She permitted him to raise her head and rest it on his shoulder, and the good father’s last moments were soothed by witnessing the marriage of his daughter with the man he most highly valued as a friend. It was a sad bridal, but Cora felt that two at least were happy; self-sacrifice she had brought her mind years before to endure; and she prayed that Heaven might make the present sacrifice work out her own content. Mr. Neill died, and Cora found herself a fatherless bride. Untiring was her husband’s devotion, and most soothing and consoling were his attentions. Soon after her father’s death he persuaded her to leave their beautiful home for a while, and they accordingly traveled for some time in Europe. The change of scene enlivened her, and she was becoming satisfied with the step she had taken, when, at Naples, one season she met with Harry, now Captain Belton. He was still unmarried, for, like her, he had retained a feeling of romance for his first love. They met with a few flutterings on both sides, which, however, soon disappeared. Each found the other different from the ideal image cherished in their memories. Harry was a noble-hearted, frank fellow, but sadly wanting in the intellectual elevation that characterized M. Martinez, and Cora, though still beautiful, he thought her not half so conversible or interesting as his little black-eyed cousin, Sophie Wilson, with whom he had flirted at Washington on her entrée into society, the previous winter, and with whom he corresponded most platonically and brother-like. Had Cora and Harry married early in life, she would have adapted herself partly to his tastes, and he to hers—they would have met half way. She would have elevated him intellectually, and they would probably have been happy; but their pursuits had been different. His had been a careless, indolent life, independent of the mere performance of the duties of his profession—hers an intellectual one. She had become entirely elevated above him; her mental powers had developed while his laid dormant, and she felt as she turned and looked upon the intellectual beauty of M. Martinez, and contrasted it with the tolerably good-looking, though broad and rather inexpressive face of her early love, that the prayer she had made so fervently over her father’s death-bed, had been granted. Her marriage had brought to her true happiness.
Harry Belton returned home with his romantic dreams dispelled, and the next season the American papers gave notice of the marriage of “Captain Belton, U. S. N., to Sophie, only daughter of Gen. Wilson.”
Cora pointed out the notice to her husband with a smile on her now full red lip, and with a deeper flush on her cheek than it usually wore, she said—
“How fortunate it was, dearest, that Harry and I met at Naples last summer—otherwise we might both have gone through life, fancying ourselves miserably unhappy about the romance of a first love.”
THE DREAMER.
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BY ALICE G. LEE.
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I dream the only happiness I know. Mrs. Butler.