“But there is nothing else you can do, Sarah,” persisted Mrs. Eldon. “They want nothing else; and it seems to me that friendship is but a name, if we are not willing to make a sacrifice for our friends.”
“Any but that of principle I am willing to make for them,” replied Mrs. Allen, resolutely.
When Sarah took it up as a matter of principle, her sister desisted at once, as she knew the business to be hopeless. She only sighed, and hoped Sarah might never know some of the trials of a mother’s heart, to teach her mercy and compassion.
Sarah continued, as a married woman, to be very much what she had been as a girl, for marriage does not modify the character as much as people think it does. Her active and energetic nature, which had formerly been expended on societies and paupers, was now devoted to her household, husband and children, and all were managed with the same upright principle and relentless decision which she had ever shown in all her undertakings.
The attachment between herself and husband was strong, although the perfect harmony did not always exist between them that might have been expected, from the sense on her side and the good temper on his.
Mr. Allen, like most weak men, was obstinate, and when he wanted to do a thing, generally did it, and only showed his consciousness of Sarah’s disapprobation by not telling her of what he had done; and many a time was she bitterly provoked to find that projects which she had opposed, and supposed abandoned, had long since been quietly effected. Her heart was often in a “lime kiln,” though perhaps about trifles. Yet upon the whole she enjoyed as much of happiness, probably, as her nature was capable of. Her children were pattern children, orderly, correct and obedient. No act of rebellion had ever been known in the little circle, but one, and that was in her eldest boy, which had been so severely punished that it had become a matter of fearful tradition with the rest. In fact, Sarah was a stern mother, more feared than loved by her children, yet they were generally looked upon as a “remarkably well brought up family,” and Mrs. Allen received no small praise for her admirable management of her young flock.
“Who do you think was suspended to-day?” said Charles Eldon, as he threw down his books on his return from college.
“Who? who?” exclaimed his young brothers and sisters.
“Tom Allen!”
“What, Tommy good-shoes!” exclaimed the children, with shouts of merriment. “Oh, that is too good! Mamma, only think, Tom Allen is suspended!”