“Well, Fanny,” persisted Mrs. Tremaine, nothing abashed by the gentle rebuke which had been given—“well, Fanny, depend upon it you will place yourself in a false position. The friends who are now eager to court the society of Miss Austin, will stand aloof when invited to the house of Mrs. Dunning.”
“Friends! did you ever know a true friend do aught that would depreciate the husband in the eyes of his wife, or lessen the wife in the esteem of her husband? For such of my so-called friends as would not honor the man I had chosen, when he was well worthy of their highest regard, I can but say the sooner we part company the better. It is not the long array of names upon my visiting list of which I am proud, but the worth of those who proffer me their friendship.”
“Two o’clock!” said Mrs. Tremaine, glancing at the pendule on the chimney-piece—“two o’clock! Good morning, Miss Austin. How surprised Tremaine will be to hear that you are really going to marry Bob Dunning.”
And Robert Dunning and Fanny Austin were married—and never was there a happier home than theirs. The wife watched for her husband’s step as the maiden watches for that of her lover. Daily she met him with smiles, while her heart throbbed with a love as warm and as pure as that she had vowed at the altar. And Robert Dunning idolized his wife, and his fine endowments drew around him a host of admirers and friends, until Fanny’s former acquaintances, including Mrs. Tremaine, contended for the honor of an invitation to the gifted circle, which weekly met at the house of Mrs. Dunning.
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CHAPTER III.
“So it has come at last—ruin, final, irretrievable ruin—every thing gone—the very house I’m in mortgaged. Confusion! But I’ll not give up yet—no, not yet! I’ll see Browne to-night—what if we should fail? But that is impossible. Browne has been too long engaged in getting his living from the dear public to let it scrutinize very closely the process by which the needful is obtained. If I thought I could win any thing at play—but I have had such an infernal run of ill luck lately that there is no chance in that quarter. Well—well! There appears to be no alternative—and when it is once done, then ho! for England!”
Thus soliloquized Gustavus Tremaine, as he sat at a late hour in the morning sipping his coffee in his room, for his wife and he had long ceased to take their meals together. Separate rooms and separate tables had served to complete the estrangement which caprice and ill temper had begun, and they now exhibited that pitiable spectacle of a house divided against itself. And what is more pitiable than to see those who should mutually encourage and support each other, who should bear one another’s burdens, and in the spirit of blessed charity endure all things, and hope all things—what is more pitiable than to see them unkind, self-willed, bandying bitter sarcasms and rude reproaches?
Oh, that the duties, the responsibilities, the self-sacrifices of wedded life were better understood, their sacred character more fully appreciated, how would each home become a temple of love, each fireside an altar, on which was daily laid an offering of all the amenities, all the sweet charities of social life. How would the child who, in his early home, had heard none save kind words, had seen none other than heart-warm deeds, who had been trained to habits of submission, and taught to yield the gratification of his own wishes for the good or the pleasure of others, taught to do this even as a child may be taught, in the meek spirit of the gospel—how would such an one grow up a crown of glory to the hoary hairs of his parents, and a blessing to society. But, alas! the spirit of insubordination is rife in the world. The child spurns the yoke of domestic discipline, sets at naught the counsels of his father, and hearkens not to the voice of his mother—and the man disregards the voice of conscience, sets the laws of his country at defiance, and becomes an outcast and a felon!
It was a cold winter evening, and the heavy clouds were looming up in broad masses over the troubled sky, while the wind howled through every cranny, and sent the snow-mist, which began rapidly to descend, into the faces of the stray pedestrians who were either hardy enough to venture abroad in search of pleasure, or wretched enough to be obliged from dire necessity to leave their homes. Mr. Tremaine was among the few who were braving the fury of the storm. He had left his elegant but cheerless mansion in the upper part of the city, and sped onward, regardless alike of wind and snow, to the place of his destination.