4&5.F 
 
/^MUfN 
 
 I LIBRARY 
 
 l UNIVEKSITY OP 
 
 \CALIfOtNIA 
 

 
 
(Issued Quarterly 
 ($1.50 per yeai 
 
 THE SOCRATES SERIES. 
 
 Vol. 1. No. 1. APRIL, 1894. 
 
 Entered at the New York Post-Office, as second class mail matter. 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 4 
 
 ROBERT FEN1SIIMORE. 
 
 NEW YfcRK. 
 
 feM* 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SOCRATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 794. 796, 798 TENTH AVENIT. 
 1394. 
 
STACK 
 
 U.I 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1 894, BY JOSEPH M. WOOD 
 
F55 
 fill 
 
 A human spirit here records 
 
 The anuals of its human strife ; 
 
 A human hand hath touched these chords : 
 
 This tale may all be idle words 
 
 But yet it once was Life. 
 
 Lord Lytton. 
 
 387 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Love, what is Love ? Can a man love more than once ? 
 Otherwise devoted to a short history of the writer, 
 his first recollections of life, his boyish love affairs, 
 
 etc., etc 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Continuation of early recollections, and a short 
 treatise on the benefits of religion, church member 
 ship, and further introductory chapters to the rest 
 of these Confessions 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Spanish Lady ; Some moralizing ; When Satan 
 tempted the woman she fell, and ever since has kept 
 
 Man falling with her ! 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The New Boarder ; The Game of Chess ; What 
 
 came of it. 25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Continuation of Chapter IV. My Eve, my George 
 Sand. Our Parting. A woman must be driven, 
 not drive herself , , , , ^e 
 
V CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The sermon; Life of David. MAN vs. WOMAN ; 
 Difference of their loves. Jilted ; Recklessness ; 
 
 Bohemianism 32 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 My Angel Singer ; The Requital and " Message." 
 " L Etoile du Nord." What Maurice Strakosch 
 said. Her heavenly voice. The Spuyten Duyvil 
 disaster ; The Monument 42 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 How I met the girl I eventually married. My love 
 for her. Her love for somebody else. My 
 rejection ; My misery 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Her mother comes to see me ; Writes me. My sick 
 ness ; Recovery. Her letters ; My reply 60 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Our meeting; Our engagement. Weighed in the 
 balance 69 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Our marriage; Honeymoon and Reception. The 
 Letter. What Emerson says. What the Bible 
 says < . , , , 71 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 The command : " To increase and multiply " does 
 
CONTENTS. vr 
 
 not apply to New England Women. I hate 
 doctors. Housekeeping. First Parting. American 
 women. American housekeepers, their extrava 
 gance. Its result 76 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 First sorrow. Our Roy. Europe. Newport. The 
 Devil Incarnate 85 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Solomon Nathan. The Jewish Nation. Lew Wal 
 lace s " Ben Hur." Description of Nathan ; Nathan s 
 wife; Her death. Hypnotism. Gossip 90 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Sheepshead Bay ; Luck at Races ; Salvator ; The 
 Suburban ; How it was won ; My winnings. My 
 wife s greeting 97 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Our family increases. My wife s early education 
 
 bears fruit. Our new home. Mene, Mene, Tekel 
 
 Upharsin. Roys sickness ; delirium ; death .... 10G 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Our misery. Beatrice ; Enid ; Reminiscences of 
 Roy. Beatrice s sickness, " and this comes of 
 having children," My wife s stay in the country ; 
 My short visit 118 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 La Grippe; Pneumonia ; Well doctor I am sorry I 
 
vii CONTENTS. 
 
 did not die; My successor; My wife s regrets.. 126 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Return from the country ; My Casino acquaintance; 
 Love of mischief. My God Robert what have you 
 done ? 129 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 My wife s return . The brass bedstead. Losing my 
 temper. Nathan s words. Our gradual estrange 
 ment. Edith s letter 134 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 I leave my home. My letter. Nathan calls on me, 
 His assumed surprise, His interview with Edith. 
 Sophism. MY DREAM! I return home; My 
 wife s greeting; Her breakfast; Her answer to 
 my letter ; My appeals ; I almost win her. 
 Do you hate me ? I do ! Mrs. A ; What 
 she said. Mansfield s Nero. The telegram; 
 Desertion 141 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Thou shalt have no other Gods ! My resolution. 
 My telegram : Her father s reply ; Her mother s 
 call ; What I said ; Parting with my youngest 
 child . .162 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 My little Enid. Alfred Price; His sympathy; 
 My letters ; Did I ever strike you as being a happy 
 woman? THE MARBLE HEART.. ,.172 
 
