University of Virginia Library

MRS. VERE.

A child, educated solely for prosperity, was Violet Fanning.
She was literally a belle at twelve years of age, for so accomplished
was the beautiful child as a dancer, and so well-bred and
self-collected in her manners and replies, that, while passing a
gay month with her mother at Saratoga, the beaux approached
her with deference due a lady, danced with her, and addressed to
her conversation as well suited to the age of eighteen. Her mother,
being a woman of remarkable elegance and beauty, her
father having always lived like a gentleman of fortune, and the
family, in all their connections, being understood to be ambitious
and worldly, there was little chance for the fair Violet to escape
what is commonly considered a “good match.” She grew up to
the marriageable age in singular perfection of style, personal development
and mental aplomb. The admiration she excited for
these qualities was the greater, because her spirits were naturally
high, and her inevitable style of manner was the brilliant and
fearless—the most difficult of all manners to sustain proportionately,
and with invariable triumph and grace.

At eighteen, Miss Fanning, though not living in the city, was
one of the best known and most admired belles of the time. To
a connoisseur of symmetry, her movement and peculiar grace,
even as she walked in the street, were a study. Of Arabian
slightness and litheness, her figure still seemed filled out to its
most absolute proportion, and, with the clearness of her hazel eye,
the dazzling whiteness of teeth without a fault, color beautifully
distributed in her face, and features almost minutely regular, she
seemed one of those phenomena of physical perfection, of which
sculptors deny the existence. A fault-finder might have found
the coral thread of the lips too slight, and the nose too thin, in
its high-bred proportion—these being indications of a character
in which sentiment and tenderness are not prevailing qualities—
but, perhaps, here, after all, lay the secret of a propriety and
self-control never ostensibly cared for, and yet never, by any possibility,
put in peril.

Cordial without hesitation, joyous always, confident as a princess,
frank and simple, Miss Fanning charmed all—but apparently
charmed all alike. Of any leaning to a flirtation, no
human heart ever could suppose her capable. The finding of a
mate for herself never seemed to have entered her mind—neither
that care, nor any other, apparently admissable through the door
of a mind guarded by the merest joyousness of a complete existence.
Of the approaches which instinct makes every woman
understand—the approaches of those who, by the silent language
of magnetism, inquire whether they could be loved—she gave no
sign by a manner more thoughtful, and she was too high-minded,
of course, to betray any such secret which she might have
fathomed; but many such approaches she doubtless had. The
world, not at all prepared by any previous indication, was simply

surprised, of course, one fine day, to hear of Miss Fanning's engagement
to Mr. Vere. It was a match of the highest possible
promise—the gentleman a son of one of the best and wealthiest
families, and the affianced an only daughter, and probably a considerable
heiress. The wedding soon followed, and was unusually
brilliant. The prophecies were without a shadow.

Ten years have passed, and death and change have braided
their dark threads in the life-woof of Mrs. Vere, as in those of
women less fair. The fortunes, of both her husband's family and
her own, some five years ago, lessened, without wrecking altogether,
and Mr. Vere, as hopes from without gave way, turned,
with American facility, to resources within; and, from an elegant
pursuer of pleasure, became a hard-working, professional man.
Both reared in luxury only—both with a youth-seen future of exclusively
prosperous anticipation—they are now living a life of
simple competence, and doubtless of careful economy; but, how
Mrs. Vere looks now, and how she bears these reversed anticipations,
and accommodates herself to a sphere many might think
trying and hard to bear, are points that, we presume, will interest
our readers more than any history of a prosperity unbroken.
Men's resistance to adversity is positive—a struggle—a contest—
and therefore easy. Women's is negative—a simple, inactive
endurance—and twenty times as difficult. With this truth in the
mind, the view of a condition of fortune, whose reverses are
shared equally by a husband and wife, makes the latter's history
much the more interesting.

You will not meet, in your daily walk in New York, a more
tastefully dressed, lady-like and elegant woman than Mrs. Vere
Her gait, and general carriage of person are those of one whose

spirit is wholly unsubdued, whose arehed foot has a bridge as
elastic as in her 'teens; whose lively self-confidence is without a
shadow of abatement. In even the beauty of her face there is
no absolute diminution, for the girlish hue of complexion, and
the scarce perceptible fullest degree of outline, are more than replaced
by heightened expression, and by a shade of inward expectation
less exacting. Of the world without, Mrs. Vere expects
as much as ever. Her unaltered raluation of her own position,
is her beautiful glory—a glory of which she is probably
quite unconscious, though it causes her to be looked upon with
boundless respect and admiration by any observer who knows the
world, and who appreciates the rarity of a pride worn so loftily
easy. By it Mrs Vere holds her husband's fortunes, in every
important particular, where they were. She compels the world,
by it, to believe her untouched by any misfortune worth considering—to
see her in the same posture and place of society as before,
and yield, to her, every inch as much of admiring consideration.
Though she dresses with extreme care and with becoming
economy, it is the dress of a woman who is not at all aware of having
lost ground by a loss of fortune, and who dresses still for the
same position; and, obediently, society takes her at her word,
rates her at her own estimate, and, at this present moment, gives
her as much regard and deference as she could have had with
millions of which to make a display. She walks on her errands,
or rides in an omnibus,—does any proper thing she likes—without
fear of committing her dignity. Her open and frank eye is
is without suspicion of any possible slight. She is, in short, a
woman born with a spirit too high for fortune to affect, and, freed
thus from the wear which, most of all, makes inroad upon beauty,
she is likely, for twenty years more, to be beautiful and at
tractive.

Such is Mrs. Vere, and slight observers will not recognise the
portrait. Here and there, one, who knows her, will.