 | CHAPTER VII.
LOVE-LETTERS. The poor rich man, and the rich poor man |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
LOVE-LETTERS.
Three weeks passed away, and nothing more
was heard of Adeline's news, save that once, when
Paulina, in Susan's presence, was bantered about
the house of “Finley and Aikin,” she tittered and
bridled her head, and had all the airs of a spoiled
girl who is rallied about her lover; and save that,
when Paulina, after a month's mourning, doffed her
crape bonnet and veil, and put on a pink hat with
artificial flowers, the premature transition was imputed
to an approaching wedding, and not to the
obvious and perfectly sufficient cause—the pretty
girl's extravagant love of dress.
At last Uncle Phil brought home that rare blessing
to our simple friends, a letter, from the postoffice.
“Here's something for you, gals,” said he, “as
scarce as gold now-a-days—a letter from Harry.”
“Oh, better than gold!” said Charlotte, holding
out her hand.
“No, no, it's Susy's this time; why don't you
jump, Susy?”
Susan moved slowly, and took it with a trembling
hand. Her fears, she thought, now were to
become certainty.
“What are you afraid of, child?” continued her
father; “there can't be any bad news in it, 'cause
himself. Give it to me—no, I have broken my
spectacles—you read it, Lottie.”
“Yes, so do, Lottie,” said Susan; “I want to
see if my iron is hot.”
“That beats the Dutch,” said Uncle Phil; “if
I had twenty irons in the fire I should let them
burn to hear news from Harry.”
Poor Susan! we hope our readers will excuse
her for giving a false gloss once in her life. “I
can bear any thing,” so she thought, “if I am alone
with Lottie, and she first sees it.” Her sister soon
followed her with the open letter.
“Bad news, Susy,” she said, “but not what we
expected.”
“Then it can't be very bad,” exclaimed Susan,
the clouds vanishing from her face; she seized
the letter, and read as follows:—
“My dear Susan—It is a long time since I
have written to you; but I have been in much perplexity
and anxiety, and have been waiting to see
daylight. We have failed, Finley and I, as might
have been expected; neither of us having any experience
in the business we undertook. As soon
as I found we could not meet our notes, I made a
thorough examination into our affairs, and found we
could just pay our debts and no more. So to-morrow
we close the concern. I have many times regretted
I did not take Charlotte's advice, and not enter
into a business for which I was not qualified. I
would now gladly return to my trade, but confinement
to business, and anxiety, have had an unfavourable
effect on my health, and I am more
I sometimes think, Susan, a sight of your sunny
face would cure me; that and all good things I
trust will come; in the meantime, patience. In
prosperity and adversity, my heart ever turns towards
my dear Essex friends, who must believe me
their friend and brother,
“I never did fully believe it!” exclaimed Susan,
as she closed the letter.
“Believe what?”
Susan blushed. “You know what, Lottie.”
Charlotte smiled. “Are you not sorry for Harry's
failure?” she asked.
“Oh, yes—sorry? No—no, I am not sorry for
any thing just at this moment,” and Susan covered
her face, and wept for joy. Then, dashing off her
tears, she read the letter over again. “After all,”
she said, “for any thing he writes here, he may
be going to marry Paulina; but I know he is not.”
Susan's happy faith was well founded. Harry's
letter gave no details, for he never wrote his own
praises, even indirectly. “Not he that commendeth
himself is approved.”
When, at the close of their second year's partnership,
he ascertained the unfavourable condition
of their affairs, he insisted on making them known
at once to their creditors, that they might suffer the
least possible inconvenience from the failure of
punctual payment. Morris Finley remonstrated.
He saw, or affected to see, flattering prospects
ahead; and at last, when Harry absolutely refused
to go on, Morris insisted on making a compromise
where this had been done in similar circumstances,
and a pretty penny saved, and no reputation lost.
Harry would not listen to his proposition. He
said, the frequency of such proceedings was an
argument in his mind against them. He would
not add his mite to sully the mercantile reputation
of his country; and that if, by the arrangement
Finley proposed, he did not lose his good name, he
should lose his self-respect, which was still dearer
to him. The inflexibly honest man is unmanageable,
and Finley was at last compelled to yield.
