University of Virginia Library

7. VII.
MR. SMITH'S FRIEND'S JEWELS.

More than one cause was operating, that Sunday
evening, to make Abel appear, as Tasso expressed it,
crusty. The cheerlessness of his home was nothing
new. These frivolities of the evening had long since
usurped the place of the good old-fashioned readings
and social comforts. He had become accustomed to
seeing Faustina's features light up with animation at
the silly conceits of Mr. Smith, and he was not jealous.
But now there was a new burden on his mind; his pecuniary
troubles were culminating. Not long after his
marriage he had been obliged to mortgage his house.
Since then his debts had been constantly increasing.
He had many times been sorely pushed to meet his liabilities;
but never had he seen a darker week before
him than this which was coming.

He slept little that night. Monday dawned. After a
light slumber, the gray morning beam stole in upon
him, and with it came the thought of the payments
which he could devise no means of making. A tide of
restlessness tossed him. He looked at the beautiful being

by his side. She was sleeping a heavy, most unspiritual
sleep.

“Oh! if she would only sympathize with me and help
me,” thought Abel, “I could bear anything; but she
doesn't care. I have been too indulgent to her; I could
refuse her nothing, and so I am deep in debt.” He
glanced at their sleeping child. “For your sake, little
one, I will be a braver and stronger man in future!”

He arose. His movements in the room awoke Faustina.

“Are you going, Abel?”

“I have a hard week's work before me, and I must
begin it,” he answered.

“O Abel! I don't feel very well, and I don't know as
I shall get up to breakfast; but can't you leave me a
little money before you go?”

“How much?”

“Oh, ten, or fifteen, or twenty dollars, — I don't care.”

A bitter smile contorted Abel's face. “For what?”
he asked.

“I am going into the village, by-and-by, and I always
see so many things I want; and I haven't had any money
to spend for myself for ever so long. I must have me a
dress right away,” she said complainingly.

“Don't you know well enough,” demanded Abel,
“that I am harassed almost to death with money-matters
already? Haven't I told you that I have no more
idea than a man in his grave how I am to raise half

enough to pay what must be paid this week? And you
talk to me of new dresses!”

When he was gone, Faustina consoled herself with
the reflection that he was the cruelest husband and she
the most injured wife in the world; sighed to think she
couldn't have a new dress immediately, and went to
sleep again.

For three days Abel struggled manfully with the
obstacles in his way; and when his utmost was done, he
wanted still a hundred dollars to make up the necessary
amount. A small sum to you, flush reader, but an
immense one at that time to Abel Dane. But on the
fourth day he entered the house with tears of joy in his
eyes.

“What good news?” asked his mother.

“A miracle!” exclaimed Abel. “I will never lose
my faith in Providence again. Just as my last resources
were exhausted, and I had given up all hope,
what should come to me, in a blank envelope from Boston,
but a draft for a hundred dollars!”

Faustina, who had not yet got over the feeling that he
was an inhuman husband and she an injured wife, and
did not neglect to manifest, by her morose conduct, how
much she was aggrieved, was almost surprised out of
her sulkiness by this strange announcement.

“Who sent it?” she inquired.

“I have not the remotest suspicion; but whoever he
may be, he has saved me from ruin.”

Whilst he was putting the draft away in the drawer

which contained the money he had raised, and his
mother was inwardly offering up a prayer of thankfulness
for this favor to her son, Faustina was saying to
herself, “Well, I should think he might let me have a
new dress now, if I have to run in debt for it.”

Poor Faustina! let us not blame her too severely.
Her beauty was her misfortune. It was that which had
spoiled her. From her childhood, flattery and the unwise
indulgence of over-careful friends, had instilled
into her the pernicious belief that she was the fairest and
choicest of God's creatures, and that it was the duty of
everybody to administer to her pleasures, while it was
her privilege to think only of herself. She had never in
her life known what it was to make a sacrifice. The
blessed habit of helping others,— of forgetting one's own
happiness in caring for the happiness of others, — this
unfortunately fortunate beauty had never learned. No
doubt she had in her soul germs of noble womanhood,
which affliction, and wise kindness on the part of her
teachers, might have developed. But, as it was, she had
grown up to be a child still, with the proportions of a
woman, unreasonable, self-willed, with a mind undisciplined,
and impulses uncontrolled.

That forenoon Tasso Smith called. He found Faustina
with her hair in curl-papers.

“Got sumthin' t' show ye; sumthin' nice, or I
wouldn't have took the trouble. How's tomatoes? and
how's fricassees?” he chuckled, as he undid a package.
“Friend of mine's got some jewelry he wants to raise

money on, and he sent some of it to me. You know
what jewelry is; so, just for curiosity, thought I'd bring
it over.”

“Oh-oh-h — splendid!” cries the enraptured Faustina.
“That's the most magnificent bracelet I ever
saw. O Tasso! you must give me that bracelet!”

