Finger Posts on the Way of Life

At this, Fanny grew deadly pale, staggered toward her mother, and sunk, sobbing wildly, upon her bosom.

Too much excited and confused for coherent explanation, and too clearly conscious of his mean dishonesty toward a stranger, Allen attempted no vindication nor excuse, lest matters should assume even a worse aspect. A moment or two he stood irresolute, and then retired from the house. As he did so, Mr. Lovering entered the room where this little scene had just transpired, and was quite startled at the aspect of affairs.

"What's this? What has happened? Fanny, child, what in the name of wonder is the matter? Where's Edward?"

Mr. Lovering spoke hurriedly. As soon as practicable, the whole affair was related.

"And is that all?" exclaimed Mr. Lovering, in surprise. "Pooh! pooh! I'm really astonished! I thought that some dreadful thing had happened."

"Don't you regard this as a very serious matter?" inquired Mrs. Waring.

"Serious? No! It's a thing of every day occurrence. If you are not a judge of the goods you attempt to purchase, you must expect to pay for your ignorance. Shopkeepers have to make up their ratio of profits in the aggregate sales of the day. Sometimes they have to sell a sharp customer at cost, rather than lose the sale; and this must be made up on some one like you."

"Not a serious matter," replied Fanny's aunt, "to discover that the betrothed of your daughter is a dishonest man?"

"Nonsense! nonsense! you don't know what you are talking about," said Mr. Lovering, fretfully. "He's shrewd and sharp, as every business-man who expects to succeed must be. As to his trade operations, Fanny has nothing to do with them. He'll make her a kind husband, and provide for her handsomely. What more can she ask?"

"A great deal more," replied Mrs. Waring, firmly.

"What more, pray?"

"A husband, in whose high moral virtues, and unselfish regard for the right, she can unerringly confide. One who will never, in his eager desire to secure for himself some personal end or gratification, forget what is due to the tender, confiding wife who has placed all that is dear to her in his guardianship. Brother, depend upon it, the man who deliberately wrongs another to gain an advantage to himself, will never, in marriage, make a truly virtuous woman happy. This I speak thoughtfully and solemnly; and I pray you take it to heart, ere conviction of what I assert comes upon you too late. But, I may have said too much. Forgive my plain speaking. From the fulness of the heart is this utterance."

And so saying, Mrs. Waring passed from the room, and left the parents of Fanny alone with their weeping child. Few words were spoken by either Mr. or Mrs. Lovering. Something in the last remarks of Mrs. Waring had startled their minds into new convictions. As for the daughter, she soon retired to her own apartment, and did not join the family again until the next morning. Then, her sad eyes and colorless face too plainly evidenced a night of sleeplessness and suffering.

By a kind of tacit consent on the part of each member of the family, no allusion, whatever, was made to the occurrences of the day previous. Evening came, but not as usual came Edward Allen. The next day, and the next went by, without his accustomed appearance. For a whole week his visits were omitted.

Grievous was the change which, in that time, had become visible in Fanny Lovering. The very light of her life seemed to go out suddenly; and, for a while, she had groped about in thick darkness. A few feeble rays were again becoming visible; but from a quarter of the heavens where she had not expected light. Wisely, gently, and unobtrusively had Mrs. Waring, during this period of gloom and distress, cast high truths into the mind of her suffering niece—and from these, as stars in the firmament of thought, came the rays by which she was able to see a path opening before her. When, at the end of the tenth day of uncertainty, came a note from Allen, in these brief words: "If it is Miss Lovering's wish to be free from her engagement, a word will annul the contract"—she replied, within ten minutes, "Let the contract be annulled; you are free."

Two weeks later, and Mr. Lovering brought home the intelligence that Allen was to be married in a few days to a certain Miss Jerrold, daughter of a man reputed wealthy.

"To Miss Jerrold! It cannot be!" said Mrs. Lovering in surprise.

"I will not believe it, father." Fanny spoke with quivering lips and a choking voice.

"Who is Miss Jerrold?" asked Mrs. Waring.

"A coarse, vulgar-minded girl, of whom many light things have been said," replied Mrs. Lovering, indignantly. "But her father is rich, and she is an only child."

"He never loved you, dear," said Mrs. Waring to Fanny about a week later, as the yet suffering girl laid her tearful face on her bosom. The news had just come that Miss Jerrold was the bride of Allen. The frame of the girl thrilled for a moment or two; then all was calm, and she replied—

"Not as I wished to be loved. O aunt! what an escape I have made! I look down the fearful gulf on the very brink of which my feet were arrested, and shudder to the heart's core. If he could take her, he never could have appreciated me. Something more than maiden purity and virtue attracted him. Ah! how could my instincts have been so at fault!"

"Dear child," said Mrs. Waring, earnestly, "there can be no true love, as I have before said to you, without an appreciation of quality. A fine person, agreeable manners, social position—in a word, all external advantages and attractions are nothing, unless virtue be in the heart. It is a man's virtues that a woman must love, if she loves truly. If she assumes the possession of moral wisdom, without undoubting evidence, she is false to herself. To marry under such circumstances is to take a fearful risk. Alas! how many have repented through a long life of wretchedness. Can a true woman love a man who lacks principle—who will sacrifice honour for a few paltry dollars—who will debase himself for gain—whose gross sensuality suffocates all high, spiritual love? No! no! It is impossible! And she who unites herself with such a man, must either shrink, grovelling, down to his mean level, or be inconceivably wretched."