CONTENTS. VIII 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 I hear from my wife; The attorney s letter; My 
 interview with Mr. Charmer; An absolute divorce; 
 Her demands ; My letter ; The Old Guard dies, 
 but never surrenders ; Socrates and Xantippe ; 
 Give a woman an inch, and she will take an ell.. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Our servants are our best judges. I sell my house 
 hold effects at auction ; My wife s demands ; Our 
 interview ; My appeals ; Honor is to a man, irfnit 
 virtue is to a woman ; An anonymous letter ; My 
 appeals and letters 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Tis ever darkest just before day; Her father calls on 
 me ; Conspiracy ; Letters ; My brother John ; 
 Mepthistofele draws in his horns; I gain my point; 
 Solomon Nathan 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A new attorney ; I agree to a divorce ; Interview 
 with my wife ; Final appeal ; DECEIT ; On what 
 trifles our life revolves ; Little things ; We appear 
 before a referee; Decree of divorce; My wife 
 
 gains her point ...... 236 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The girl I met at the Seaside ; Recollections of her ; 
 Her goodness ; Her consideration . A Man can 
 love more than once. Marriage; Happiness; 
 Sickness; Death; Alone A telegram; Death of 
 Edith. My dream ; Edith s letter 263 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I am a divorced man ! 
 
 As such I am naturally in a measure sensitive as 
 to how the world may regard me. 
 
 During the summer preceding my divorce, I 
 was introduced and became rather familiar with a 
 Mr. D , who of himself one of Nature s noble 
 men nevertheless was always regarded by most of 
 his friends with a grain of suspicion. He was the 
 soul of honor, but the mere fact of his wife having 
 divorced herself from him, made me for one suspect 
 with the fair sex at any rate he probably was 
 other than the "man" he seemed. In fact, uncon 
 sciously, I at first suspected he was next door to a 
 brute with women, and like most men without caring 
 to know facts, I blamed the man, and commiserated 
 the woman. 
 
 How little did I dream others might soon regard 
 me in pretty much the same light, and when my 
 trial came on, and my divorce was pending, the desire 
 to stand aright before my children induced me to 
 
PREFACE. 1 
 
 write a fair part of the subsequent chapters which 
 concern my wife and myself, and happening to read 
 them at a later day to a literary friend, his sugges 
 tion resulted in my printing a history of my divorce. 
 
 His advice unconsciously set me to propounding the 
 query as to whether a man could love more than once, 
 and following my " train of thought," I reverted to 
 the many times I had been in love, and connecting 
 the two propositions, I commenced the "Confessions" 
 which lead up to "A New England Woman," and 
 end, with my second wife. 
 
 Whatever may be said of my experiences, (and 
 whereas they may have been extra-ordinary and 
 varied,)they certainly speak the history of a life such 
 as it was, and with neither the wish nor desire to 
 paint myself other than I am, I leave to my "jury of 
 readers " the verdict. 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMORE. 
 
 New York, March 12, 1894. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 The writers excuse for making these confessions 
 public, exists in tbe fact that whereas his life 
 has been both a varied and tempestuous one, he 
 believes he has at last found " Rest," and a haven 
 in the love of a woman, who has redeemed him from 
 the i ast, and if perchance some man, some woman 
 can find comfort, precept or instruction, in the 
 perusal of this short history, the author will feel 
 more than recompensed. Particularly does he want 
 to impress the fact that man s heart is so constituted 
 that no matter how deep the sorroic, no matter how 
 severe the trials, given good health, a good constitu 
 tion, and a true woman s love it is not good that 
 man should be alone his sorrows may be turned 
 into blessings, and his trials into triumphs. As to 
 Love, what is Love? Can we Love more than once, 
 or is it only once that man forgets self, forgets the 
 world, forgets every thing and lives only for the one 
 fair woman, whom sooner or later we are all supposed 
 to meet? 
 
Andrew Jackson once said, 
 
 "Heaven will be no Heaven if I do not meet my wife 
 there." 
 
 while Richter best expressed himself when he 
 said : 
 
 " No man can live piously, or die righteously without a 
 wife." 
 
 Lowell thought : 
 
 u Earth s noblest thing : "A WOMAN PERFECTED." 
 
