Charlotte Temple

her to follow the bent of her own inclinations: what those were, I think the reader must have seen enough of her character to form a just idea. Among the number who paid their devotions at her shrine, she singled one, a young ensign of mean birth, indifferent education, and weak intellects. How such a man came into the army we hardly know to account for; and how he afterward rose to posts of honor is likewise strange and wonderful. But fortune is blind, and so are those, too, frequently, who have the power of dispensing her favors: else why do we see fools and knaves at the very top of the wheel, while patient merit sinks to the extreme of the opposite abyss. But we may form a thousand conjectures on this subject, and yet never hit on the right. Let us, therefore, endeavor to deserve her smiles, and whether we succeed or not, we shall feel more innate satisfaction than thousands of those who bask in the sunshine of her favor unworthily. But to return to Mrs. Crayton: this young man, whom I shall distinguish by the name of Corydon, was the reigning favorite of her heart. He escorted her to the play, danced with her at every ball, and, when indisposition prevented her going out, it was he alone who was permitted to cheer the gloomy solitude to which she was obliged to confine herself. Did she ever think of poor Charlotte?⁠—if she did, my dear miss, it was only to laugh at the poor girl’s want of spirit in consenting to be moped up in the country, while Montraville was enjoying all the pleasures of a gay, dissipated city. When she heard of his marriage, she smiling said: “So there’s an end of Madame Charlotte’s hopes. I wonder who will take her now, or what will become of the little affected prude?”

But, as you have led to the subject, I think we may as well return to the distressed Charlotte, and not, like the unfeeling Mrs. Crayton, shut our hearts to the call of humanity.

XXIX

We Go Forward Again

The strength of Charlotte’s constitution combated against her disorder, and she began slowly to recover, though she still labored under a violent depression of spirits: how must that depression be increased, when upon examining her little store, she found herself reduced to one solitary guinea, and that during her illness the attendance of an apothecary and nurse, together with many other unavoidable expenses, had involved her in debt, from which she saw no method of extricating herself. As to the faint hope which she had entertained of hearing from and being relieved by her parents; it now entirely forsook her, for it was above four months since her letter was dispatched, and she had received no answer; she, therefore, imagined that her conduct had either entirely alienated their affection from her, or broken their hearts, and she must never more hope to receive their blessings.

Never did any human being wish for death with greater fervency or with juster cause; yet she had too just a sense of the duties of the Christian religion to attempt to put a period to her own existence. “I have but to be patient a little longer,” she would cry, “and nature, fatigued and fainting, will throw off this heavy load of mortality, and I shall be relieved from all my sufferings.”

It was one cold, stormy day in the latter end of December, as Charlotte sat by a handful of fire, the low state of her finances not allowing her to replenish her stock of fuel, and prudence teaching her to be careful of what she had, when she was surprised by the entrance of a farmer’s wife, who, without much ceremony, seated herself and began this curious harangue.

“I’m come to see if as how you can pay your rent, because as how we hear Captain Montable is gone away, and it’s fifty to one if he b’ant killed afore he comes back again; and then, miss or ma’am, or whatever you may be, as I was saying to my husband, where are we to look for our money?”

This was a stroke altogether unexpected by Charlotte: she knew so little of the ways of the world that she had never bestowed a thought on the payment for the rent of the house; she knew, indeed, that she owed a good deal, but this was never reckoned among the others: she was thunderstruck; she hardly knew what answer to make, yet it was absolutely necessary that she should say something; and judging of the gentleness of every female disposition by her own, she thought the best way to interest the woman in her favor would be to tell her candidly to what a situation she was reduced, and how little probability there was of her ever paying anybody.

Alas, poor Charlotte; how confined was her knowledge of human nature, or she would have been convinced that the only way to insure the friendship and assistance of your surrounding acquaintance, is to convince them that you do not require it, for when once the petrifying aspect of distress and penury appear, whose qualities, like Medusa’s head, can change to stone all that look upon it; when once this Gorgon claims acquaintance with us, the phantom of friendship, that before courted our notice, will vanish into unsubstantial air, and the whole world before us appear a barren waste. Pardon me, ye dear spirits of benevolence, whose benign smiles and cheerful-giving hand have strewed sweet flowers on many a thorny path through which my wayward fate forced me to pass; think not, that in condemning the unfeeling texture of the human heart, I forget the spring from whence flow all the comforts I enjoy: oh, no! I look up to you as to bright constellations, gathering new splendours from the surrounding darkness; but, ah! whilst I adore the benignant rays that cheered and illumined