fortune he claimed appeared a drop in the bucket of its millions, and yet that drop so lured him that it divided him effectually from her, from what looked now the peaceful, happy days of their past, and from all they had so cheerfully anticipated in the hopeful struggles of their future. Surely human nature should have been above such fluctuations, such oblivion!
Letty knew what it was to grow haggard in her matronly beauty, and heart-weary as one of the chosen few, the favourites of Fortune, to whom the envy of the world was mockery in the canker at the root of the prosperity, while they covered over the sore with decent reticence. There were gossiping, suspicious eyes upon her too; but Letty had not even required to hear in her travels the story of the lioness without the tongue. Yet the poor Colonel had meant to crown her with his favour, and Letty would no more reproach his ghost with framing for her a crown of thorns, than she would fling away her turtle because its meek, tenderly prolonged cooings contrasted broadly with those proud, brief letters from London.
You have heard of a man going straight to destruction. George Ashe went far to it, without turning to look behind him. He fell from his naturally lofty principles and high standard in an incredibly, mournfully, humiliatingly short space of time. I suppose it was in the mystery of evil. The young man was green—green in his rare rise in life, and there were grey beards who thought it no shame to rob and to fool him. There are thieves for men to fall among in other localities than that between Jerusalem and Jericho. There are men of business to excuse themselves for making their own of their client, though it should be by subduing and deteriorating those notorious geese, natural geniuses. There are men of wit who reckon “spoons” fair game in society, however the “spoons” may be battered in the process. In this case there were no friends to interfere, to render the conquest less complete. Letty heard of George Ashe’s wild purchases and injurious excesses, and wrung her hands and reproached herself that she had not gone with him or followed him to that London, which, she said to herself, in an agony of defence of the culprit, was drunk with its own snares and sins. Why had she been so selfish, so mad, in her pride? and now it was too late, when he only regarded her entreaties to laugh at them and despise them, and to forbid her joining him. Poor great-hearted, devoted Letty, as if a woman’s husband could ever, except in an extraordinary case, be treated with profit as her baby.
Months had passed, and Letty sat alone one night, comfortless, in her little sitting-room, which looked mean even in her own eyes now-a-days, pondering on her cares. A ring came to the bell—and surely Letty should know that ring—but alas! she had undergone so many false starts, that she dared not trust her heart. She went to the door, trembling, opened it, recognised her husband, and fell upon his breast. She had him again, and she clung to him, without another thought. She brought him into the parlour, still clasping his arm, though he returned her caress mechanically, and only spoke to her by a muttered greeting. It was autumn and stormy weather, and he looked miserably cold and knocked up. She lit a fire for him, kneeling down and puffing at the match in the laid wood with all her might, drew his chair before it, and brought him her own tea and toast, till something better could be prepared for him. She did not ask him why he had come without announcing his arrival; why he had travelled in a summer coat, and without wrap or luggage, like an adventurer, or a man flying from his enemies. She put away every thought but that of his presence, and built herself up in it till her eyes shone like stars, and her cheeks bloomed like blush-roses. He saw it, and rose up with a bitter cry: “Letty, I have brought you back nothing. I have wasted it all. I have only brought back my miserable self.”
“You have brought back yourself, George,” repeated Letty, in her quiet accents of deep, strong fidelity, in which there was full forgiveness, and under which there throbbed and thrilled such hidden pulses of fondness as only beat in such strong and faithful beings. “You have brought back yourself, and what could you bring to me like yourself? We will be as we were before, George. How gladly we will forget what has come between, except as a warning of evils to be avoided for ever.”
I am glad that Letty was not repaid by signal ingratitude and a recurrence of the offence. George Ashe was not such an ingrate. He was filled with the forbidden fruit of his folly, and found his teeth too much set on edge for him to crave to bite the apple of knowledge again. He had no relapse, though he could not escape a rebound. The sweet-natured, enthusiastic man had taken leaven into his composition which leavened the whole lump. He had been to a school where he was not only instructed but inoculated in coldness, scepticism, and sarcasm.
George Ashe had spent an incredible amount of worldly substance, but he was not so penniless as, in his despair, he had represented himself. From the fragments of Letty’s legacy enough was saved to buy a small farm to maintain the couple. Letty and George went to that little farm with its pretty northern name of the Hollens, and there practised, with economy, being yeomen, pastoral poets and patriarchs. Well, what would you have? it would have been a great independence to them once on a day, and at least one of them knew both how to be abased and how to abound, and the hardest feat of all, how to curb high-vaulting imaginations within their old narrow bounds. There the Ashes were cordially visited by the Bridgewaters and other friends, and there they lived to secure the regard of their world though not in the same degree. He was a wonderful fellow no doubt, well educated at last, even accomplished, liberal, friendly; but he was uncertain, a little morbid, self-conscious, crotchety. And Letty was such a noble-hearted woman, he was so well off with her, as he was thoroughly aware in every respect; she was so tranquil in her comparative exaltation, so serene under her losses, so unpretendingly exact and honourable in all her duties