They stopped in time to pay every penny of their
debts, and retain the respect of their creditors;
and Harry began the world anew, with fresh vigour,
springing from a conscience void of offence.
Morris profited by Harry's firmness. One of their
creditors, struck by the honesty of the firm, and
giving the parties equal credit for it, offered Finley
an employment which, as he afterward said, was
the first rung of the ladder on which he mounted
to fortune.
Some months passed away, and Paulina continued
to be a belle in Essex, and flattered by young
men of every degree. The report of her engagement
to Harry was found to have arisen from the
devotions of his partner, Morris Finley, to her.
These devotions were abated by a third marriage
of Paulina's mother, by which she put into the
hands of a young spendthrift some fifteen thousand
dollars, received from her last doting and deluded
husband. Paulina seemed at first much affected
by Finley's desertion; but, after a while, she turned
to other lovers; and, when her mother's young
mother and daughter returned to New-York and
opened a milliner's shop: the mother soon after
died. It was said that Paulina removed to Philadelphia;
but, though unfavourable reports reached
Essex concerning her, nothing was certainly
known.
In the meantime, save two or three short letters
by private opportunities (for our friends could not
afford the luxury of post intercourse), the sisters
heard nothing from Harry till the following letter
arrived.
“Dear Susan—My prospects, since the breakup
last spring, are much improved; but particulars
in my next. All I want to know is, whether you
will share my lot with me? Pray write by return
of post, and believe me now, as you well know I
have ever been, though I never put it into words
before, your friend and true lover,
to take or refuse a husband for any thing separate
from himself; but I may mislead you by what
I said above. I am still what the world calls a
poor man—particulars in my next.”
Susan's first sensations on reading Harry's letter
were those of perfect and unlimited happiness.
“I always felt,” she said to Charlotte, “as if I
knew he loved me; and now I wonder I let Adeline's
story trouble me for one moment.”
Again and again the sisters read over Harry's
letter; Charlotte seeming, in her own quiet way,
evening Charlotte went to her own room. Uncle
Phil made it a rule to go to bed when the fowls
went to roost (there was no faint resemblance in
their degree of intellectual life), and Susan was
left in possession of their little sitting-room to pour
out her overflowing heart in a letter to Harry. It
was a letter befitting the frank and feeling creature
who wrote it; and such a letter as any lover
would be enraptured to receive. When she went
to her room, Charlotte was not in bed, but just
rising from her knees; she smiled as she turned
towards Susan, and Susan saw that her cheeks
were wet with tears.
“Why, what's the matter, Lottie?” she asked.
“I have been trying, Susy, to get courage to look
into the future.” Her voice faltered as she added,
“The time is coming when we must separate.”
“Oh, Lottie, I never thought of that! how could
I be so selfish!” All the castles she had been
building in the air fell at once to the ground. Her
first impulse was to say—“No, I will never leave
you, Lottie.”
But she had just written a promise to Harry to
be his; and she was silent, and quite as sorrowful
as Charlotte at the conviction that, for the first time
in their lives, their interests were divided. Hour
after hour she was restless and thoughtful; at last
she came to a conclusion, sad enough in some of
its aspects, but it tranquillized her. She nestled
up to her sister, put her arm over her, and fell
asleep, repeating to herself, “It's a comfort, any
how, to resolve to do right.” Well may reflection
be called an angel, when it suggests duties, and
them. Before Susan closed her letter, she made
the following addition:—
“P. S.—Dear Harry—I wrote this letter last
evening, and shall send it; for why should I, if I
could, conceal my real feelings from you? Since
we were playfellows at school, I have loved you
best, and you only, Harry; for the time to come, I
must love you only as a brother. Oh, how strange
it is, that the black and the white threads are always
twisted together in human life. Last evening
I was so happy writing this letter; but, when I
went into the bedroom, Lottie's face was covered
with tears; and she spoke of our separation, and
all flashed upon me at once. What could she and
father do without me? They do now their full
part towards keeping the family together, but they
can neither of them bring in any thing, and they
would be obliged to look to the town for support.
