The Two Husbands CHAPTER 5
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His wife burst into tears, and sat sobbing for some minutes, during which time Wilton paced the room backwards and forwards, in moody silence. After a while, his wife rose up and stole quietly from the room, and in a few minutes returned, dressed, to go out.
"I am ready," she said.
"Ready to go where?"
"To Mr. Grogan's, of course. You wish to go."
"I don't care about going now, as long as you are unwilling."
"Yes, but I am willing, Charles, if the visit will be pleasant to you."
"O, as to that, I don't wish to compel you to go anywhere."
"Indeed, Charles, I am willing to go," said his wife, while her voice trembled and sounded harshly. "Come, now that I am ready. I wish to go."
For a moment longer Wilton hesitated, and then took up his hat and went with her. Few were the words that passed between them as they walked along the street. Arrived at their friend's house, they both suddenly changed, and were as mirthful, and seemed as happy, as the gayest and the happiest.
"Shall we call in upon some pleasant friends tonight, or spend our evening alone?" asked Walter Gray, taking a seat upon the sofa beside his happy wife, on the same evening that the foregoing conversation and incidents occurred.
"Let it be as you wish, Walter," was the affectionate, truthful reply.
"As for me, Jane, I am always happy at home — too happy, I sometimes think."
"How, too happy?"
"Too happy to think of others, Jane. We must be careful not to become isolated and selfish in our pleasures. Our social character must not be sacrificed. If it is in our power to add to the happiness of others, it is right that we should mingle in the social circle."
"I feel the truth of what you say, Walter, and yet I find it hard to be thus unselfish. I am sure that I would a thousand times rather remain at home and read with you a pleasant book, or sing and play for you, than to spend an evening away from our pleasant home."
"I feel the same inclinations. But I am unwilling to encourage them. And yet, I am not an advocate for continual visitings. The delights of our own sweet fireside, small though the circle be, I would enjoy often. But these pleasures will be increased tenfold, by our willingness to let others share them; and, also, by our joining the delights and social recreations in their home."
A pause of a few moments ensued, when Mrs. Gray said,
"Suppose, then, Walter, we call over and see how they are getting on at 'home?' Father and mother are lonesome, now that I am away."
"Just what I was thinking of, Jane. So get on your things, and we will join them and spend a pleasant evening."
These brief conversations will indicate to the reader how each of the young men and their wives were thus early beginning to reap the fruits of true and false principles of action. We cannot trace each on his career, step by step, during the passage of many years, though much that would interest and instruct could be gathered from their histories. The limits of a brief story like this, will not permit us thus to linger.
On, then, to the grand result of their lives, we must pass. Let us look at the summing up of the whole matter, and see which of the young men started with the true secret of successin the world, and which of the young ladies evinced most wisdom in her choice of a husband.
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