Mrs. Wilson was not a bigot; but she knew and performed her duty
rigidly. It was a pleasure to her to do so. It would have been misery to
do otherwise. In the singleness of heart and deep piety of her niece,
she had a willing pupil to her system of morals, and a rigid follower of
her religious practices. As they both knew that the temptations to go
astray were greater in town than in country, they kept a strict guard
over the tendency to err, and in watchfulness found their greatest
security.
John Moseley, next to his friends, loved his bays: indeed, if the
aggregate of his affections for these and Lady Herriefield had been put
in opposite scales, we strongly suspect the side of the horses would
predominate.
One Sunday, soon after being domesticated, John, who had soberly
attended morning service with the ladies, came into a little room where
the more reflecting part of the family were assembled, in search of his
wife.
Grace, we have before mentioned, had become a real member of that church
in which she had been educated, and had entered, under the direction of
Dr. Ives and Mrs. Wilson, into an observance of its wholesome
ordinances. Grace was certainly piously inclined, if not devout. Her
feelings on the subject of religion had been sensibly awakened during
their voyage to Lisbon; and at the period of which we write, Mrs.
Moseley was as sincerely disposed to perform her duty as her powers
admitted. To the request of her husband, that she would take a seat in
his phaeton while he drove her round the park once or twice, Grace gave
a mild refusal, by saying,
"It is Sunday, my dear Moseley."
"Do you think I don't know that?" cried John, gaily. "There will be
everybody there, and, the better day, the better deed."
Now, Moseley, if he had been asked to apply this speech to the case
before them, would have frankly owned his inability; but his wife did
not make the trial: she was contented with saying, as she laid down her
book to look on a face she so tenderly loved,
"Ah! Moseley, you should set a better example to those below you in
life."
"I wish to set an example," returned her husband, with an affectionate
smile, "to all above as well as below me, in order that they may find
out the path to happiness, by exhibiting to the world a model of a wife,
in yourself, dear Grace."
As this was uttered with a sincerity which distinguished the manner of
Moseley, his wife was more pleased with the compliment than she would
have been willing to make known; and John spoke no more than he thought;
for a desire to show his handsome wife was the ruling passion for a
moment.
The husband was too pressing and the wife too fond not to yield the
point; and Grace took her seat in the carriage with a kind of half-
formed resolution to improve the opportunity by a discourse on serious
subjects--a resolution which terminated as all others do, that postpone
one duty to discharge another of less magnitude; it was forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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