 On the other hand : 
 
 What mighty ills have not been done by woman ? 
 Who was t betrayed the Capitol ? A woman ! 
 Who lost Marc Antony the world ? A woman ! 
 Who was the cause of a long ten years war, 
 And laid at last Old Troy in ashes ? Woman ! 
 Destructive, DAMNABLE, DECEITFUL WOMAN! 
 
 but the same writer also wrote ; 
 
 O woman ! lovely woman ! nature made thee 
 To temper man, we had been brutes without you. 
 Angels are painted fair to look like you : 
 There s in you all that we believe of heaven; 
 Amazing brightness, purity and truth, 
 Eternal joy and everlasting love. 
 
 As to love : Goethe says : 
 
 Something the heart must have to cherish, 
 Must love and joy and sorrow learn. 
 Something with passion clasp or perish, 
 And in itself to ashes burn. 
 
while Byron : 
 
 Yes love indeed is light from Heaven; 
 A spark of that immortal tire 
 With angels shaiv.l l>y Alia given 
 To lift from earth our low desire. 
 
 and Scott : 
 
 True, love s the gift which God has given 
 To man alone beneath the Heaven. 
 
 then Southey : 
 
 They sin, who tell us Love can die ; 
 With life all other passions fly, 
 All others are but vanity. 
 
 and again : 
 
 Love is indestructible ; 
 
 Its holy flame for ever burneth, 
 
 From Heaven it came, to Heaven returncth. 
 
 while Tennyson : 
 
 God gives us love, something to love 
 He lends us, but when love is grown 
 To ripeness, that <>n which it throve 
 Falls off and love is left alone. 
 
 But to my story : 
 
 My first recollection of life was when I must 
 have been twixt the ages of two and three I recol 
 lect myself in my little frock and kilt, pulling my 
 nurse, Johanna, into my mother s dressing room 
 , pointing to the top of her old fashioned innhog- 
 
any wardrobe and beseeching her to give ine a black 
 bottle containing medicine, which I remember as 
 particularly sweet in contra-distinction to the pre 
 valent impression as to medicine being nauseous, 
 bitter and nasty. Not that in later years medicine 
 has not been both bitter and other than palatable, 
 but if a child s first taste of medicine and first ac 
 quaintance with the doctor are pleasant and agree 
 able, that child will the more readily adapt himself 
 to the bitter as well as sweet potions of his phar 
 macopoeia than a child whose taste and stomach has 
 after first taking medicine, ever thereafter revolted 
 at the mere thought thereof. 
 
 I refer to this first recollection of life to call 
 attention to my hav : ng early been blessed with 
 a good memory. In fact, among my brothers 
 and sisters it was universally agreed ; Bob 
 could remember more things that never oc 
 curred (although I knew they bad) than anybody 
 in the family As to the fair sex ; I was only kbout 
 seven years of age when I remember myself as deeply 
 attracted to a little golden haired, blue eyed miss, 
 who, like me, was not large enough to sit other, than 
 on a long legged, high backed stool at the meals in 
 our hotel. I recollect well how our nurses used to 
 joke about our apparent spooniness for each other. 
 
9 
 
 My next recollection was when as a boy of thirteen, 
 I think I was in love in earnest. Opposite to where 
 
 I resided in H , there dwelt a little girl, who, to 
 
 my mind, was the most beautiful creature that ever 
 lived. Of about my own age, how I used to watch 
 for opportunities to be near her ! How the hope of 
 meeting her on her way from school, the chance 
 of catching one smile, one glance from her eye would 
 be all I cared for ! For weeks, perhaps for months 
 I was too bashful to even talk to her, but how I 
 did love her ! Oh, hovv deeply ! Writers and poets 
 speak of Love." What poet has ever eulogized 
 a boy s love * Ah me ! me-thinks, love enobles, love 
 uplifts, love blesses him who giveth as much as him 
 who receiveth, but me-thinks no love so entirely un 
 selfish, no love that asketh so little (unless mayhap 
 it be a parent s love) as the love of a boy for a girl. 
 It yeeins folly to dwell on what many may consider 
 irrelevant and far-fetched, but I question if anybody 
 as impressionable as I was, will not acknowledge a 
 boy s love is perhaps next to a mother s, the 
 purest love our hearts ever exjwrience. 
 
 How I used to save pennies to buy my 
 sweetheart sweetmeats, while every penny I could 
 scrape together, I would spend on my boyish fancy 
 without ever expecting to be even thanked. I re- 
 
10 
 
 member being too bashful to present my gifts in 
 person. I would send them by her little sister, or 
 my younger brothers, while whenever she and I did 
 meet, I would be perfectly content to stand, or be 
 around, if only she were with me. 
 
