“Years may fly with the wings of the hawk; but, alas!
They are marked by the feet of the crow,”
he condescended to bestow himself upon a young and pretty heiress, who eloped with him from boarding-school. Fortunately for him, his wife proved to be one of those tender, devoted, womanly creatures, who never call in the aid of the head to destroy the illusions of the heart. Her love for her husband long outlived the qualities, real or imaginary, which had first called it into being, and in the dull selfish egotist of the fireside she could still see the brilliant and attractive man of fashion who had won her gratitude by deigning to accept her fortune and affection. When a woman is won unsought, in other words, when she loves first, she is always doubly enslaved by her affections, and this was decidedly the case with Mrs. Clifton. She fancied she could never do enough for her selfish husband, and he soon showed himself the despot when he found himself possessed of a slave. As he grew older he became a martyr to gout, and in the slovenly, plethoric, testy-looking, elderly man, who swore at his pale wife fifty times a day, and kept his only child in bodily fear by his fierce threats—none of his former friends would have recognized the “model man of fashion.”
In the atmosphere of such a home, Minnie imbibed her first ideas of womanly duties and womanly rewards. She idolized her gentle mother, and that mother’s idea of home duties and virtues was condensed into one single article of faith—perfect submission to the will of a husband and father. Mrs. Clifton’s mind was too feeble, her experience too limited, and her affection to her husband too extravagant to allow her to entertain the slightest doubt of his wisdom or his virtue. She honestly believed woman to be the inferior creation, and her ideal of a wife was the patient Grizzel of the old Fabliaux—a creature whose will, whose wishes, whose very sense of duty was to be placed at a husband’s mercy. That men might be found whose noble, generous, self-forgetting affection would place woman like a queen upon the throne of their hearts, asking nothing in return but the enlightened and true devotion of a loving nature, was an idea that never had been presented to her imagination. She fancied that hers was but a common lot, and therefore she early trained Minnie to the servitude which she supposed would accomplish her destiny.
Minnie inherited none of the rare beauty which had been her father’s greatest charm. She had the soft dove-like eyes, the pale clear complexion, and the peculiar delicacy, almost fragility of frame which she derived from her mother. These personal traits, combined with her timid, gentle manner, her perfect good temper, and quiet undemonstrative tenderness of nature, made her seem merely one of those commonplace children whom old ladies are apt to praise as good quiet little girls. Yet Minnie had a fund of practical good sense, together with a certain playfulness of fancy, and a quick perception of the beautiful as well as the good in life, which if properly trained and cultivated might have made her a very superior woman. But in her early home patience, good temper, and industry were the only qualities called into exercise, and neither her father nor her mother knew or cared for any thing beyond the useful attributes in her character. As she emerged from infancy, she gradually became the little domestic drudge, for the rapid waste of her mother’s fortune soon reduced them to the narrowest mode of life, and when her father came home from the club, where he could still keep up appearances, to the small, ill-furnished house where his extravagance had imprisoned his wife, it was Minnie who waited on his caprices and ran at his call like a servant. As he became diseased and still more reduced, matters grew worse, and poor Minnie’s home became the scene of discord and discomfort, as well as the abode of positive want. Mr. Clifton grew into a sick savage, Mrs. Clifton sunk into querulous discontent, and Minnie was little more than the recipient of the ill-humor of both.
Yet Minnie loved her parents dearly, and not a murmur ever escaped her lips, however unreasonable might be the demands upon her childish patience or her limited time. But she was destined to a heavier thraldom than that which nature had imposed. One of those local epidemics which sometimes devastate a neighborhood broke out near them, and both her parents fell victims to it while she lay in a state between life and death. When she recovered her consciousness she learned that her father and mother had been buried a week before, and she was now a poor friendless orphan. The tidings, uncautiously communicated, caused a relapse which brought her a second time to the brink of the grave. But the principle of life is wonderfully strong in youth, and after many weeks of suffering Minnie was restored to health. During her convalescence she gradually learned all the circumstances of her bereavement from a kind and careful nurse, in whose neat and pleasant apartment she found herself domiciled.
“But how came I here?” asked the bewildered child, as she looked out upon the green fields that surrounded her present abode.
“Let me answer you, my little cousin,” said a strange but pleasant voice, as a tall young stripling entered the room.
The explanation was soon given. There was a certain Mrs. Woodley, the maternal aunt of Mrs. Clifton, who, offended at her imprudent marriage, had refused to hold any intercourse with her. This lady had a son pursuing his studies in the metropolis, who had accidentally heard Minnie’s story told by a benevolent physician. To Hubert Woodley such a story would have been felt as a call upon his sympathies under any circumstances, but when he found upon inquiry that the child was his own blood relation, he acted promptly and decidedly. Minnie was removed to healthy country lodgings, and when all danger was over he wrote to his mother requesting her to give Minnie a home with her for the future. To his doting parents Hubert’s will was law, and he was fully authorized to bring his little cousin home as soon as her health would bear the journey.
How many people there are in the world who perform all the duties of life, and apparently enjoy a fair proportion of its pleasures, yet are as utterly deficient in all that goes to constitute a warm, generous, sympathizing heart, as if they had been mere animals! They are like machines, moving with clock-like regularity in their own narrow circle, doing exactly what their “hands find to do,” but never seeming to suspect that the head might suggest, or the heart might impel to higher duties or broader responsibilities. Such were the new friends who now came forward to claim the friendless orphan.