University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

There is nothing like a rout. Those given by
Mrs. Temple were the most brilliant in America.
But we must know Mrs. Temple before we attend
her parties.

You have seen a sweet, quiet, unambitious
woman, formed for the wife of a poet, whose life
would glide happily away amid the green shades
of the country—a woman to read to during the
long winter nights—to converse with when the
overworked mind and heart are wearied and exhausted
in the brawling world—to look at with inward
delight, while she teaches the children their
evening lessons—their innocent prayers,—kisses
them—blesses them—and packs them off to bed.
Her hair may be parted on her forehead with a
simple grace, that touches by a total absence of all
attempts to touch, and surprises the heart at once
into respect and admiration. Even in the early
morning you find such a one ready to receive you
with a fresh glow on her cheek, as if she had been
already abroad worshipping nature; and then you
feel rebuked in soul that you have been losing, in
swinish sleep, the golden hours of the opening
day. Her home is her world; her existence is in
the love and happiness of her husband and children.

In the dazzling sphere of fashion she may
win admiration, but she seeks it not; for she knows
it is often the meed of the superficial and the false,
—that the noblest qualities which adorn character
and dignify human life there often pass unregarded,
or become the themes of ridicule. Her principal
charm is mind and feeling; but there are moments
when purity and love lend her a beauty that illumines
her presence like sunshine. There is nothing
like the loveliness of a woman with a spring
of satisfied affection flowing freshly at her heart.
Sunshine is too dim for a comparison.

Such a woman we have all seen; but such a
woman was not Mrs. Temple. Her portrait might
be appropriately hung opposite to this,—as you see
pendants of sunrise and moonlight—calm and
storm—side by side, on the walls of an academy.
Mrs. Temple was a city wife, formed to dazzle and
triumph in companies. She had trodden the flowery
path of an admired belle; had early married a
wild, good-hearted fellow, very much like herself,—
some said for love, some for money. They were
affluent beyond measure; loved each other well
enough to be perfectly happy when together or
when apart. The blooming girl had scarcely
changed, as the beautiful wife and the still glowing
and graceful mother, till time, the destroyer of others'
charms, but shedding only a deeper richness
upon hers, matured her into the stately and magnificent
woman, who reigned in the New-York circles,
fashion's chief minion, and proud as Egypt's
queen. One daughter crowned her affections; and
Flora Temple rose by the side of her brilliant
mother, lovelier, but not so gay; and winning all
hearts with a less striking but far deeper power.
Men hesitated upon which to bestow their worship.
So sometimes lingers the summer day, drawing all

eyes to the encrimsoned west, even when the moon
has long filled, with her holier radiance, the ascending
heaven. The singularity of this association
could not escape the notice of the yet ambitious
woman of fashion; and Mrs. Temple regarded
Flora with a curiously mixed feeling, wavering between
the enthusiastic fondness of the mother and
the lingering rivalry of the belle. There was, perhaps,
a certain conscious magnanimity in the delight
with which she gazed upon her daughter's expanding
charms—passionately fond as she herself
was of admiration, and accustomed to be its centre.
But yet, though they charmed alike, they
could scarcely interfere with each other. The one
was always sure to overcome, when she desired to
do so, by the long-practised energies of her highly-gifted
nature; the other always won love without
wishing, and even without knowing it. The daughter
valued not what she had never striven to obtain,
and beheld with pleasure the triumphs of her
queenly mother; who, in her turn, yielded the path
with a sigh and a smile to the more unpretending
excellences of Flora. Some sharp and unfavourable
features there were in Mrs. Temple's disposition,
for she was haughty when excited, and aristocratic
to a folly. But if she had particular enemies,
her general kindness and her fascinating manners
rendered the world at large her friend. The
life of her family, the object of her husband's love
and pride (after his dogs and horses) left to her
own control, in the possession of boundless wealth,
with a constitution unimpaired, a beauty mellowed,
a wit sharpened, and a mind enriched,—she was a
giddy, sweet, proud, high-tempered, happy, fashionable
woman, who never seriously conceived a
more severe wish against those among her neighbours
whom she had the least reason to like, than
that the routs which she gave two or three times a
year might make them positively die of admiration
and envy.