 It is years and years since all this happened, 
 but who knows if fate had not separated us my 
 first love might have been my last ? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 At the age of fifteen, 1 recollect, subsequent to the 
 great Chicago fire, meeting in that city a girl, who 
 in those days was the one fair woman to me. She 
 was about my own age, a well developed, buxom 
 young lady, " smart as a steel trap," full of life and 
 ambition. 
 
 At the head of her class, she was about as bright 
 a specimen of a healthy, wide awake American girl 
 as it was ever my lot to meet. I lived in the same 
 house with her mother, who, (like unto a good many 
 Chicago people after the fire), took boarders. Well 
 do I remember the pleasant winter evenings we spent 
 together, she accompanying herself on her guitar, 
 singing many of the old negro ballads, which up to 
 that time I had never heard, and I love to think of 
 her singing in her clear, bell like contralto : 
 
 Oh : my darliug Nelly Gray, They have taken you away. And I ll 
 
 never eee my darling a - ngr 
 
12 
 
 or 
 
 * 
 
 All 
 
 de darkies am a 
 
 i u r,-" ! 
 
 weep - ing, 
 
 U 
 
 
 _ -.-_ 
 
 5 i 
 
 -f -* -\ -| 
 
 ^ -i ?d 
 
 Massa s 
 
 * *" 
 in. de cold, cold 
 
 "1 
 ground. 
 
 Many a time have I heard these songs since, but 
 never do they sound to me as in those days of yore, 
 when accustomed as I was, to the folk songs of Eng 
 land, the Volkslieder of Germany, or the trashy 
 ephemeral stuff of the day, I heard my Minnie s sweet 
 voice reveal to me the depth, the pathos of those 
 negro songs of America. 
 
 " The music in my heart I bore, 
 Long after it was heard no more." 
 
 At other times, she and I would be discussing 
 subjects; way beyond our depth. She, well educated, 
 as positive as only a smart girl can be, I as obstinate 
 as contrary in argument as well as I have always 
 since been. I remember her, as being imbued with 
 a belief in spiritualism, (her mother was firm in the 
 faith thereof,) and once, in the heat of one of our ar 
 guments, she promised me in case she died before I 
 did to visit me, no matter where I might be. That 
 
13 
 
 she never did so (she died within two years after I 
 met her) has always been proof positive to me that 
 the dead do not re-visit us, as I know she would h.ivo 
 kept her word. Well, I admired her; in fact I doubt 
 whether in all my after life I ever met a girl who 
 was nearer to my ideal, and although I did not know 
 of her death until mouths afterwards, I was very 
 much shocked when I heard of it. 
 
 At about this time I experienced religion. Ahvuys 
 having been taught to fear God and keep His com 
 mandments, I found it easy to persuade myself that 
 only by joining a church, was a man sure to be saved. 
 
 As a result, I applied to Dr. P. of the church for 
 
 admission. This gentleman, never an eloquent preach 
 er had such a homely way of stepping down and out of 
 the pulpit and figuratively singling out his auditors, 
 that I recollect many a time having been dot-ply 
 affected by his discourses, and when I made up my 
 mind to become a Christian, I went and spoke to him 
 about it. He took me before the session of his church, 
 and there I was rejected. Why ? Because on exam 
 ination I said I did not believe in the Bible. A few 
 days thereafter Dr. P. requested me to call on him. 
 Good old soul, how his kindly face beamed on me, 
 how earnestly he endeavored to convince me of the 
 truths of the Book he believed in, but it was only 
 
14 
 
 when I told him I did not see HOW if Adam and 
 Eve had only Cain and Abel for children, and THEY 
 WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE, Cain could go out 
 from the presence of the Lord, " into the land of 
 Nod," and there evidently find a wife, and how, since 
 the sun had always stood still, Joshua could com 
 mand it to do so. 
 
