Chapter II

Of course the reader understands that Frederic Harlowe and Mary are deeply, irretrievably in love with each other by this time. The poor clerk had won his way to the heart of the fair girl, and she, poor thing, had been captivated by the manly attractions, the noble soul of him who offered incense before her shrine.

As the world goes, it would be deemed a very wicked thing for a poor clerk to fall in love with the daughter of his aristocratic employer. Some people would say it was ungrateful in him thus to spirit away the affections of a confiding girl, when his position and prospects did not warrant his presuming to be her husband.

These questions are still open to the casuist. He may debate them to his entire satisfaction; but Mr. Danvers, either because he was more sensible than many of the aristocratic merchants of the day, or for some other equally potent reason, neglected to make any fuss about the matter, and suffered the clerk to woo and win his daughter, without even remonstrating against the wickedness of the act.

But Sophia was deeply grieved by her sister’s folly, as she deemed it, and used all the arguments in the range of her shallow sophistry to dissuade her from the folly and madness of wedding a clerk.

Mary was obstinate. The only excuse she offered in palliation of the flagrant misdemeanor was, that she loved him; and if she loved a scavenger, she would cling to him with the last breath she was permitted to draw.

“A ring!” exclaimed Sophia, one day when matters appeared to have taken a very decided turn. “Well, well, I suppose you are engaged.”

“We are, Sophia,” replied Mary, with a face radiant with happiness.

“And you intend to be married?”

“Certainly we do; that is the end of an engagement.”

“My conscience! to think that the daughter of a merchant prince should became the wife of a poor, insignificant clerk!”

“Nothing very alarming about it, Sophy; it wouldn’t be half so ridiculous as another daughter of a merchant prince becoming the wife of an ex-journeyman barber. I believe Mr. Augustus Fitzherbert was your beau ideal of what a fashionable husband ought to be.”

“The impostor!”

“I am at least sure that Frederic is not an imposter—a humbug; one would not be likely to assume the character of a clerk.”

“Perhaps not; but pray, sister, when do you intend to become the wife of this counting room cherub?”

“The day has not been fixed yet; in the spring, probably.”

“And may I ask what you intend to do with yourself? His salary is only a thousand dollars a year.”

“We can get along very well on that sum.”

“Yes, I suppose so, and live in some ten footer in a dark alley.”

“We intend to live out of town, in a nice little cottage.”

“Y-e-s! a nice little cottage!” drawled Sophia, in derision. “O sis, I will show you how to live when I am married. None of your nice little cottages for me. But I wonder when the new partner is coming.”

“Papa told me this morning that he had deferred the arrangement till next spring, and that the gentleman would attend to his business at the south as heretofore.”

“How provoking! I have been reserving my affections on purpose for him. I mean to make a conquest of him in just one month.”

“How foolish you talk, Sophy! One would think you had entirely forgotten your maidenly delicacy.”

“Pooh! I’m jesting; it’s between us;” and Sophia relapsed into a revery, which, we are almost sure, related to the aforesaid new partner, who was not only a nice young man, but was to put thirty thousand dollars into the concern when he became a partner.

The winter passed away, and the spring came. Frederic and Mary were to be married in a few days. Mr. Danvers, to the infinite chagrin of Sophia, had readily consented to the match. The proud sister—though in the natural goodness of her heart she would not have had Mary’s affections blasted—would fain have had a little opposition, to save appearances.

The bridal day came, and after the ceremony had been performed, the happy parties started for their new residence in the suburbs. Sophia, who had acted as bridesmaid, was to accompany them.

The carriage wound through an elm-shaded road, and suddenly brought to the view of the delighted party a splendid country residence.

“That is the cottage,” exclaimed the bride.

“That a cottage! Why, Mary it is a palace!” replied Sophia, in utter astonishment; for she had never taken interest enough in her sister’s affairs to visit her proposed residence.

The carriage stopped before the door, which was half hidden behind a vine-laced portico, and the party alighted.

The place was a perfect paradise, and many were the encomiums lavished upon it by the bewildered Sophia.

“You cannot think how surprised I was when I first beheld it,” said Mary, when she and Sophia were alone. “It seemed more like a dream of fairyland than a reality. But Frederic is so very odd about these things.”

“I should think that he was! Why, sis, it will certainly ruin him, a poor clerk on a thousand dollars salary.”

“Well, he knows best; he says the rent is nothing.”

“Nothing, indeed; but it will eat up his poor pittance.”

“Well, I gave him a lesson on extravagance; but he only laughed in my face, and said he knew what he was about.”

“But here are Frederic and father; I am sure papa has been scolding him for his recklessness.”

“He does not look as though the scolding had produced a very powerful effect,” said Mary, as she saw her husband’s smiling countenance.

“What a beautiful house!” exclaimed Sophia, as Frederic Harlowe joined the group.

“A fitting nest for my pretty bird,” replied the husband, gayly, as he chucked his blushing wife under the chin.

“I should think your thousand dollars a year would have to suffer some,” said Sophia, bluntly.

“O, your father has been so very good as to elevate me a peg, so that I can well afford to incur the expense.”

“Yes, my child,” interposed Mr. Danvers; “you know I said something to you about entertaining angels unawares. Sophy, Mr. Frederic Harlowe is the new partner.”

“What an abominable cheat, papa! I’ll warrant you told Mary of it in the beginning,” said Sophia, with abundant good humor.

“Nay, she knew nothing of it till a few days before her marriage. This was all Mr. Harlowe’s whim; he must explain it for himself.”

Mr. Harlowe did attempt to explain his motive in entering the family incog., but it was a lame explanation. Probably the reader, who readily penetrates the secret thoughts of the hero of the story, has already divined his motive. He wanted a wife, and had the sense to seek for genuine goodness in preference to name and position in society. He won the daughter of a merchant prince as a simple clerk; there was no doubt that she loved him.

Mary was very much surprised, and perhaps not a little chagrined, to find the romance of marrying a clerk so suddenly disappear; but in the wealth of a mutual love they were richer than in the smiles of fickle fortune, which had blessed them with an abundance of the good things of this life.