Is not that awful to think of? So you see, dear
Harry, I cannot leave them—our path is plain, and,
as dear Lottie would say, may we have grace to
walk therein. It is very dark now, Harry; but, if
we only try to do right, the day will soon break,
and grow brighter and brighter. Please don't say
one word to persuade me off my resolution, for we
are weak creatures at best, and we should stand
together, and strengthen and uphold one another.
Above all, don't say a word about my reasons to
father and Lottie; and believe me, dear Harry, not
a bit less your affectionate friend because I can't
forsake them.
By return of post came the following answer
from Harry:—
“Dearest Susan—Forsake `father and Lottie!'
that you never shall. When I wrote my last,
it was only to get that blessed little word yes from
you, for I must make sure of my title before I laid
out the future. One thing only I am a little hurt
at. Could you think I could leave out Charlotte in
my plans?—a dear sister, counsellor, and friend
she has ever been to me—and your good father,
who so much needs some one to care for him? Ah,
Susan, I have had my reflections too; and I think
our path is plain before us, and, with good resolution
on our part, and Charlotte's prayers to help us,
we shall have grace to walk therein. But I must
tell you all, and then look for your final answer.
“When I invested my patrimony in the shoe
concern with Finley, I expected soon to be in a
situation to offer you my hand, and begin house-keeping
in New-York with four members to the
family, for never once have I thought of dividing
you from your father and Lottie. I did not tell you
my hopes and plans, because I feared I should not
after that have patience to wait as long as prudence
required. One thing I am sure of, dear Susan,
from my own experience—that a virtuous love is
the greatest earthly security a young man can have
against the temptations and dangers that beset him.
I am sure my affection for you has made me diligent
in business, frugal, earnest in my pursuits, and
patient in my disappointments. If I had felt (which,
thank God, I never did) any inclination to forbidden
pleasures, to dangerous company, to dissipation of
shield to me. Knowing you and Charlotte so well,
and the memory of my excellent mother, have
given me a reverence for female virtue—a belief
in the power and beauty of goodness in a woman
—and to this, Susan, love naturally follows—that
pure love that is ordained by God to lead to the
holy institution of marriage.—But what are my
thoughts running to? Don't laugh at me, and I
will go back to my business statements.
“When I began business I took lodgings at a
carman's. He is a good friend of mine, and with
him I could live at a small expense in a quiet family.
I have avoided living or associating with
those who had more means than I, for that leads to
expense. I have never spent a shilling on superfluities,
for which I have now much reason to be
thankful; for, even if I had escaped that dreadful
load, unpaid debts, I might, like many other young
men, have acquired habits of expense on the credit
of future gains. The gains may not come—the
habits remain, like so many tormentors. When I
was asked by a friend to go to an oyster-house, or
the theatre, or the circus, or to take a bottle of porter,
or drink a glass of whiskey, I declined. I
knew, if I did it for my friend's sake this time, I
might do it for my own the next. I had my treats
—my pleasant thoughts of the time when I should
have a table of my own, and faces round it that I
loved. It is sure we can't have every thing in this
world, and the thing is to make up our mind what
we must have, and what we can do without. You
can guess my must have.
“When I found Finley and I were going behind-hand,
do, put off the evil day, plunging deeper and deeper,
making enemies, and making plenty of work for
repentance. When our affairs were settled up I
had a hundred dollars in my pocket, and no one to
look me in the face and say I owed him a shilling,
or had wronged him of one. The next thing was
to determine on what business I should follow.
You know my breast was much weakened by sitting
over my lapstone when I was growing fast.