“Most happy, if 'twas only mine,” smiles the sweet
young man. “Just the thing for you, Faustiny!” He
clasped it on her too willing arm. “By George! ain't
it a stunner? Didn't know it was so splendid, by
George! Takes a beautiful arm to show off a fine
bracelet like that.”

Faustina's cheeks were kindling, and her eyes began
to burn. Jewelry was an intoxication to the poor
child. She passed before the glass with her jewelled
arm gracefully folded beneath her breast. “O Tasso!
I must have this bracelet, some way! Come, you never
gave me anything in your life. All my friends make me
presents but you,” poutingly.

“I'd give ye the set that goes with it, if I could.
By George! if you was my wife, Faustiny, — 'xcuse me
for saying it, — I'd make ye sparkle till men's eyes
watered! If Abel was only a man of taste!”

“Don't talk of Abel. Taste!” said Faustina, scornfully;
and she sighed and caressed the bracelet.

“What did a plodding fellow like him ever marry
such a lady as you are for?” said the insinuating Tasso.
“He don't want a brilliant wife, no more'n a toad wants
a side-pocket. You ought to be the lady of some man

of taste and enterprise, — see the world, and not live
cooped up here.”

“Hold your tongue, Tasso Smith!” cried she, with
flashing eyes. “You make me wild. Do you think I
don't know what I might have been, and that I like
to be reminded of it?” Yet it was evident that she was
not displeased; and Tasso knew that his flatteries were
wine to her ambitious heart.

“Here, put 'em all on,” said he. “That's a love of a
pin!”

“Oh, it is! And those ear-rings, — what beauties!
Tasso, you make me crazy showing me these things.
Oh, if I had some money!”

“They can be had dog-cheap,” Mr. Smith observed.
“It's a rare chance for anybody that wants such a set of
jewels. They won't become everybody, you know.
Takes a woman of style to wear such things. It's nothing
to me, — I've nothing to gain by it, — but I should
like to see you in them sparkling gems. I tell ye, that
bracelet is a screamer! Why don't ye buy 'em?”

“Buy them?” repeated Faustina, tremblingly. “I
wish I could! What do they cost?”

“That bracelet and the set together retails for a hunderd
dollars in Boston. The lowest wholesale price is
sixty, and they cost my friend about that. He wants
me to get sixty for 'em if I can; but, if you like, I'll
take the responsibility and let you have 'em for fifty.
If he ain't satisfied, why, 'twon't be but a few dollars difference,
and I'll make it up to him.”

“Fifty dollars!” sighed Faustina. “Oh, I can't buy
'em, Tasso.”

“Sorry,” said Tasso. “You never'll have another
such a chance. You might go all over Boston, and you
couldn't find another such set as that for less 'n ninety
dollars, 't the very lowest. I don't care so much about
'commodatin' my friend, as I do to see you wear somethin'
that becomes you.” He watched her cunningly.
“Well, I suppose I must be going; for I must write to
town by the next mail, and either send back the jewels
or the money.”

The thought of giving up those precious ornaments
was too much for Faustina.

“I'll keep them,” said she, “and pay you as soon as I
can get the money of my husband.”

“If 'twas my affair, I'd give ye as long a time to pay
for 'em as you want,” replied the smooth-tongued
Smith; “but my friend's only object in disposing of 'em
for any such low price is to raise money the quickest
possible. I don't happen to have the funds to spare jest
now, myself, or I'd 'commodate ye. You may never
come acrost another such a set of gems; for there's very
little such gold in the market; not to speak of the stones,
which are re'l Berzil di'muns.”

“What's fifty dollars?” suddenly burst forth Faustina,
in one of her ungovernable impulses. “I'll take
them, Tasso! I may as well have something now and
then to make life pleasant, as to live in constant submission

to — I hate the grovelling necessities of life, and I
won't be a slave to them any longer!”

What she meant by these wild words, Tasso did not
know nor care to know. His mind was fixed on the
sale of his fictitious friend's very fictitious gold and
“di'muns;” and when he saw her sweep from the room,
impetuously, and presently sweep back again with a
fifty-dollar bank-note in her hand, he was content, without
raising any more questions.

“There, my beauty!” said he, “though I've no personal
interest in the matter, allow me to congratulate you on
securing a bargain, which wouldn't happen to you again
prob'bly in a lifetime. And now, I must hurry and get
this bill into a letter, and mail it to my friend, — enclose
it t' my correspondent, y' understand; — bless me, by
George!” looking at his watch, which, by the way, did
not go, being pinchbeck, like the rest of his jewelry,
“I've scarcely time to get around now! Good-by!”

He was gone almost before she knew it. Then, looking
once more at the ornaments he had left upon her
person, remembering Abel and his payments, and realizing
fully, for the first time, what she had done, a guilty
fear came over her, and she ran to call Tasso back.

Too late; he was already out of sight.