“You will all come to us, dear Agnes, and we will be as one family,” said my kind father, as they at last ended the careful examination of the affairs. “You and Enna have always been as sisters, my poor dead wife loved your mother as a sister. The income my profession yields you and Enna can manage so as to supply us all. We will live plainly but happily, I know. You are both sufficiently well informed to educate the girls, and Adel will soon be old enough to assist you. Horace and Frank will in a few years be able to help themselves, and supply my place when I grow too old to fill the purse.”
Agnes sat by the table quietly gazing as upon vacancy, when my dear, good father commenced his kind plan, and as he proceeded her dark eyes beamed with childlike fondness on the good old man.
“Surely Heaven will bless you and yours, dear Mr. Duval, for being thus kind to the widowed and fatherless,” she exclaimed, as he concluded. “But I must not accept your kind offer. Your plan, however, has confirmed me in the scheme I have been forming for some days past. If I am sufficiently well fitted to take charge of my sisters’ education, why not of others? If you will aid me I will open a school.”
The thought was a good one, and my father, finding Agnes steady in her determination yielded, and used every endeavor to forward her in her project. The creditors had refused to accept the costly wardrobe and magnificent jewels belonging to Mrs. Lincoln and Agnes. These were disposed of, and the money arising from their sale was appropriated by Agnes to the furnishing of her new establishment.
“I take this money only as a loan,” said Agnes to my father. “If I am spared, and have health and strength, at some future time it shall be returned. I never shall feel light-hearted until my father’s liabilities are all satisfied.”
A house was procured, every thing arranged for the opening of the school; and it was announced in society, that the Miss Lincoln who had been “the glass of fashion and the mould of form,” a few short months before, was about to enter the work-day world as a teacher. Much is said and much written about summer-friends—those who hover around the favorites of fortune, then flee from them in the dark hour of sorrow—but truly I have seen but little of such heartlessness, long as I have lived in the world. People do not wish to desert those who are in trouble. There is more of kindness of heart and sympathy in the world than we are willing to give credit for. Circumstances and events press so quickly in this life of change, that when one amongst us is stricken down, although we grieve, we are urged on in the stream, and though we would gladly aid our sinking companion, we are hurried on unconsciously. But let the stricken one give signs of life—evidences of aiding itself, then all are ready to give a helping hand. The race must be completed—life’s journey accomplished—but any one exhibiting a desire to unite in the struggle is willingly assisted. So was it with the friends of Agnes Lincoln. Had she weakly yielded to her troubles, and shown no disposition to aid herself, the world would have felt sorry for her, but they would have had no time to tarry by the way-side—but when she appeared amongst them prepared to take her part in life’s great contest, they willingly united to help her forward.
Agnes Lincoln’s accomplishments, her elegant manners—her strong mind, all her good qualities, were remembered; and mothers and fathers, who had admired the beautiful girl in society, hastened to place under her care their own daughters, asking that she might make them like her own lovely self, and they would be satisfied. She entered heart and soul into her new vocation; and hers became the most popular establishment in the city. In the course of two or three years the small house had to be changed, and a residence as large as her father’s princely mansion taken, in order to accommodate her large school. The luxurious comforts, necessary to her mother’s happiness, were gratified; her brothers and sisters carefully attended to; but her own wants were few, indeed. She was most carefully and studiously economical. Every year she deposited in my father’s hands, a sum of money, small at first, but gradually increasing, which she, with a sad smile, called her father’s fund; this was devoted to the settling off the remaining accounts against her father.
Noble creature! how every one revered her as she moved steadily on in the path of her duty. Hers was not an easy life; hard mental labor, from morning till night, she endured for many years. At day-dawn she was up, superintending her household, and directing the studies of those pupils who resided with her. The influence she exercised over those entrusted to her care, was a subject of remark. Her commands were insisted upon with words of love, but looks of firmness. Her girls hovered around her, quietly watching every glance; and in that whole troop of young, thoughtless creatures, the most of them the indulged, spoiled children of fortune, not one but would have dreaded to disobey the simplest request of their gentle teacher.
We met daily, as formerly, and I still was to her the confidante and bosom friend I had been in the days of her wealth. She never spoke of Evart—we both avoided all allusion to him; and when, a few years after their separation, he married a wealthy woman from a neighboring city, and his marriage was mentioned before her, by those who knew not of her former connection with him, or else had forgotten it, a mere acquaintance could not have detected any trace or evidence of feeling. The marble paleness of her cheek, the firm closed mouth, and quiet, but sad look, which told of inward suffering, betrayed to me, however, that her thoughts were with the past, and I noticed in her, for some time after, a closer attendance to her duties—not one moment, night or day, left unoccupied; and her brow bore a more serious expression, that told of self-combatings and heart-struggles.
Year after year passed, and Agnes had the satisfaction of seeing her sisters growing up charming women, admired in society, and her two brothers displaying the good qualities, and honorable, high spirits of their father. By her exertions they were educated; and ten years after her father’s death she paid off his last debt, and had the pleasure of seeing her eldest brother, Horace, who had just completed his studies, enter his profession as a partner with my father. The little Frank, her father’s darling, would be nothing but a merchant, as his father had been, and was dreaming seventeen-year-old visions of future grandeur, such as his father had probably dreamed at his age, and realized. He would wreath his mother’s fretful, complaining countenance with smiles, as he would describe the wealth he intended to accumulate, and the splendid things that should once more be hers. Two weddings were celebrated by Agnes—her two sisters, Adel and Mary, who married upright and warm-hearted men, prosperous in business; and Agnes felt almost a maternal pride as she furnished their houses, and provided the wedding wardrobes. The world wondered she did not marry, for her beauty never left her, nor were opportunities wanting. Many a fond, widowed father would have gladly persuaded the idolized teacher of their daughters to share their fortunes; but she calmly and quietly refused all offers, and seemed at last to find real happiness in her business.