It is a bad trade to put a growing boy to. I could
not return to it. A farm in one of the free western
states seemed to me the happiest lot in the world
for a poor man; but there were hardships in the
beginning, and, though you and I would not have
minded them, your father and Lottie could not have
stood them. A farm at Essex I dared not think of:
a man must have some capital and knowledge,
practice and skill, to go ahead in New-England on
a farm, and I had none of these. While I was deliberating,
my good friend Mr. Loomis, the carman,
determined to move to Ohio. He advised me to
take up his business, and offered to sell me his
horse and cart on very reasonable terms, and to
recommend me to his employers. There were
many reasons to decide me to take his advice. I
find exercise in the open air the best medicine for
the pain in my breast. Carting is a sure and regular
business. I have observed that the carmen in
this city, those whose carts are never seen standing
before groceries, are a healthy, cheerful-looking
class of men. They go slowly but surely ahead.
They can generally manage to take their meals
with their families, and to spend all their evenings
faces and home pleasures as I do. Some persons
think it is going down a step to go from shop-keeping
to carting; but you and I, Susan, have our own
notions about going up and down, and both think it
is what is in a man, and not what is out of him,
that humbles or exalts him. Some think that most
genteel which brings them nearest to being idle
gentlemen; but, when I am driving through Broadway
on my cart, do you think I would change
places with those slim-looking young men I see
parading up and down the street, looking like tailors'
walking advertisements—bringing nothing to
pass—doing nothing with the time God gives them
in this world, and gives them—for what? Oh, it
would take a minister to answer that.
“I might have gone into trade of some kind, but
I have not health to be shut up behind a counter;
and besides, in my opinion, a shop is a fitting place
for women only, they being (don't be affronted,
Susy) the weaker sex. You see now how my case
stands. I have no debts. I have good health for
the business I have chosen, industry, and a faculty
I may boast. So I think I may marry in this blessed
country of ours, where there is sure employment,
and a man is certain of getting his earnings.
Besides, dear Susan, if any thing happens to me,
you have your trade to depend upon. Give my
best love to Charlotte, and tell her, besides being
a main comfort, she will be a real help to us; for
while she is doing the light work, your needle will
be making money. If your father has any scruples
about coming, pray tell him the rent of his
Essex place will pay for the rent of a room here
Am I not calculating, Susan? But is it not better
to calculate beforehand than to grumble afterward?
I am sure I am right, so far as I can, to secure independence
to your father and Charlotte; and if,
after all, they must take something from us, those
who are so generous in giving will be also generous
in receiving, and they will not grudge us the
best part, it being more blessed to give than to receive.
“There is one thing I can scarcely bear the
thoughts of—taking you all from that pleasant little
spot in Essex, where you have riches for the eye
that all the money in New-York cannot buy in the
city—plenty of sweet air and pure water;[1]
and
your garden, and your little courtyard, with its
rose-bushes, morning-glories, pionies, and marvels
of Peru. But, after all, dear Susan, there are feelings
worth giving up the very best of outward
things for; and if we secure affection, and kindness,
and so forth, we sha'n't have made a bad bargain
of it, shall we? We may be what the world
calls poor, and miscals, in my estimation. Let
us begin, in the fear and love of God, with a determination
to do our duty—rich in love for one
another, and at peace with all men; and if worst
comes to worst, why, that will be outside poverty.
I do not fear it, do you? Answer this without fail
by return of post. Much duty and love to your
death, your friend and lover,
I forgot to mention that Finley was married last
evening to a Miss Nichols. Her father entered
into speculation last winter, and is said to be rich.
Finley says he never gave Paulina Clark reason to
expect to marry him; perhaps not in words; but,
the old proverb is, `actions speak loudest.' To my
mind, a man who attends to a girl, and then quits
her, adds hypocrisy to falsehood. I foresaw how
this matter would end when I heard that Paulina's
mother had made that third marriage. Finley
would have liked a handsome wife, but he must
have a rich one. He has set out in the world for
what he calls the main chance; I have my main
chance too, and that depends on you. Poor Paulina!
But I'll not tell bad news (which may not be
true) in this letter. H. A.”
Morris Finley and Harry Aikin had begun life
with objects diametrically opposite, and were destined
to illustrate that saying, as true now as when,
ages ago, it was first uttered:—“There is that
maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing—there is that
maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches”
| CHAPTER VII.
LOVE-LETTERS. The poor rich man, and the rich poor man | |