“‘Who told you that Mrs. Hall was a widow, Isabel?’ said aunt, to divert me from my mishap.
“‘Nobody; but I knew it at once, as soon as I looked at her; how lonely she must be—and how terrible to see one’s best friend die, and know you cannot call them back again.’
“‘Not half so dreadful, dear,’ answered she, very seriously, ‘as to live on from day to day and see the gradual death of the soul, while the body is unwasted. It would be a happy day for Mrs. Hall that made her a widow, though she, poor thing, might not think so. That wretched inebriate’—and she pointed to the man we had just met—‘is her husband; and this is why she plies her needle when we would willingly save her from all labor. She cannot bear that he should be indebted to the charity of strangers.’
“It was even so, for the poor fellow had reached the garden-gate, and was staggering in.
“‘So he goes home to her day after day,’ continued aunt; ‘and so it has been since a few years after their marriage. When I first came here, he had a neat shop in the village, and was considered one of the most promising young men in the neighborhood. Such an excellent workman—such a clever fellow—so fond and proud of his wife; and everybody said that Charlotte Adams had married ‘out of all trouble,’ in the country phrase. Poor girl! she had only entered a sea of misfortunes—for, from the death of her only child, a fine little fellow, they have been going down. It is a common story. First, the shop was given up, and he worked by the day; not long after, they moved to a smaller house, and sold most of their furniture. It was then she first commenced sewing, and, with all her industry she could scarcely get along. She could never deny him money when she had it—and this, with his own earnings, were spent at the tavern. She remonstrated in vain. He would promise to do better—in his sober moments he was all contrition, and called himself a wretch to grieve such a good wife. I do not believe she has ever reproached him, save by a glance of sorrowful entreaty, such as I have often seen her give when he entered as now he is going to her.
“‘She was never very well, and under repeated trials, and sorrow and mortification, her health gave way. Many a time have I parted with her, never expecting to see her alive again; but there is some concealed principle of vitality which supports her. Perhaps it is the hope that she will yet see her husband what he has been. I fear she hopes in vain, for if there was ever a man given over to the demon of intemperance it is James Hall. But it is for this reason that she refuses the assistance of her acquaintances, and works on from day to day, sometimes as now unable to leave her bed. Of course she is well paid, and has plenty of work, for everybody pities her, and all admire the wonderful patience, cheerfulness and industry which she exhibits. She never speaks to any one, even to me, of her husband’s faults. If she ever mentions him it is to say, ‘James has been such a good nurse this week—he has the kindest heart in the world.’ ‘She is a heroine,’ exclaimed my aunt warmly. ‘The best wife I ever knew—and if there is mercy in heaven, she will be repaid for all she has suffered in this world.’
“‘Poor lady,’ I thought and said a hundred times that week. I suppose I must have tired everybody with talking about Mrs. Hall.”
“And did you ever see her again—did she die, Miss Gray?” asked Emily Bradford, as Isabel paused in her narration.
“I told you she made those pretty habit shirts for me. They were not in fashion in those days if you will recollect. The first summer after my debut in society I passed at Milton. I never shall forget the second evening of my visit. If you recollect, there was a great temperance movement through all our towns and villages just about that time. Reformed inebriates had become the apostles of temperance, and went from village to village, rousing the inhabitants by their unlearned but wonderful eloquence. Mass meetings were held in the town-ball at Milton nightly, and by uncle’s invitation, for he went heart and hand with the newly awakened spirit of reform, aunt and myself accompanied him to one of these strange gatherings. It was with the greatest difficulty we could get a seat. Rough laborers, with their wives and children, crowded side by side with the élite of the little place; boys of every age and size filled up the interstices, with a strange variety of faces and expressions. The speaker of the evening was introduced just as we entered. He was tall, with a wan, haggard-looking face, and the most brilliant, flashing eyes I ever saw. A few months ago he had been on outcast from society, and now, with a frame weakened by past excesses, but with a spirit as strong as that which animated the old reformers, he stood forth, going as it were ‘from house to house, saying peace be unto you.’ Peace which had fled from his own hearth when he gave way to temptation, but which now returning urged him to bear glad tidings to other homes.
“I never listened to such strange and thrilling eloquence. I have seen Fanny Kemble as Portia plead with Shylock with all the energy of justice, and the force of her passionate nature, but though that was beyond my powers of conception, I was not moved as now. With what touching pathos he recounted the sorrows, the wasting, mournful want endured by the drunkard’s wife! The sickness of hope deferred and crushed—the destruction of all happiness here, or hope of it hereafter! It was what his own eyes had seen, his own acts had caused—and it was the eloquence of simple truth. More than one thought of poor Mrs. Hall, I am sure. As for myself, I know not when I have been so excited, and after the exhausted speaker had concluded his thrilling appeal, and the whole rude assembly joined in a song arranged to the plaintive air of Auld Lang Syne—more like a triumphal chant it seemed, as it surged through the room—I forgot all rules of form, and though I had sung nothing but tame Italian cavatinas for years, my voice rose with the rest, forgetful of all but the scene around me.