“So you mean to adopt your simple Quaker habits again, Rachel,” said Wilford, more cheerfully; “will they include the drab bonnet also?”
“No,” returned the young wife, her face dimpled with joyous smiles, “I believe now that as much vanity lurked under my plain bonnet as ever sported on the wave of a jewelled plume; and yet,” said she, after a moment’s pause, “when I threw off my Quaker garb I took my first step in error, for I can trace all my folly, and extravagance, and waste of time to the moment when I first looked with pleasure in that little mirror at Saratoga.”
“Well, well, dearest, your first step has not led you so far astray but that you have been able most nobly to retrace your path. I am poorer than I ever expected to be, yet richer than I could ever have hoped, for had I never experienced a reverse of fortune, I should never have learned the worth of my own sweet wife.”
Harry Wilford was right, and the felicity which he now enjoys in his own quiet and cheerful home—a home won by his own industry and diligence—is well worth all the price at which it was purchased, even though it cost him his whole estate.
AGATHÈ.—A NECROMAUNT.
IN THREE CHIMERAS.
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BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.
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