 Well, instead of telling me the Bible did not say 
 Adam and Eve s only children had been Cain and 
 Abel, and that since Joshua commanded the sun 
 to stand still, it had stood still, (all of which I 
 would have disputed and argued about,) this grand 
 old man lifted me bodily out of my slough of 
 despond and ignorance and said ; Robert, there are 
 some things I do not understand, there are a great 
 many other things I cannot explain, but this I do 
 know : God so loved the world that He gave His 
 only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should be saved," and I do know, whereas I cannot 
 understand why, when I will it, my arm moves, I 
 know it does, and whereas a good many things puz 
 zle and worry me, I do know I believe in Christ, and 
 my faith is deep enough for me to say : Oh Lord, I 
 believe, help Thou mine unbelief. You are a boy, I 
 a man over sixty ! You have dared to say something 
 I never would say. You have said you do not be- 
 
15 
 
 lieve everything in the Bible is true ! Don t you 
 think if you pray to God to give you faitb, and to 
 Him leave the unexplainable, the seeming contradic 
 tory, He, in His own way, will enlighten you ? And 
 since you believe in Christ, do you think it right to 
 run the chance of eternal damnation by wantonly 
 questioning the truths of " His Book? " Well, the 
 old gentleman converted me. I joined the church, 
 and even to-day, in my heart of hearts, I thank 
 God that I did so, not that I am a Christian (in the 
 accepted sense of the word,) nor as sound a believer 
 as I should be, but /row the depth of my lieart I 
 thank my Maker that " from my youth up I knew 
 Him," for many a sin did I not commit, and many a 
 sin did my church membership keep me from, in re 
 collection of the fact that the " vows of God " were 
 ever before me. 
 
 The foregoing is a great deal lengthier than I 
 intended or meant it, but since commencing these 
 "Confessions" my thoughts travel a great deal faster 
 than my pen, and whereas I never meant these lines to 
 be productive of a convert to church membership, 
 nor to induce others to believe in what I believed, or 
 believe in. I do know ; If, as KingAgrippa said unto 
 Paul, any of my readers feel constrained to say : 
 "Almost these words persuade me to become a 
 
16 
 
 Christian," even as Paul, woula I exclaim ; " I would 
 to God, not only thou, but also all that hear me, were 
 both almost and altogether such as I." Many a time have 
 I been tempted, many a time has satan triumphed, but 
 I thank God that to some extent the vows I once took 
 upon myself kept me and made me a better man 
 than ever otherwise, I would have been. I refer to 
 this so lengthily, as from the age of fifteen to nine 
 teen, few boys, few young men lived better, purer 
 lives than I. 
 
 Employed at that period of my life from early 
 morn till late at night, I would rush through 
 my meals, and excepting when I went to prayer 
 meetings, I would retire to my room and there read 
 and study until the early morn, never wasting my time, 
 money or opportunities on bar-room, club-room or 
 such other associates. And the result was, when a 
 change came over my life, and I believed not as I had 
 believed, and thought of life differently, my principles 
 were firmly set and imbued, and the four years good 
 teachings and preachings, left, as I hope, their im 
 press forever more. 
 
 But the foregoing is becoming more of a personal 
 history, than a recounting of the many experiences 
 of love and loving that I meant to confine these con 
 fessions to. 
 
17 
 
 After Minnie s death, several years passed before 
 I again fell in love. Then it was a pretty, violet-eyed, 
 rosy cheeked miss of seventeen, who boarded in 
 a house in West 14th Street, where I chanced to 
 meet her. Impressionable, young and unsophisti 
 cated, I was really desperately smitten with this 
 young lady. But I was bashful, poor, ungainly in 
 looks, and Gertrude aimed higher. Not that she did 
 not honor me with her friendship, and even her com 
 panionship when I could take her out and afford to 
 treat her, but I always thought she was taken up with 
 a young man considerably older than I, who was a 
 lawyer and a lieutenant in one of our city regiments, 
 and whereas I cared a good bit for her, I thought 
 her liking for me was so slight, and her intentions 
 toward my sex so plainly mercenary, that it was not 
 many months after my first acquaintance that T drop 
 ped and lost sight of her for fully a dozen years. 
 And then fate would that we should meet again. 
 She was married, as well as I, and then it was but 
 I am getting ahead of my story. 
 
