Chapter II

Julia Mason did not possess a very brilliant intellect. Nature had never intended her for a “blue stocking,” and, live as long as she might, there was no probability that she would ever become even a “strong minded woman.” She had for many years attended one of the public schools, but had never risen above the second class, and the master did not believe she ever would.

Yet, for all this, Julia was a good-hearted, generous, whole souled girl. What Nature had neglected to place in her head, she had beneficently put in her heart. She had a nice, womanly, domestic temperament, was quiet and unobtrusive in her manners, and, without doubt, if no pains had been taken to spoil her, would have made somebody a very loving, if not a very brilliant wife.

She was a little disposed to be romantic and sentimental—would have fed well and thriven on moonshine—a temperament which requires a great deal of prudent management on the part of the parent or guardian.

Julia went to the boarding school; but she had not been there three weeks before she wrote to her mother, begging her to take her away, or she declared she should certainly die.

The poor girl was homesick. Monastic discipline was an outrage upon her affectionate, domestic nature. She had been accustomed to spend her evenings by the fireside at home, with her parents and younger brother and sisters; and it was a sad deprivation to her to be driven, at the stroke of a bell, into her chamber at seven o’clock, there to sit in painful silence with her roommate, and study her lesson. She was not a genius, and she hated study; it was uncongenial in the highest degree.

At nine o’clock, at the stroke of the bell, she must retire, and in fifteen minutes her light must be put out, or a black mark was made against her name on the following day; and so it was all day long, week in and week out. Her existence was odiously mechanical. Her life was regulated by that everlasting stroke of the bell. She was obliged to do every thing by rule—eat, drink, sleep, study, play, walk, by rule.

It was unnatural, and her soul cried out within her against such monstrous formality. She could not learn, her heart grieved so under the repulsive mechanism of her existence. Even the music lesson, which she had anticipated with the liveliest pleasure, was gloomy and distasteful. She was conscientious, and, though her companions laughed at her for it, she at first paid the most implicit obedience to the rules of the institution. Her roommate devised various happy expedients for relieving the tedium of their lives; but she refused to avail herself of them.

Her mother begged her to persevere for a time, assuring her that she was only homesick—a disease which a few weeks would effectually cure. She did persevere; but her “chum” finally succeeded in overcoming her conscientious scruples, and the evenings, instead of being passed in study, were devoted to a “good time generally.” It is true, Julia got innumerable black marks for failures in her recitations; but the horrible bugbears soon became so familiar that they ceased to have any terrors. Before the first term had expired, she had so completely weaned herself from her domestic memories that home had lost all its charms.

She had learned a great many “new tricks.” Indeed, the preceptor, in his report to her parents at the close of her first term, felt it his duty to say that her conduct had not been altogether satisfactory. She had gone to the boarding school the quietest person in the world; she returned a romp, her head full of strange notions about lovers, and her heart as washy as the moonshine in her head.

On the first evening after her return home she insisted on going to the opera; the second to a concert; the third to the theatre; the fourth to a lecture; the fifth to a party; the sixth to a conference meeting; and so on every evening.

“What in the world has got into you, Julia? You did not use to be fond of ‘kiting’ round in this manner,” said the astonished Mrs. Mason.

“O mother, it is so insufferably dull at home! Besides, it is not fashionable to stay at home in the evening,” drawled Julia.

“What has got into you?”

“Boarding schools,” said Mr. Mason.

“I should die of ennui to stay at home an evening,” continued the daughter, with a languishing sigh.

“You had better give her a lesson on the pots and kettles now,” interrupted Mr. Mason.

“O papa, how cruel you are! Pray go to the opera with me.”

Mr. Mason was an indulgent papa, and he was obliged to go; but he could not help wondering what Julia would finally come to, if she was permitted to go on in this manner.