England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Guardian and ward -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction
What sort of a wife did she make to Morton Smalley, in his wild northern
home? I know not, no more than I know what, unless the thirst of
agitation and change, could induce a spirit so feverish and unquiet to
unite itself to that pure and calm nature. Did she find peace in his
devoted love, and in fulfilling the duties that fall to the lot of a
clergyman's wife? Perhaps she did, and perhaps too he drew forth whatever
her nature held of good and true. A year after her marriage she died in
giving birth to a child, who still lives, and whom her father persists in
calling the image of his dear departed saint, though his eyes alone can
trace in her the faintest resemblance to her dead mother.
I was not with Cornelius when this event occurred, and how he felt on
learning the death of the woman with whom he had thought to spend his
life, is more than I have ever known.
Cornelius had, as I said, recovered his serenity, but he was not what he
once had been. A boyish lightness of temper had deserted him--his early
faith was shaken, and he looked on life a sadder and a wiser man. To his
sister he was the same as before; to me far kinder. He loved me all the
more for having been to him the cause of so much trouble: a less generous
mind and heart could not have forgiven me the mistakes into which I had
made him fall, and the disadvantageous position in which I had placed
him; both rendered me more dear to Cornelius. The only allusion he made
to the past, was to say to me one wintry evening, as, the lessons over,
we sat together by the fire-side--
"I think you are happy now, Daisy."
"Yes, Cornelius," I replied, a little moved, "very happy."
"That's right," he said, and rose.
"You are going out," observed Kate, anxiously.
"Yes; shall be in at nine."
"Come back by the Grove."
"Why so?"
"The lanes are not safe."
He laughed, said there was no fear, and left us. I saw him go with a
sinking heart. The road by which he meant to return was lonely and had
witnessed several recent cases of highway robbery. The evening passed
quietly; but nine struck and Cornelius came not back. I gave Kate a
terrified look.
"Nonsense!" she said indignantly, "how dare you think of such a thing? Go
to bed directly."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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