 At another time, I met in a boarding house I was 
 
 stopping at, a Miss Josie R , daughter of the late 
 
 General R , of the U. S. army. Left an orphan 
 
 at an early age, a Miss F was her guardian, and 
 
 after being introduced I soon fell into the good 
 
18 
 
 graces of the ward. Many a pleasant evening did 
 Josie and I spend together, going to concerts, lec 
 tures and other amusements. In fact we were so 
 much in each others company that when the summer 
 came on, and she went away, I was lonesome indeed, 
 and my chief consolation for a while were her regu 
 lar and interesting letters. Ah, that was all years 
 ago, but Josie was the first olive complexioned, dark 
 eyed, black haired little piece of femininity who 
 woke me up to the fact that no matter what my 
 ideal, my boyish dreams might have been, there was 
 more life, more depth, more passion to black eyes 
 than to blue. How well do I remember, she an in 
 nocent girl, I a perfectly honorable young man, sit 
 ting one Sunday evening after our return from 
 church in our dreary boarding house parlors. She 
 with her little feet over the register ; the lights very 
 low. She apparently anxious to go up stairs. I 
 perfectly satisfied to be near her and feel her pres 
 ence with me. 
 
 Well I must go she exclaimed ! 
 
 Oh no ! not yet Josie, and with that I unconsciously 
 put my hand in hers to retain her, at the same 
 time drawing my chair closer to her. 
 
 Oh, if you had your way I suppose you would like 
 to have me right in your lap. 
 
19 
 
 It was the first time a girl had ever said as much 
 to me. I forget what reply I made, but I do k^ow 
 whereas I had no thought of such a thing, her in 
 nocently suggesting it, made me wish for it with all 
 my soul, and if she had not roguishly jumped up 
 and dashed for the door, I know not, but what her 
 suggestion would have been father to the wish 
 with me- 
 
 Well, as bef oresaid ; when summer came, she flew 
 away and whereas she corresponded regularly and 
 often with me, it was not long thereafter, that she 
 introduced me to her husband, a man twice her age, 
 who from subsequent events I discovered, married 
 her primarily for her money, and in after years, writ 
 ing me quite frequently as she did, she told me in one 
 of her last letters that she had just then secured a 
 divorce. 
 
 After this comes a blank. The foregoing were a 
 boy s, a young man s loves. Those that follow are 
 the conquests of a man of the world ; bitter recollec 
 tions, as well as pleasant ones, and the portrajal 
 of the deep passions of a man who believes he has 
 felt the gamut of all sounds that can ever touch a 
 man s heart. 
 
 I have referred to a boy s love, I will skim over a 
 young man s passing fancies, but before depicting 
 
20 
 
 the realities, the joys and the miseries of a life such 
 as a great many endure, I want to take my reader 
 into my confidence and assure him, that up to the 
 events referred to in the following chapters, I was as 
 ignorant of the realities of life as a child. In fact I 
 was so wofully ignorant about certain things that up 
 to my nineteenth birthday I believed doctors and 
 storks were responsible for all additions to this worlds 
 population ; that children were born through 
 miracles, or by the grace of God, but why they 
 should be born, or what conduced thereto, was a 
 matter I had never seriously thought of. 
 
CHAPTKR III. 
 
 At the age of about nineteen, while boarding at 
 No. East 28th Street, I was called one night into 
 the apartments of a Spanish lady, who tapped at my 
 door, just as I was about to retire. My room was a 
 hall bedroom, adjoining and connecting with her 
 suite of rooms ; and, as she had not made her 
 appearance at the dinner-table, I supposed she was 
 sick ; and, in consequence, hastened to her, thinking 
 I might be of some service. 
 
 On entering her room, and asking if I could do 
 anything, or get anything for her, she told me to 
 send for some beer. This I did ; and on my mes 
 senger s return, I poured out two, three, four glasses 
 in succession, which she took one after the other. 
 Then she requested me to partake of a glass, and on 
 declining, she had me give her the remainder of the 
 pitcher. Thinking for a sick woman, she was doing 
 remarkably well, I asked her if there was anything 
 else I could get her. 
 
 " No ; but I is lonesome," she said in her broken 
 English. " Sit down, and talk to me 1 " 
 
22 
 
 Sit down I did, and picking up a book, I thought 
 I might entertain her for a half hour or so, by 
 reading. 
 
 After permitting me to do so for a while, she put 
 her hand over the page, and said : 
 
 " Tell me a tory." 
 
 Being at a loss to recall any, I remember her ask 
 ing me to kiss her, which I did. She begged me to 
 do so again. I complied; but, on her requesting 
 further ones, 1 thought I had done more than my 
 duty ; and, imagining the beer had gone to her head 
 I told her I guessed she did not know what she was 
 about, and that I would send for the chambermaid 
 to come and take care of her, and darting pell 
 mell down stairs, I ran into the arms of my landlady. 
 
 " Well, sir ! where are you going ? " she said. 
 
 " I want to find Katie," (the chambermaid) I re 
 plied. 
 
