went off into sleep.
Toward morning a slight moisture broke out all over him, and his sleep that was heavy, became soft and tranquil. The crisis was past! In order not to disturb the quiet slumberer, Mrs. Fletcher sat down by the bedside perfectly still. It was not very long before, over-wearied as she was, sleep likewise stole over her senses. It was daylight when she was awakened by hearing her name called. Starting up, she met the face of her husband turned earnestly toward her.
“Dear husband!” she exclaimed, “do you know me?”
“Yes, Mary. But how came you here?” he said, in a feeble voice.
“We will speak of that at some other time,” she replied. “Enough that I am here, where I ought to have been ten days ago. But that was not my fault.”
Fletcher was about to make some farther remark, when his wife placed her finger upon his lips, and said—
“You must not talk, dear; your disease has just made a favourable change, and your life depends upon your being perfectly quiet. Enough for me to say that I know all, and love you just as well, perhaps better. You are a weak, foolish man, Joseph,” she added, with a smile, “or else thought me a weak and foolish woman. But all that we can settle hereafter. Thank God that I have found you; and that you are, to all appearances, out of danger.”
Aunt Prudence looked into Kate’s face, and saw that tears were on her cheeks.
“Would you have loved him less, Kate,” she asked, “if he had been your husband?”
“He would have been the same to me whatever might have been his calling. That could not have changed him.”
“No, certainly not. But I have a word or two more to add. As soon as Fletcher was well enough to go to work, he took his place again upon the shop-board, his wife feeling happier than she had felt for a long time. In about six months he rose to be foreman of the shop, and a year after that became a partner in the business At the end of ten years he sold out his interest in the business, and returned to the East with thirty thousand dollars in cash. This handsome capital enabled him to get into an old and well-established mercantile house as partner, where he remained until his death. About the time of his return to the East, you, Kate, were born.”
“I!” ejaculated the astonished girl.
“Yes. Their two older children died while they were in Louisville, and you, their third child, were born about six months before they left.”
“I!” repeat Kate, in the same surprised tone of voice.
“Yes, dear, you! I have given you a history of your own father and mother. So, as you’re the daughter of a tailor, you must not object to a tailor for a husband, if he be the right kind of a man.”
It may very naturally be supposed that Kate had but little to say against tailors after that, although we are by no means sure that she had any intention of becoming the bride of one.
THE MAIDEN’S CHOICE.
“TWO offers at once! You are truly a favoured maiden, Rose,” said Annette Lewis to her young friend Rose Lilton, in a gay tone. “It is husband or no husband with most of us; but you have a choice between two.”
“And happy shall I be if I have the wisdom to choose rightly,” was the reply of Rose.
“If it were my case, I don’t think that I should have much difficulty in making a choice.”
“Don’t you? Suppose, then, you give me the benefit of your preference.”
“Oh, no, not for the world!” replied Annette, laughing. “I’m afraid you might be jealous of me afterwards.”
“Never fear. I am not of a jealous disposition.”
“No, I won’t commit myself in regard to your lovers. But, if they were mine, I would soon let it be known where my preference lay.”
“Then you won’t assist me in coming to a decision? Surely I am entitled to this act of friendship.”
“If you put it upon that ground, Rose, I do not see how I can refuse.”
“I do put it upon that ground, Annette. And now I ask you, as a friend, to give me your opinion of the two young men, James Hambleton and Marcus Gray, who have seen such wonderful attractions in my humble self as to become suitors for my hand at the same time.”
“Decidedly, then, Rose, I should prefer Marcus Gray.”
“There is about him, certainly, Annette, much to attract a maiden’s eye and to captivate her heart but it has occurred to me that the most glittering surface does not always indicate the purest gold beneath. I remember once to have seen a massive chain, wrought from pure ounces, placed beside another that was far inferior in quality, but with a surface of ten times richer hue. Had I not been told the difference, I would have chosen the latter as in every way more valuable; but when it was explained that one bore the hue of genuine gold, while the other had been coloured by a process known to jewellers, I was struck with the lesson it taught.”
“What lesson, Rose?”
“That the richest substance has not always the most glittering exterior. That real worth, satisfied with the consciousness of interior soundness of principle, assumes few imposing exterior aspects and forms.”
“And that rule you apply to these two young men?”
“By that rule I wish to be guided, in some degree, in my choice, Annette. I wish to keep my mind so balanced, that it may not be swayed from a sound discrimination by any thing of imposing exterior.”
“But is not the exterior—that which meets the eye—all that we can judge from? Is not the exterior a true expression of what is within?”
“Not by any means, Annette. I grant that it should be, but it is not. Look at the fact I have just named respecting the gold chains.”