Two years later, and results amply justified the timely interposition of Mrs. Waring, and demonstrated the truth of her positions. Her beautiful, true-hearted niece has become the bride of a man possessing all the external advantages sought to be obtained by Mr. and Mrs. Lovering in the proposed marriage with Mr. Allen; and what is more and better, of one whose love of truth and goodness is genuine, and whose appreciation of his wife rests on a perception of her womanly virtues. As years pass, and their knowledge of each other becomes more intimate, their union will become closer and closer, until affection and thought become so blended, that they will act in all their mutual life-relations as one.

Alas! how different it is already with Edward Allen and the woman he led to the altar, where each made false vows the one to the other. There were no qualities to be loved; and to each, person and principles soon grew repellant. Through sharp practices in business, Allen is rapidly adding to the fortune already acquired by trade and marriage; but, apart from the love of accumulation, which keeps his mind active and excited during business hours, he has no pleasure in life. He does not love the woman who presides in his elegant home, and she affects nothing in regard to him. They only tolerate each other for appearance sake. Sometimes, Fanny Lovering, now Mrs. –, meets them in public; but never without an almost audibly breathed "Thank God, that I am not in her place!" as her eyes rest upon the countenance of Allen, in which evil and selfish purposes have already stamped their unmistakable meanings.

BLESSING OF A GOOD DEED

"I SHOULD like to do that, every day, for a year to come," said Mr. William Everett, rubbing his hands together quickly, in irrepressible pleasure.

Mr. Everett was a stock and money broker, and had just made an "operation," by which a clear gain of two thousand dollars was secured. He was alone in his office: or, so much alone as not to feel restrained by the presence of another. And yet, a pair of dark, sad eyes were fixed intently upon his self-satisfied countenance, with an expression, had he observed it, that would, at least, have excited a moment's wonder. The owner of this pair of eyes was a slender, rather poorly dressed lad, in his thirteenth year, whom Mr. Everett had engaged, a short time previously, to attend in his office and run upon errands. He was the son of a widowed mother, now in greatly reduced circumstances. His father had been an early friend of Mr. Everett. It was this fact which led to the boy's introduction into the broker's office.

"Two thousand dollars!" The broker had uttered aloud his satisfaction; but now he communed with himself silently. "Two thousand dollars! A nice little sum that for a single day's work. I wonder what Mr. Jenkins will say tomorrow morning, when he hears of such an advance in these securities?"

From some cause, this mental reference to Mr. Jenkins did not increase our friend's state of exhilaration. Most probably, there was something in the transaction by which he had gained so handsome a sum of money, that, in calmer moments, would not bear too close a scrutiny—something that Mr. Everett would hardly like to have blazoned forth to the world. Be this as it may, a more sober mood, in time, succeeded, and although the broker was richer by two thousand dollars than when he arose in the morning, he was certainly no happier.

An hour afterward, a business friend came into the office of Mr. Everett and said—

"Have you heard about Cassen?"

"No; what of him?"

"He's said to be off to California with twenty thousand dollars in his pockets more than justly belongs to him."

"What!"

"Too true, I believe. His name is in the list of passengers who left New York in the steamer yesterday."

"The scoundrel!" exclaimed Mr. Everett, who, by this time, was very considerably excited.

"He owes you, does he?" said the friend.

"I lent him three hundred dollars only day before yesterday."

"A clear swindle."

"Yes, it is. Oh, if I could only get my hands on him!".

Mr. Everett's countenance, as he said this, did not wear a very amiable expression.

"Don't get excited about it," said the other. "I think he has let you off quite reasonably. Was that sum all he asked to borrow?"

"Yes."

"I know two at least, who are poorer by a couple of thousands by his absence."

But Mr. Everett was excited. For half an hour after the individual left who had communicated this unpleasant piece of news, the broker walked the floor of his office with compressed lips, a lowering brow, and most unhappy feelings. The two thousand dollars gain in no way balanced in his mind the three hundred lost. The pleasure created by the one had not penetrated deep enough to escape obliteration by the other.

Of all this, the boy with the dark eyes had taken quick cognizance. And he comprehended all. Scarcely a moment had his glance been removed from the countenance or form of Mr. Everett, while the latter walked with uneasy steps the floor of his office.

As the afternoon waned, the broker's mind grew calmer. The first excitement produced by the loss, passed away; but it left a sense of depression and disappointment that completely shadowed his feelings.

Intent as had been the lad's observation of his employer during all this time, it is a little remarkable that Mr. Everett had not once been conscious of the fact that the boy's eyes were steadily upon him. In fact he had been, as was usually the case too much absorbed in things concerning himself to notice what was peculiar to another, unless the peculiarity were one readily used to his own advantage.

"John," said Mr. Everett, turning suddenly to the boy, and encountering his large, earnest eyes, "take this note around to Mr. Legrand."