a fit of fainting or hysterics, I am a ruined man. Mind," he added, quickly, and a look of manly dignity replaced the troubled expression of his brow and eye, "I use the word in its ordinary, conventional signification. You and I would call no man ruined, in the literal sense of the word, who retained his honor unstained, and the vigor of his head and the strength of his hand unimpaired."
I was so completely taken by surprise, that I had no power to reply, and he went on; "If it were only for myself, I could bear it, I believe, as well as most people, but the thought of that poor girl unmans me. Amusement, society, luxury, seem to make up her very life, and to tell her she must be deprived of these things, is dreadful. Oh!" he continued, bitterly, "if I could be to Amy all that she once was to me, how light would all trials be while our love remained; but that was an idle dream!"
"It may be no dream yet," answered I. "Amy has a heart, though her life, hitherto, has offered little to prove its depth. Who knows but that, when she is called on for sympathy and action, she may prove all we could wish?"
"Do not flatter me with false hopes," he said; "I have given up such ideas as those forever."
I had some hope that matters were not so bad as in the first moment I had been given to understand they were, and I begged for further information. I found, however, the statement Mr. Lennox had made was substantially true; he had, indeed, lost a handsome property, and all that remained was an opportunity of realizing a comfortable independence by personal exertion. But the sacrifice of the luxuries, and the worldly consideration which the possession of wealth bestows, was inevitable; a sacrifice which frequently causes distress very disproportionate to the worth of the objects abandoned.
When he had in a few words put me in possession of the actual state of his affairs, he said: "Now comes the question of what is best to be done with Amy. It is possible I may find it advisable to go out to India, but, whether I go or stay, I think it would be better for her to accompany her mother and Louisa to Baden. She will feel the change less at first, I have consulted with her father, and he agrees with me in this opinion."
"Very likely," said I, dryly; "and if it is your intention that Amy should remain all her life a spoiled child of fortune, you could not take better means to attain your end. If she is ever to prove what a rational being should be, it must be by the discipline of life; do not, then, attempt to shield her from trials which may be of more benefit to her than all the favors of fortune. Do not suppose you can guarantee her from sorrow; rather call upon her to share your distresses, than leave her to be consumed by the selfish vexations which inevitably fall to the lot of the idle and indulged. But, if you would inspire her with devotion, you must give her your confidence. Tell her all – let her know your actual position – what you hope from her – what you fear. You and she may live to bless the day which brings these trials."
"Ah! if I could think," he began; "but no – you do but judge after your own earnest nature – you do not know Amy."
"Nor you – nor any one; she does not know herself. A girl's character is like a rosebud, folded up from every eye; but, unlike the flower, it expands more under clouds and tempests than under the genial sun."
There was a pause, during which he sat musing, then he said, "When I called your attention to my unhappy affairs, it was with the intention of requesting you to break the matter to Amy for me, but you have half persuaded me to do it myself."
"Yourself, by all means," said I; "and let there be no concealment between you. What am I to do about telling Louisa and Mrs. R.?"
"Oh! they must know, certainly," answered he. "Mrs. R. will be gone out when you arrive, so you will be spared that scene. Louisa – who has now more sense and courage than all of us put together – will break it to her best in the morning. Here is the carriage, let me put you into it, and then for poor Amy."
He was right. Louisa did seem to have more sense and courage now than any of us. Perhaps, she felt herself too near another world to affix an undue value on the things of this, for none of the agitation which I had feared resulted from the communication, and we consulted together calmly and rationally on the best means of making present circumstances useful to Amy, and tolerable to her mother. But, calm as she was, I thought it better to spare her the first burst of Mrs. R.'s distress, and therefore I remained the night over, and returned to Amy in the morning.
I found her alone in the nursery, with her sleeping infant in her arms. Her eyes were bent pensively on its countenance, and there was an expression of serious thoughtfulness on her beautiful features, which became them as well as the gayety which was their native character.
"My dear, dear aunt," she said, as I kissed her cheek, "how much I owe you!"
"Owe me, my love! what do you mean?"
"If it had not been for you, Edward would have told me nothing. I should never have known half his causes of distress, and I should have believed him cold and indifferent, when, on the contrary, he was depressed by anxiety for me, and for our boy."
Here was a spring of action at once. The fountains of sympathy, of gratitude, of love, were opened; might not these waters prove sufficient to fertilize a life? I believed so, and I felt that Amy was saved.
I was not mistaken. From that day, she was a new creature. If the sacrifices she was called upon to make at first appeared great, they were soon rendered insignificant by the regret which she felt when she reflected how little her previous education had prepared her to make the best of a limited income, to prove the friend, companion, and confidante, which her husband would now need more than ever, or to fulfill the office of guide and instructress which her little boy would soon call upon her to perform.
"These are not subjects for regret, Amy," said I, when she poured out her heart to me, as she had been in the habit of doing in her childish days; "with youth and health, they are but stimulants to exertion."
Mr. Lennox went to India, but only for a year, and, sorely against her will, Amy was left behind. As she could not accompany him, she wished to return home with me, for a year's schooling, as she playfully expressed it, and, in spite of Mrs. R.'s remonstrances, I carried her off.
What a busy year we had of it! We cooked; we cut out linen (the village schoolmistress was for a time a cipher in that department); we tried experiments in domestic economy; we made calculations; then we read light books and heavy books, history and philosophy, poetry and romance, I being obliged to exercise great ingenuity to avoid an immoderate proportion of educational works, a department of literature to which Amy, in common with many young mothers, manifested a decided preference.
Thus occupied, the days and weeks glided swiftly away, but not without leaving traces of their passage. Amy's intellectual and moral growth in this twelvemonth was as rapid as was her boy's increase in physical proportions. She felt it herself, and, with her increased self-respect, increased her love and admiration of the husband, for whose sake she had been stimulated to self-government and self-tuition. Small had been the joy of her wedding-day, compared to the rapture with which, at the end of the year, she threw herself into his arms; and slight had been his disappointment after the honeymoon, to the delightful surprise which he felt every day on the discovery of some new improvement, or the promise of some fresh excellence in his lovely wife.
"Yes, yes," I thought, as I watched them walking in the garden, and talking over their future plans, with that look of perfect confidence which tells so much; "those hearts are united now – they will soon grow so close that nothing earthly will avail to separate them."
I wiped my spectacles – they had often been dimmed the last day or two – and taking little Herbert's hand, we, too, sallied forth for a confidential tête-à-tête among the daisies.
I went to see Amy when she was once more settled in a house of her own, and, though Mrs. R. sighed and shook her head, every time poor Amy's domestic arrangements were alluded to, I thought every thing about her charming. True, she was waited upon by a tidy housemaid, instead of a tall footman; true, if she required a special dainty to appear upon her table, she was obliged to soil the tips of her own delicate fingers, instead of commanding the service of a professional artiste; true, if she wished to go abroad, she walked, instead of using a carriage. But what then? I could not see that she was a bit the worse for any of these changes. Then, again,