Pride and Prudence CHAPTER 1.
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Two maidens, the one about sixteen, and the other just passing her eighteenth summer, were sitting together one evening in June, when the mild airs came laden with a thousand sweet fragrances. They were at an open window, looking out upon a garden well filled with shrubbery, among the green leaves of which the dew drops sparkled like diamonds in the bright moonbeams.
They were conversing of the future. The heart of the elder had been stirred from its maiden dream, so pure and passionless, and now thrilled with a new and wilder emotion than had ever passed over its surface. She had fallen in love! One who seemed to her to possess a nobler nature than any she had met — had sought and won her affections. Anna was a new being!
The younger, Mary, felt a glow of lively interest in her sister's prospects for the future; but she feared that Anna's affection for her would decay, in the more absorbing passion which now ruled her.
"You must not forget me, sister," she said, playfully, yet half sadly, "in your new-found love. I shall be jealous of Mr. Ashton, if he wins my sister's affection from me."
"How could I ever forget you, Mary?" the sister replied, drawing her arm around the waist of the gentle creature, who pressed close to her side. "You will be my own dear sister still."
"Twice within the last week," said Mary, pursuing her own thoughts, "have I seen Mrs. Condoret pass in her carriage, and in a few minutes after, her sister Jane, on foot, in poor, faded garments. They were once sisters in affection, as well as in name. Now their conditions are changed, and one will pass the other with scarcely a nod of recognition. Dear sister, our future lots may be different; but shall we forget each other?"
Mary leaned her head upon the shoulder of Anna, for her heart was troubled.
"It is strange, Mary, that you should think and talk thus. Mrs. Condoret could never have had a true affection for Jane — or no change in outward circumstances could have affected her feelings. We cannot forget each other. We will not forget each other. When I pass you by with indifference, I shall be unworthy the gentle name of sister. But do not vainly imagine that for either of us there is such a condition in the future, as the one you have just alluded to."
"I know I'm a foolish child!" Mary said, forcing a smile. "And I know it is wrong for me to think and feel as I do. I shall never cease to love you, no matter what change may take place. And I am sure that you will continue to love me as tenderly as now. But that both of us will occupy a similar position in society, is hardly to be expected. How rarely it is, that married sisters stand in the same plane as regards external circumstances. You are about to be married to a rich husband. He will, doubtless, remain rich. I shall give my hand to the man I love, for his principles, be he rich or poor. If he should be poor, and I, in consequence, compelled to move in a social sphere far below you, how will — . But forgive me, dear sister, these thoughts are ungenerous."
"They are, Mary. Banish them, at once and forever, from your mind. Rich or poor, high or low, courted or neglected by the world — you will ever be my own dear sister. As such, I shall always love you as devotedly as now."
"Mr. Ashton is in the parlor," said a servant, entering at this moment.
Anna rose up quickly, and, kissing the cheek of her sister, hastened to join her intended husband. Mr. Ashton was a man who had lived to very good purpose, so far as making money was concerned. As a poor boy, he had entered a mercantile house. For five years he devoted himself to business with an assiduity and intelligence that made him almost invaluable to his employers, who, on his arriving at the age of manhood, retained his services at a handsome salary. At the end of a year, one of the partners of the firm died. An interest in the business was then offered to Ashton. At the end of five years more, he retired from the firm with twenty thousand dollars in cash. On this, he commenced business for himself. Times were prosperous, and he prospered with the times. He was thirty-two years of age when he offered his hand to Anna Lormer, and reputed to be worth seventy or eighty thousand dollars. His business was large — and the prospect fair for his becoming immensely rich.
As a drawback to his merits as a prompt, energetic, systematic, money-making businessman — was the fact that he was thoroughly selfish. No wave of generous feeling ever crossed his bosom. He saw nothing beyond a circle, of which he was the center. In consequence, he had looked upon every man with something like suspicion, and regarded every man with internal feelings of dislike.
A few months following the time in which our story opens, Anna Lormer became the bride of Ashton. The wedding was a mirthful and brilliant one. After the attendant festivities had passed away, a large house was furnished without regard to the cost of anything. The newly married couple entered upon life in a style of great elegance. In the excitement of all this, the mind of the bride became so much absorbed, that she seemed to have no thought beyond herself and husband. Her sister Mary could not help seeing and feeling this at times, although she struggled against it, and chided herself for her ungenerous feelings. Towards the husband of Anna, Mary had never felt much drawn. To her, he had always seemed cold; and this coldness in no way diminished, as days, and weeks, and months, passed away. His selfishness too soon became apparent in little things, which are always a true index to character.
Two, years passed away during which the fellowship between the sisters continued to be of the most affectionate character. At the end of that time, Mary became the wife of a Mr. Este, a merchant of good standing. Anna, the wife of Mr. Ashton, and a blooming young mother, was one of the happiest of the happy company who witnessed the ceremony. She rejoiced sincerely in the consummation of her sister's hopes, and saluted her cheek with a kiss of pure and fervent affection.
As has been said, Mr. Ashton was a man of great shrewdness and tact. One of those men of wisdom it is usually said, that everything they touch turns to gold. But he was also, as has been intimated, a very selfish man. Beyond his own family, he had no sympathies. He lived for himself and the narrow circle that gathered around his own hearth.
Mr. Estes, the husband of Mary, was a man of different character. He had views and sympathies extending far beyond the narrow sphere of selfish considerations. He was not so well off in the world as Mr. Ashton, nor was he doing so safe a business. As he had nothing in common with him, he met him as rarely as possible. When they did meet, they wererigidly polite to each other, but each felt relieved when the moment came for separation.
It is almost impossible for a man and his wife to live together in harmony for any length of time, without the wife becoming modified in her character, so as to become, in a degree, like her husband. In some instances, however, it does not occur, owing to an active opposition of the will of the wife to the will of the husband; which opposition always creates discord in a family. Mrs. Ashton loved her husband, and having confidence in his judgment, soon partook of the ruling self-love which characterized him. Nothing beyond her own children, and her own household, interested her; and Mrs. Este, whose sisterly affection had never in the least abated, felt after few years, painfully — the gradual change going on in the disposition of Anna. Her style of living was not so splendid and costly as her sister's, and she failed not to observe that Anna felt no interest in her domestic arrangements, and even took exception to the plainness of her style of living.
"Why don't you come out in a little better style, Mary," she said to her one day. "I declare, I am getting almost ashamed of your old fashioned manner of living! Why don't you send to New York and get a Turkish carpet? This dull-looking Brussels carpet is only fit for a clerk, or a retail grocer's house."
"I would be no happier, Anna, with my house furnished like a palace! We look for satisfaction of mind, to other sources than mere parade and show. If within there is not peace — then nothing from without can bring it. Besides, Mr. Este's business is not so large as Mr. Ashton's, nor so profitable. It would be wrong for us to live in the style that you can afford to live in; and it is well for us that we have no desire to do so."
"I don't know. Mr. Este is doing a business that would afford a much higher style of living; and I think you owe it to us to make a better appearance!"
Mrs. Este felt her heart rising, but she kept down her feelings, and changed the subject. Their style of living, as Mrs. Ashton called it, was not showy; but it was tasteful, and even elegant, involving an expenditure of at least two thousand five hundred dollars a year. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Este were fond of mirthful company, and declined mingling in it. Friends they had, but they were of a different character from fashionable friends.
It was with no ordinary emotions of pain, that Mrs. Este perceived a gradual decay of that sisterly love which had burned in her own bosom so warmly, and a gradual withdrawal of Anna from a confidential and affectionate fellowship with her.
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