 " What for 1 " she queried. 
 
 " Oh ! I want to send her to Mrs. L., who is sick ;" 
 I answered. 
 
 " How do you know it ; were you in her room ? 
 
 And, on my answering in the affirmative, the old. 
 lady put a rather personal question to me, which I 
 parried ; and, on her assuring me she would look 
 after our Spanish friend, I retired to my room. 
 
23 
 
 A few days thereafter, my Spanish friend moved 
 away, and as the episode created quite a good deal 
 of talk in the house, I remember once overhearing 
 my landlady s daughter saying to the rest of the 
 ladies : " Oh ! he is a splendid young man ! " I hare 
 always liked him, bless his heart ! There are few 
 young men who would have acted as he did, " while 
 as to the men living in the house, (particularly the 
 young men, of whom there were a number), why the 
 abuse, gaffing and guying I received was enough to 
 shake even the principles of a St. Anthony. And 
 although 
 
 " Right is right, since God is God, 
 And right the day must win," 
 
 how often is wrong painted right, and good in 
 tentions, honest purposes, high principles and honor 
 itself is lost and thrown to the winds, just because 
 we weak, poor and miserable sinners, no matter how 
 well we know better, succumb to sin because we have 
 been chaffed, guyed and joked about. Not that 
 guying, joking and chaffing were the only reasons 
 for a complete revulsion of feeling, and change of 
 principles within me, but after first debiting all 
 wrong that I ever did to my own worser nature, to 
 which beyond question eighty per cent is attribu 
 table, nearly all the rest must be charged to the 
 
" Eve " with whom, sooner or later, all of Adam s 
 seed come in contact. 
 
 And now let me again call my readers attention to 
 the fact, that these confessions are not the vain im 
 aginings of a modern writer, of a man who picks up 
 his pen, draws on his imagination, or on stories he 
 has heard at second-hand, but they are the plain, 
 unvarnished portrayals of events that actually hap 
 pened, and, as such, are perhaps crudely and with 
 possibly too little varnish and gloss re-told here for 
 the edification, amusement, and possibly benefit of 
 those who, like me, endeavour to do right, live right, 
 and die right, but who do wrong, live wrong and die 
 wrong, because " when Satan tempted the woman 
 she fell, and ever since she has kept man falling with 
 her." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 | Truth is ever stranger than fiction ! 
 
 In the very room where I unconsciously played 
 the part of a modern Joseph, fate had me meet 
 a woman who did more to bring me to a knowledge 
 of myself and the realities of life, than all my 
 previous or subsequent acquaintances. 
 
 When I met her, she had just reached the age of 
 twenty-two ; of rather medium height, she was 
 graceful as a fawn, not over stout, her figure was 
 x the embodiment of all perfect lines. I honestly do 
 not believe there was an angle anywhere about her. 
 Fair of face, with the daintiest little nose and ears, 
 the most perfect, even and white teeth, encircled by 
 the veriest rosebud of a mouth, a young man such 
 
 I 
 
as I, needed only the eutrancement of a look into her 
 veritable " violet eyes " to fall head over heels in love. 
 She was, without exception, the prettiest woman I 
 had ever seen, and when one night I found her sit 
 ting immediately opposite me at our boarding house 
 dinner table, I was completely captivated. 
 
 Our rooms being adjoining, we were in the habit 
 of frequently playing a game of chess, which usually 
 took place in her boudoir, the door (so as to keep up 
 the proprieties), always slightly ajar. 
 
 One Saturday night, after a more than ordinarily 
 interesting game, she caught me napping, whereas 
 I had the play so planned that in another move or 
 two I thought she would have been beaten. 
 
 But she beat me! 
 
 I forget what I said. 
 
 It was something rather hasty, and my face 
 showed my discomforture. 
 
 I do not know what at that moment prompted her, 
 but she quickly moved our little table aside, and 
 commenced taking me to task for my bad manners, 
 my boyishness and lack of good breeding, and in 
 short, talked so sharply, emphatically and pointedly 
 to me, that from that moment I think I became a 
 different being. From that moment my life under 
 went a change. 
 
27 
 
 Until then I Lad been a boy, but at last I had met 
 one who was to influence me for good through life. 
 
 How little women know what power they have over 
 our sex, particularly over those whose hearts, when 
 young, are peculiarly responsive to elevating 
 thoughts, noble ambitions and lofty purposes ! 
 
