“Are you not well, Mary?” he asked again.
I was still silent. A little while after I heard him moving across the floor, and then the chamber door shut. I was once more alone.
When the bell rang for dinner, I felt half sorry that I had commenced this new mode of managing my husband; but, as I had begun, I was determined to go through with it. “He’ll at least take care how he acts in the future,” I said. I did not leave my chamber to join my husband at the dinner table. He sat his usual time, as I could tell by the ringing of the bell for the servant to change the plates and bring in the dessert. I was exceedingly fretted; and more so by his returning to his business without calling up to see me, and making another effort to dispel my grief.
For three days I tried this experiment upon my husband, who bore it with the unflinching heroism of a martyr. I was forced, at last, to come to; but I was by no means satisfied that my new mode was a failure. For all Mr. Smith’s assumed indifference, I knew that he had been troubled at heart, and I was pretty well satisfied that he would think twice before provoking me to another essay of tears. Upon the whole, I felt pretty sure that I had discovered the means of doing with him as I pleased.
A few weeks of sunshine passed—I must own that the sun did not look so bright, nor feel so warm as it had done in former times—and then our wills came once more into collision. But my tears fell upon a rock. I could not see that they made the least perceptible impression. Mr. Smith had his own way, and I cried about it until I got tired of that sport, and in very weariness gave over. For the space of a whole year I stood upon tears as my last defensible position. Sometimes I didn’t smile for weeks. But my husband maintained his ground like a hero.
At last I gave up in despair. Pride, self-will, anger—all were conquered. I was a weak woman in the hands of a strong-minded man. If I could not love him as I wished to love him, I could at least obey. In nothing did I now oppose him, either by resolute words or tears. If he expressed a wish, whether to me agreeable or not, I acquiesced.
One day, not long after this change in my conduct towards my husband, he said to me, “I rather think, Mary, we will spend a couple of weeks at Brandywine Springs, instead of going to Cape May this season.”
I replied, “Very well, dear;” although I had set my heart on going to the Capes. My sister and her husband and a number of my friends were going down, and I had anticipated a good deal of pleasure. I did not know of a single person who was going to the Brandywine Springs. But what was the use of entering into a contest with my husband? He would come off the conqueror, spite of angry words or ineffectual tears.
“The Springs are so much more quiet than the Capes,” said my husband.
“Yes,” I remarked, “there is less gay company there.”
“Don’t you think you will enjoy yourself as well there as at the Capes?”
Now this was a good deal for my husband to say. I hardly knew what to make of it.
“If you prefer going there, dear, let us go by all means,” I answered. I was not affecting any thing, but was in earnest in what I said.
Mr. Smith looked into my face for some moments, and with unusual affection I thought.
“Mary,” said he, “if you think the time will pass more pleasantly to you at the Capes, let us go there by all means.”
“My sister Jane is going to the Capes,” I remarked, with some little hesitation; “and so is Mrs. L—and Mrs. D—, and a good many more of our friends. I did think that I would enjoy myself there this season very much. But I have no doubt I shall find pleasant society at the Springs.”
“We will go to the Capes,” said my husband promptly and cheerfully.
“No,” said I, emulous now for the first time in a new cause. “I am sure the time will pass agreeably enough at the Springs. And as you evidently prefer going there, we will let the Capes pass for this year.”
“To the Capes, Mary, and nowhere else,” replied my husband, in the very best of humours. “I am sure you will enjoy yourself far better there. I did not know your sister was going.”
And to the Capes we went, and I did enjoy myself excellently well. As for my husband, I never saw him in a better state of mind. To me he was more like a lover than a husband. No, I will not say that either, for I can’t admit that a husband may not be as kind and affectionate as a lover; for he can and will be if managed rightly, and a great deal more so. Whenever I expressed a wish, it appeared to give him pleasure to gratify it. Seeing this, instead of suffering myself to be the mere recipient of kind attentions, I began to vie with him in the sacrifice of selfish wishes and feelings.
It is wonderful how all was changed after this. There were no more struggles on my part to manage my husband, and yet I generally had things my own way. Before I could not turn him to the right nor the left, though I strove to do so with my utmost strength. Now I held him only with a silken fetter, and guided him, without really intending to do so, in almost any direction.
Several years have passed since that ever-to-be-remembered, happy visit to Cape May. Not once since have I attempted any management of my husband, and yet it is a rare thing that my wish is not, as it used to be before we were married, his law. It is wonderful, too, how he has improved. I am sure he is not the same man that he was five years ago. But, perhaps, I see with different eyes. At any rate, I am not the same woman; or, if the same, very unlike what I then was.
So much for my efforts to manage a husband. Of the three ways so faithfully tried, my fair readers will be at no loss to determine which is best. I make these honest confessions for the good of my sex. My husband, Mr. John Smith, will be no little surprised if this history should meet his eye. But I do not believe it will interrupt the present harmonious relations existing between us, but rather tend to confirm and strengthen them.
RULING A WIFE.
AS a lover, Henry Lane was the kindest, most devoted, self- sacrificing person imaginable. He appeared really to have no will of his own, so entire was his deference to his beautiful Amanda; yet, for all this, he had no very high opinion of her as an intelligent being. She was lovely, she was gentle, she was good; and these qualities, combined with personal grace and beauty, drew him in admiration to her side, and filled him with the desire to possess her as his own.
As a husband, Henry Lane was a different being. His relation had changed, and his exterior changed correspondingly. Amanda was his wife; and as such she must be, in a certain sense, under him. It was his judgment that must govern in all matters; for her judgment, in the affairs of life, was held in light estimation. Moreover, as a man, it was his province to control and direct and her duty to look to him for guidance.
Yet, for all this, if the truth must be told, the conclusions of Amanda’s mind were, in ordinary affairs, even more
