Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/13

8 there is an old saying 'that when poverty comes in the door, love flies out the window."

"As you please, Masters, but you are still deceiving yourself, by calling comfort poverty, and pretending that a wife will beggar you even with two thousand. I will say no more of Mary, except that I believe a nobler or more beautiful woman you will never find. She is a treasure in herself. Nor will I say ought of Miss Spencer, beyond a word- I fear she has a bad temper. And now, my dear fellow, let us dismiss this matrimonial debate, and take to our cigars-here are some choice Habanas."

Charles Masters, as our readers will have seen, was one of those young men who without being an actual fortune-hunter, deem some money indispensable in a wife-although, as in his case, they veil their real character from themselves by a course of deceptive sophistry, and will not admit the actual selfishness of their views. His friend, Henry Prescott, was of a different character. Love, with him, was a pure unalloyed passion-a sentiment in which nothing base took part-a holy exalted feeling which filled the heart with sunshine, and would have made even privation endurable. He loved Ellen Prescott with his whole soul, and had long been satisfied that his love was returned. Indeed, as he said, their union was already settled. He saw with pain the determination of his friend, for he knew that Charles was a favorite with Mary, although, as yet, the feeling had not on her part ripened into a warmer sentiment-more, however, because the attentions of Charles had been nothing more than those of an acquaintance, and the strict principle in which Mary had been brought up, would not suffer her to throw away her affections unsought, and thus perhaps shipwreck her happiness forever. It was with an inward sigh, therefore, that Prescott heard, a few days after the above conversation, that the attentions of Charles to Miss Spencer were becoming of the most marked character. He saw also that Masters no longer visited the Elcotts. The love for display had triumphed over affections.

Meanwhile time slipped rapidly away, and rumors began to be prevalent that Charles had proposed for and been accepted by Miss Spencer. In a little time the report was confirmed by those who were believed to know, and to set all doubt at rest it was authorized by Charles himself. He met Prescott casually, for of late they had been less intimate than formerly.

"Ah! my good monitor," he said, laughingly, "they tell me you and Ellen are to be married in a fortnight. Is it so? Glad to hear it. But I shall not be long behind you—egad! since I come to think of it, we shall be married on the same day. Miss Spencer is a fine, dashing girl—a cool fifty thousand is hers—we shall live in some style, but you must come and see us.

Cards and all that sort of thing will be sent you. But I forgot—I've an appointment to look at a pair of carriage horses at eleven, and it now only wants five minutes of that hour. Good bye—I'll see you soon."

"There goes a fine fellow who is about to sacrifice his happiness to his love of display," mused Prescott, as his eye followed the receding form of his friend; and with a sigh he turned and walked on.

They were married—Prescott and his bride seeking their simple, yet comfortable home, while Mr. and Mrs. Masters were whirled off on a fashionable tour from which they returned in due time to astonish the town by their splendid entertainments. But alas! even before the honey moon was over Masters found that his friend's anticipations were true, and that Mrs. Masters, though rich, beautiful and accomplished, threatened, by a peevish temper, to embitter his life. As time elapsed, moreover, the evil only increased, and about two months after the wedding, it was more than doubled by an event which then occurred. This was nothing more than the discovery—then first made by the final settlement of Mr. Spencer's estate—that his daughter was in reality worth but a bare ten thousand dollars. The knowledge of this circnmstance could not fail to irritate a husband whose chief motive in marrying was to possess himself of his wife's fortune—crimination and re-criminations ensued betwixt the ill-mated pair—and, as usual, the interview ended in a flood of tears on the part of the lady, and a volley of curses on that of the gentleman. Seizing his hat, Masters rushed from the house in no very enviable state of mind. Almost the first person he met was a mutual acquaintance of himself and Prescott.

"Ah! Masters—the very man I wanted to see—have you heard the news—I am glad of it for both their sakes. I see you are ignorant, and that I am the first one to bring you the intelligence. Well then Prescott has had a glorious windfall in the way of fortune—his wife and her sister Mary have fallen co-heiresses to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, left them by an East Indian uncle, whom they had not heard of for twenty years. I once thought you and Mary would be married, but I was mistaken—she has been engaged you know a month and more to Mr. Leicester, your old rival. But I must hurry on. You look ill. I hope all is well at home. Remember me to your bride."

Masters did not speak, but, in his heart, he cursed the day he ever saw Miss Spencer, or refused the love of such an angel as Mary Elcott, for filthy lucre. He was rightly punished, in being tied for life to a peevish, extravagant, and comparatively portionless woman.

If his story shall prove a lesson to our readers, our object in relating it will have been fulfilled. It is better to deal in truth, simple though it be, than in fiction, however gorgeous.