Difference between revisions of "Pride and Prudence CHAPTER 3."

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The failure in her plans for supporting her family, and the loss occasioned by it, deterred her from entering into any other business. A judicious friend, such as her sister's husband might have been, could have advised her how to make an investment of her little funds, that would have brought her in at least a support. But she had no friend, no adviser. She loved her children with an affection that might be called idolatry. In the confident hope, that, by the time they were of age, her building lots would be worth fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, did she make her calculations and arrangements without any reference to holding a personal right to them. They were for her children, and her children should have them.

But she saw her means gradually wasting away, and felt that before her was certain destitution and the dismemberment of her family. Let not those who have none of these resources that Mrs. Este had, imagine that her mental sufferings were less than theirs, in prospect of some dark moment in the future. She expected more, and disappointed expectation pains as acutely, be the desire great or small — especially when the object is the one dear desire.

Another year passed, during which Mrs. Ashton had been but once to see her. The visit was one of cold formality; a mere call of twenty minutes. No questions were asked of her condition or prospects, and no allusion made to them by Mrs. Este. Neither herself nor children were asked to return the visit.

Unchanged in her real feelings towards her sister, though exquisitely pained at the unnatural position she now allowed herself to assume, Mrs. Este endeavored to banish all thoughts of the subject from her mind. But a little fellow, about eight years old, who had been present during the interview of his mother and aunt, was not so disposed:

"I don't like Aunt Anna, mother, I do not!"

"My child, you must not dislike anyone."

"But I don't like her — nor cousin George either — but I like cousin Jane."

"Why don't you like George, my son? You haven't seen him for a long time."

"Yes ma'am, I have, though. I see him almost every day. He goes to school close by where we do."

"Well, Henry, I don't suppose George troubles you, or does anything wrong to you."

"I do not see why he does not speak to me, mother. I am as good as he is. But whenever I meet cousin Jane, she stops and speaks to me so kind, and always asks about you, and says she wants to come and see you so bad, but that her mother won't let her. O, I love cousin Jane!"

"You must try to love everyone, Henry. George does wrong in not speaking to you; but, you know, I have told you, that when a person acts wrong — they hurt themselves more than anyone else. Now George does himself harm, and not you, in what he does. You should pity — and not hate him."

"But, mother, I feel bad when the boys ask me if George is my cousin; and why he doesn't speak to me?"

"And what do you tell them?"

"Why, that he's too proud to speak to me," replied the child, emphatically.

"Then you attempt to injure him, don't you, Henry, by trying to make the boys think that he is too proud to speak to you?"

"I don't want to hurt him, mother. I know that would be wrong. But — "

"But you do hurt him, though, by what you say to the boys; and in that, you are to blame as well as he, though your faults are different. He is influenced by a foolish pride — and you by a feeling of hate."

"No — no — not hate, mother! I don't hate him. I wouldn't hurt him for the world."

"But you do attempt to hurt him, when you try to make others think ill of him — and that can only proceed from a feeling of hate."

The child was silent, though he but half understood the position of his mother. But he understood it well enough to refrain from saying anything about George, when any of his school fellows alluded to him afterwards.

When Mrs. Ashton returned home, her daughter Jane, who was about twelve years old, asked where she had been.

"I have been to your aunt Mary's," she replied indifferently.

"O, mother! why didn't you let me go along?" said Jane. "I want to go and see aunt Mary so bad."

"I'm sure I don't see what you want to go there for," spoke up George, a bold looking boy, of about fourteen. "I don't think, for my part, we ought to associate with them, and I wonder at mother's going there."

"How can you talk so, George?" said Jane, warmly. "Is not aunt Mary our mother's sister? — and are we not cousins?"

"That may all be so; but just see how aunt Mary has acted."

"What has she done, George?"

"Hasn't she disgraced herself by keeping a boarding house? — and disgraced us too?"

"I can't see any disgrace about it. Do you, mother?"

Mrs. Ashton had been taken by surprise by her children's remarks, and some touches of better feeling had suddenly sprung up, and she briefly answered that —

"It was not reputable."

"No, it was not reputable," spoke up George in an angry tone, "and I despise her for it!"

"George! George! You must not talk so," interrupted his mother, startled at finding her own thoughts and feelings brought out into words by one of her children.

"I am sure, mother, you think just as I do. I heard you say, long ago, that she had forfeited claims to your respect, and that you almost felt like disowning her entirely."

Mrs. Ashton was silent. She was convicted by her own child, of unnatural conduct towards her sister, but, although she regretted having used the language, and had been recalled to some gentle and right feelings by her daughter Jane — she had not the moral courage at once to own that she had been wrong, and to distinctly disavow the present existence of such feeling.

"Mother doesn't think so now, do you, mother?" said Jane, who perceived the change that had taken place in the mother's feelings.

"Yes, she does though," spoke up George, before his mother had time to reply, "Mother knows better, the ground of her objections to aunt Mary."

"I will hear nothing further on the subject," she said quickly — pained and confused to a degree that was really embarrassing.

"Mother," said Jane the next morning when they were alone, "You'll let me go to see aunt Mary, won't you!"

"I would rather you would not go, Jane."

"But, mother, she must feel lonesome and friendless. You don't know how much pleasure she might take in seeing me, now and then."

"I cannot consent, Jane. I have my reasons for objecting, and you will have to yield to my wishes."