"All the pains in the world, Hester, won't help a young man, unless he chooses himself. What could I do, or you either? Didn't we send him to school and to college?--didn't we give him an opportunity of beginning life with a fine property, and married to one of the handsomest girls in the country, daughter of one of the best families, too? What more can you do for a young man? He must do the rest himself; you can't expect to keep him tied to your apron-string all his life."
"Oh, no; but husband, while he was young we ought to have taken more pains to teach him not to think so much about the ways of the world. There are other things besides getting money and spending money, to do; it seems to me now as if money had only helped my poor boy to his ruin!"
"Your notions are too gloomy, Mrs. Taylor. Such calamities will happen, and we should not let them weigh us down too much."
"If I was to live a hundred years longer, I never could feel as I did before our son's death. Oh, to think what a beautiful, innocent child he was twenty years ago, this time!"
"You shouldn't let your mind run so much on him that's gone. It's unjust to the living."
The poor woman made no answer, but wept bitterly for some time.
"It's my only comfort now," she said, at length, "to think that we have learned wisdom by what's passed. As long as I live, day and night, I shall labour to teach our younger children not to set their hearts upon the world; not to think so much about riches."
"Well, I must say, Hester, if you think all poor people are saints, I calculate you make a mistake."
"I don't say that, husband; but it seems to me that we have never yet thought enough of the temptations of riches, more especially to young people, to young men--above all, when it comes so sudden as it did to our poor boy. What good did money ever do him?--it only brought him into trouble!"
"Because Tallman didn't make the most of his opportunities, that is no reason why another should not. If I had wasted money as he did, before I could afford it, I never should have made a fortune either. The other boys will do better, I reckon; they will look more to business than he did, and turn out rich men themselves."
"It isn't the money!--it isn't the money I am thinking of!" exclaimed the poor mother, almost in despair at her husband's blindness to her feelings.
"What is it then you take so much to heart?"
"It's remembering that we never warned our poor child; we put him in the way of temptation, where he only learned to think everything of the world and its ways; we didn't take pains enough to do our duty, as parents, by him!"
"Well, Hester, I must say you are a very unreasonable lady!" exclaimed Mr. Taylor, who was getting impatient under his wife's observations. "One would think it was all my fault; do you mean to say it was wrong in me to grow rich?"
"I am afraid it would have been better for us, and for our children, if you hadn't made so much money," replied the wife.
"The happiest time of our life was the first ten years after we were married, when we had enough to be comfortable, and we didn't care so much about show. I am sure money hasn't made me happy; I don't believe it can make anybody happy!"
Mr. Taylor listened in amazement; but his straightforward, quiet wife, had been for several years gradually coming to the opinion she had just expressed, and the death of her eldest son had affected her deeply. The merchant, finding that he was not very good at consolation, soon changed the conversation; giving up the hope of lessening the mother's grief, or of bringing her to what he considered more rational views of the all-importance of wealth.
As soon as Jane felt equal to the exertion, she accompanied Miss Agnes and Elinor to Wyllys-Roof. During the three years of her married life she had never been there, having passed most of the time either at Charleston or New Orleans. Many changes had occurred in that short period; changes of outward circumstances, and of secret feeling. Her last visit to Wyllys-Roof had taken place just after her return from France, when she was tacitly engaged to young Taylor; at a moment when she had been more gay, more brilliantly handsome than at any other period of her life.
Now, she returned there, a weeping, mourning widow, wretchedly depressed in spirits, and feeble in health. She was still very lovely, however; the elevated style of her beauty was such, that it appeared finer under the shadow of grief, than in the sunshine of gaiety; and it is only beauty of the very highest order which will bear this test. Her deep mourning dress was in harmony with her whole appearance and expression; and it was not possible to see her at this moment, without being struck by her exceeding loveliness. Jane was only seen by the family, however, and one or two very intimate friends; she remained entirely in the privacy of her own room, where Elinor was generally at her side, endeavouring to soothe her cousin's grief, by the gentle balm of sympathy and affection.