“What! nine o'clock!” cried the count, looking
at his watch; “I must actually go this instant.”

Mrs. Hamilton sighed, and turned towards him
a pair of hazel eyes which had done mischief in
their day, and were yet dangerous, though they
were now, or at least ought to have been, sheathed
in the scabbard of matrimony.

“Why do you sigh?” said the count.

“Because I hate solitude; and when you go I
shall be alone.”

“But this,” said the count, “is Mrs. Temple's
night, and I have positively promised.”

“You are too early,” said Mrs. Hamilton.
“Twelve will be quite time enough for that proud
and giddy Mrs. Temple.”

“But I have two or three other imperative engagements
before Mrs. Temple's. There is the
young Mrs. Wilson.”

“And you leave me for her!”

“Then there are the Evertons.”

Mrs. Hamilton sighed again.

“Is my sweet coz so pensive?”

“I do not know; I am very unhappy.”

“Can you be unhappy?”

The handsome young nobleman took her hand.

There was not a purer woman on earth than
Mrs. Hamilton. Her very purity made her careless.
A school-girl could not be more artless.
Her lips opened to every thing that stirred in her
heart as naturally as rosebuds unfold when they
are ripe.

“Ah! Lucy, what a happy man is your husband!”

“Not so happy as you think.”

“How! Hamilton not happy! Why, he is the
gayest dog among us.”

“Yes, away at his club with you.”

“My lovely friend, you wrong him.”

“Ah! you little know.” A tear glittered in her
eye.

“By heavens! dear girl, you terrify me!—the
mere suspicion that you were not happy would for
ever prevent my being so.”

“Oh, my lord! I must not hear—you must not
dare.”

“And why should you not possess a friend in
me as well as in another? I sympathize in your
sorrows as I would in those of a friend of my own
sex. This dear hand has, I fear, been wasted.”

“Count, I beg—I entreat—do not make me
angry.”

“Loveliest of lovely creatures!” said the count,
“you have not the heart to reward admiration and
sympathy with anger. What, weeping!”

“My lord, if you have any friendship for me,
leave me.”

“Friendship! can you doubt it?”

He dropped on one knee. This seemed a favourite
position when there was a woman in the
case. His homage, doubtless, would have met with
a severe rebuke, but a step was heard in the hall.

“There—there's James, my lord!”

The entrance of the domestic restrained the
ardours of the noble foreigner, who was upon his
feet, and several yards off, with an adroitness that
argued considerable practice.

“Pray tell my dear Hamilton,” he cried, “that
I waited for him an hour. I must bid you adieu!”
and he bowed himself out.

“Take away the tea-things, James,” said Mrs.
Hamilton.

The man obeyed, and disappeared.

His lovely young mistress remained a moment
in an attitude of thought. Suddenly rising, she
gazed at herself in the mirror; and, as she gazed,
her feelings appeared to assume a new mood.
She adjusted the blonde and curls around a very
charming face. A soft colour suffused her countenance.
Her eyes emitted a lustre which had not
brightened there for many a day. She sighed;
but as she sighed a smile beamed upon her features,
and she seemed lost in the mazes of some
sad but pleasurable thought.

“Yes,” at length she said to herself; “happy,
happy woman! What would life have been to me
then? What a contrast! I should have had my
portrait taken—just so. There! with that ringlet
hanging—so—and the lace brought down a little
in the front—à la Marie Stuart—so. There—the
Countess Clairmont! with the drapery over the
arm, and the eyes lifted—thus.”

The reflection of another figure in the glass
caused her to start with a slight scream.

“Good heavens, Edward, how you frightened
me! Is that you?”

“Why, who the devil should it be?” replied the
husband; “and what are you at there, parading
before the glass like a tragedy queen?”

“I was—I was trying on my cap; but you
startled me so! You are always so rough, Edward.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“I am not. Get me some tea,” flinging himself
heavily down on the sofa; “I'm tired.”

“Yes, dear Edward, instantly,” said the affectionate
wife, passing her arm tenderly around his
shoulder.

“Then why the devil don't you go?”

“I have already rung for it. You always come
home as cross as—”

The husband swore. The wife sighed. James
brought the tea.

Oh, matrimony! thou—

But they are waiting for us at the Temples'.