University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
AFTER THE STORM.

THE painful and unfortunate crises of life often arise
and darken like a thunder-storm, and seem for the
moment perfectly terrific and overwhelming; but wait
a little, and the cloud sweeps by, and the earth, which
seemed about to be torn to pieces and destroyed, comes
out as good as new. Not a bird is dead; not a flower
killed: and the sun shines just as he did before. So it
was with John's financial trouble. When it came to be
investigated and looked into, it proved much less terrible
than had been feared. It was not utter ruin. The
high character which John bore for honor and probity,
the general respect which was felt for him by all to whom
he stood indebted, led to an arrangement by which the
whole business was put into his hands, and time given
him to work it through. His brother-in-law came to
his aid, advancing money, and entering into the business
with him. Our friend Harry Endicott was only too
happy to prove his devotion to Rose by offers of financial
assistance.

In short, there seemed every reason to hope that,
after a period of somewhat close sailing, the property

might be brought into clear water again, and go on even
better than before.

To say the truth, too, John was really relieved by that
terrible burst of confidence in his sister. It is a curious
fact, that giving full expression to bitterness of feeling
or indignation against one we love seems to be such a
relief, that it always brings a revulsion of kindliness.
John never loved his sister so much as when he heard
her plead his wife's cause with him; for, though in some
bitter, impatient hour a man may feel, which John did,
as if he would be glad to sunder all ties, and tear
himself away from an uncongenial wife, yet a good man
never can forget the woman that once he loved, and
who is the mother of his children. Those sweet, sacred
visions and illusions of first love will return again and
again, even after disenchantment; and the better and
the purer the man is, the more sacred is the appeal to
him of woman's weakness. Because he is strong, and
she is weak, he feels that it would be unmanly to desert
her; and, if there ever was any thing for which John
thanked his sister, it was when she went over and spent
hours with his wife, patiently listening to her complainings,
and soothing her as if she had been a petted child.
All the circle of friends, in a like manner, bore with her
for his sake.

Thanks to the intervention of Grace's husband and of
Harry, John was not put to the trial and humiliation
of being obliged to sell the family place, although constrained
to live in it under a system of more rigid economy.
Lillie's mother, although quite a commonplace

woman as a companion, had been an economist in her
day; she had known how to make the most of straitened
circumstances, and, being put to it, could do it
again.

To be sure, there was an end of Newport gayeties;
for Lillie vowed and declared that she would not go to
Newport and take cheap board, and live without a
carriage. She didn't want the Follingsbees and the
Tompkinses and the Simpkinses talking about her, and
saying that they had failed. Her mother worked like a
servant for her in smartening her up, and tidying her
old dresses, of which one would think that she had a
stock to last for many years. And thus, with everybody
sympathizing with her, and everybody helping
her, Lillie subsided into enacting the part of a patient,
persecuted saint. She was touchingly resigned, and
wore an air of pleasing melancholy. John had asked
her pardon for all the hasty words he said to her in the
terrible interview; and she had forgiven him with
edifying meekness. “Of course,” she remarked to her
mother, “she knew he would be sorry for the way he
had spoken to her; and she was very glad that he had
the grace to confess it.”

So life went on and on with John. He never forgot
his sister's words, but received them into his heart as a
message from his mother in heaven. From that time,
no one could have judged by any word, look, or action
of his that his wife was not what she had always been
to him.

Meanwhile Rose was happily married, and settled

down in the Ferguson place; where her husband and
she formed one family with her parents. It was a
pleasant, cosey, social, friendly neighborhood. After
all, John found that his cross was not so very heavy to
carry, when once he had made up his mind that it must
be borne. By never expecting much, he was never
disappointed. Having made up his mind that he was
to serve and to give without receiving, he did it, and
began to find pleasure in it. By and by, the little
Lillie, growing up by her mother's side, began to be a
compensation for all he had suffered. The little creature
inherited her mother's beauty, the dazzling delicacy
of her complexion, the abundance of her golden hair;
but there had been given to her also her father's
magnanimous and generous nature. Lillie was a selfish,
exacting mother; and such women often succeed in
teaching to their children patience and self-denial. As
soon as the little creature could walk, she was her
father's constant play-fellow and companion. He took
her with him everywhere. He was never weary of
talking with her and playing with her; and gradually
he relieved the mother of all care of her early training.
When, in time, two others were added to the nursery
troop, Lillie became a perfect model of a gracious,
motherly, little older sister.

Did all this patience and devotion of the husband at
last awaken any thing like love in the wife? Lillie was
not naturally rich in emotion. Under the best education
and development, she would have been rather wanting
in the loving power; and the whole course of her

education had been directed to suppress what little she
had, and to concentrate all her feelings upon herself.

The factitious and unnatural life she had lived so
many years had seriously undermined the stamina of
her constitution; and, after the birth of her third child,
her health failed altogether. Lillie thus became in
time a chronic invalid, exacting, querulous, full of
troubles and wants which tasked the patience of all
around her. During all these trying years, her husband's
faithfulness never faltered. As he gradually
retrieved his circumstances, she was first in every calculation.
Because he knew that here lay his greatest
temptation, here he most rigidly performed his duty.
Nothing that money could give to soften the weariness
of sickness was withheld; and John was for hours and
hours, whenever he could spare the time, himself a
personal, assiduous, unwearied attendant in the sick-room.