“Why, it’s your fault, after all, for she quotes a story you told that same night I heard about his folly. You told me that, too. Well, he declares he has not drank a glass of wine since then, and never will again. Particularly if he has Emily for his guiding angel, I suppose, and all that sort of thing. And she believes him, of course.”
“Well, ‘of course’—don’t say it so despairingly; why not? I do, most assuredly. I might perhaps have distrusted the reformation if it had been solely on Emily’s account, a pledge made to gain her, but if I am not very much mistaken, I think I can trace their attachment to that same eventful night, but I am very certain he did not declare himself until quite recently.”
“Yes, if she chooses it; though I do not think there is much. I should have no hesitation to marry Lewis if I loved him. Emily is a thoughtful, sensible girl. She does not act without judgment, and she is just the woman to be the wife of an impulsive, generous man like Lewis. Sufficient time has elapsed to try his principles, and her companionship will strengthen them.”
And so it proved, for there are now few happier homes than the cheerful, hospitable household over which Emily Lewis presides. Isabel Gray is always a favorite guest, and Robert predicts that she will never marry. It may prove so, for she is not of those who would sacrifice herself for fortune, or give her hand to any man she did not thoroughly respect and sympathise with, to escape that really very tolerable fate—becoming an old maid.
[1] The circumstances here related are substantially true.
“Paint me as I am,” said Cromwell, Rough with age, and gashed with wars— “Show my visage as you find it— Less than truth my soul abhors!”
This was he whose mustering phalanx Swept the foe at Marston Moor; This was he whose arm uplifted From the dust the fainting poor.
God had made his face uncomely— “Paint me as I am,” he said, So he _lives_ upon the canvas Whom they chronicled as _dead_!
Simple justice he requested At the artist’s glowing hands, “Simple justice!” from his ashes Cries a voice that still commands.
And, behold! the page of History, Centuries dark with Cromwell’s name, Shines to-day with thrilling lustre From the light of Cromwell’s fame!