though bright, must flash beneath jetty lashes; the brow, though white, must gleam amid raven tresses or half the effect is lost. But Rachel’s face, like that of joyous childhood, was all light. Her hair was silky and soft as an infant’s, her eyes blue as the summer heaven, her lips like an opening rose-bud—it was a face like spring sunshine, all brightness and all beauty.
Rachel had been left an orphan in her infancy, and the relatives to whom she was indebted for her early nurture were among the straitest of a strait sect, consequently she had imbibed their rigid ideas of dress and manners. Indeed she had never wasted a thought upon the pomps and vanities of the ‘world’s people,’ until she visited the gay metropolis. The sneers which her plain dress occasioned in the circle where she now moved, and the merry jibes which young and thoughtless companions cast upon her peculiar tenets of faith, aroused all the latent pride of her nature, until she actually felt a degree of triumph in exhibiting her quaint costume in society.
If Wilford had been charmed with her beauty, he was in raptures with her unsophisticated character. After ringing the changes on sentiment until his feelings were ‘like sweet bells jangled out of tune,’ it was absolutely refreshing to find a damsel who had never hung enraptured over the passionate pages of Byron, nor breathed the voluptuous songs of Moore, but who, in the simplicity of her heart, admired and quoted the gentle Cowper, as the prince of poets. “She has much to learn in the heart’s lore,” said Wilford to himself, “and what pleasure it will be to develop her innocent affections.” So he offered his hand to the pretty Quakeress, and she, little versed in the arts of coquetry, modestly accepted the gift.
One morning Rachel sat by the window, looking out upon the gay throng in Broadway, when her cousin entered with a small packet in her hand.