Page:Adventures of Rachel Cunningham.djvu/23

 to her wishes and every movement of his will was in her absolute guidance and control; nor did she hold that power unexercised or dormant in its force, but gave it ample operation upon and in the sway of Mr. L's disposition and subsequent conduct; for on her instigation of the act was effected a separation between himself and his wife, and the abandonment of his family which followed.

Mrs. L, was of mild demeanour and domestic habits; had a share of personal beauty too, more than falls generally to the lot of females, and was withal accomplished, kind in her manners, of amiable endearing disposition, and most tenderly affectionate in her anxiety to promote her husband's happiness in all her duties both as a wife and a mother. To all this be added, she had borne him two lovely children, whose cast and mould of features, so closely the counterparts of their father most distinctly stamped them the genuine offspring of their mother's connubial faith. She also, at the time of her husband's secession from her, was some months advanced in her state of pregnancy. Thus deserted, thus left, thus plunged in heart wringing sorrow, and sunk in unmerited grief,—thus abandoned to soul-piercing bitter reflection on the cruelty of her treatment by the deluded partner of her bosom's love, and the legitimate protector of her fortunes, the goading poignancy and agonizing suffering of anguish she endured, baffles the powers of language to describe, and can only be left in the sympathetic feelings of the reader for imagination.

On this separation from his wife, Mr. L hired a handsome house, had it most elegantly furnished, and there cohabited entirely in adulterous intercourse with Rachel Cunningham, while his disconsolate and almost heart-broken wife was pining under the life-wasting effects of that affliction which his misconduct had brought upon her; and while the whole management of his commercial concerns was consigned to his clerks, to be conducted without any sort of directions either left with them by, or received from their principal, or any communication, excepting only his frequent orders upon them for supplies of money. But as the management of those sums, through her artful management of her inamorato, devolved generally upon her, the fact