Satisfied with his final judgment, Mr. Rayne called for a light and escorted himself to the downy arms of his comfortable bed, and when we next take a peep—for of course we've not intruded for the few moments he was saying his prayers—he is snoring the snore of the truly heavy sleeper, and his big good-natured face scarcely discernible among night-cap, pillows and sheets, easily convinces one of the indisputable quiescence of the mind's consciousness in slumber.
Is it not almost equivalent to the acomplishment of the deed itself when we have fallen asleep the night before with the resolution of performing it on the morrow? Is not the wrong almost redressed when we have promised our selves to right it at any cost on the morrow? Is not the thought itself equal to the vow if we know that with the morning's sun we shall rise to make it in reality? One feels all the satisfaction of a deed accomplished in anticipation, and God be thanked for this, for how many weary souls must have made their last night on earth endurable, by the peace of mind that such resolutions infallibly bring.
This explains the comfort and utter heedlessness of Mr Rayne's slumber after such a miserable time as he passed arguing against himself in his drawing-room. He had vowed that he would broach the tender subject to Honor the very next day, and thus free himself from any more hours of self-reproach.
CHAPTER IX.
"They say the maxim is not new,
That good and evil mixed must be
In every thing this world can show."
—Patty
The next morning dawned a calm, mild day. The snow was knee-deep on the ground and covered the housetops with a thick soft mantle. On how many utterly different scenes the stray sunbeams rested that winter morning. Nearly all the heroines of Miss Teazle's ball were sunk in heavy, tired slumber, in rooms strewn with laces and flowers and other fragments of last night's dissipation. The poor over-exerted mammas are neither able to rise nor to sleep, and their pitiably puckered brows and sour looking faces would excite the sympathy of the most cynical misanthrope.
And yet, perhaps if not reminded, some readers would be tasteless enough to overlook the noble sacrifice these mothers were making of the comfort of their lives in order to "chaperone" their stylish daughters to all the haunts of pleasure. These poor fashionable women must indeed drain life's cup of bitterness to the dregs, if we can judge from the worldly girl's soliloquy.
Who rigs herself in satins light,
And goes to parties every night,
To chaperone her daughters bright?
My mother
Who eats late suppers to her grief,
Of jellied turkeys and roast beef,
And finds no dyspeptic relief
My mother