 The woman I met was noble. She lifted me out 
 of myself, and ever will I bless her memory. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 As I sit here with pen in hand and think of those 
 early days, how, after being thoroughly scolded, this 
 woman took pains to smooth over my discomforture, 
 how she brought me out of myself, how she, a woman 
 of the world, awoke me to the realities of life, how 
 she spurred me on, how, (without my being aware of 
 it) she awoke me to a better knowledge of myself and 
 the capabilities within me, and when I recollect once, 
 on her birthday, I sent her some "American Beauties," 
 which in those days were almost a princely gift for 
 me, and although I sent them anonymously, how she 
 took me to task therefor, and actually assured me 
 " Heaven," (her room) would be closed to me if I 
 grew spoony," and in my then circumstances, " reck 
 less, and when I think of the many little comforts 
 she presented me with, and how she filled my dress 
 ing-table with handi-work, such as a woman only 
 can overwhelm a man with ! 
 
In short, when I think of all she did for me, is it 
 a wonder that for what I am, (next to my mother), I 
 involuntarily tha nk the woman who was to me what 
 George Sand was to Chopin ? 
 
 For about three months I enjoyed her elevating, 
 her enobling society, for about three months she was 
 the beginning and ending of everything to me. 
 Then came the summer, and she went away. 
 
 Will I ever forget the day we parted ? I felt as a 
 child feels when, after having always hung on to his 
 mother s apron strings, he is for the first time 
 deprived of her. She went to Saratoga, and my 
 business kept me in New York. Once she visited the 
 city for a few short days, but it did not take me long 
 to learn that, whereas I would have given her the 
 full, long-pent-up affection due a woman who first 
 took an interest in me, she looked upon me as upon 
 a plaything to amuse her for a while ; and, whereas 
 there was only an actual difference of a little less 
 than three years in our respective ages, she never 
 theless felt so much older and superior, that in con 
 sequence her feelings were more motherly perhaps 
 than the feelings of a woman would be for a man 
 who worshipped her as I did. 
 
 In fact, as I think of those days, I was then the 
 novice, she the preceptor. She liked me very much 
 
30 
 
 To this day she still retains a warm spot in her heart 
 for me, but excepting the few chance days she spent 
 here, after first breaking off our acquaintanceship, I 
 never even had the opportunity of sounding her on 
 those days gone by, as within less than a year there 
 after, she re-married. 
 
 And this induces me to say, whereas from me she 
 had all the first love of a grateful heart, all the first 
 thoughts of a boy who threw his whole life at her 
 feet, and of whom she might have even made a very 
 slave, she nevertheless knew a time would come when 
 the boy would be a man, and to her credit let it be 
 remembered, she lifted the boy out of, rather than 
 dragged him into, the mire. 
 
 Once I recollect her being exceedingly "triste," 
 and sad at the thought of my perhaps caring too 
 much for her, but I think because she had a con 
 science, as well as a heart, was she so solicitous 
 about my mental, as well as my worldly advancement- 
 
 This fact, however, I want to impress on my 
 readers. No woman can ever truly care for a man 
 where the natural order of things are reversed. A 
 woman, to be happy, wants not a slave but a 
 master. She must be driven, not drive herself. The 
 happiest women are those, who, in loving their hus 
 bands, know them as their masters. 
 
31 
 
 , in one of his creations, goes somewhat to the 
 extreme and in his " Nana," claims : " The more un 
 kind, the more brutal a man, the more loving, the 
 more subservient the woman." 
 
 Differing with him, although not forgetting the 
 old adage : 
 
 " A woman ; a dog , a mulberry tree : 
 The more you beat them, the better they bo ; " 
 
 / I have yet to see the man who will retain a decent 
 woman s love if he be a brute pure and simple. ~ 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 What lasting impressions sermons sometimes 
 leave ! 
 
 Many years ago, I heard one taken from the Fifty- 
 first Psalm, fourth verse : 
 
 "Against Thee, THEE ONLY, have I sinned, anddone 
 this iniquity in Thy sight" 
 
 It was the heart-cry of David ! 
 
 Technically, he was wrong. 
 
 He had sinned, not only against God, " but against 
 Bath-sheba " as well as " Uriah ; " but, to David s 
 mind, although he was fully conscious and aware of 
 his sin against others, there was one greater c< Being " 
 against whom he had sinned more than against either 
 the woman or her husband. It was against God, 
 against Him only. 
 
 Take David s life ! What a " grand one " it was. 
 Follow him from the time he first visited his brethren 
 
who were fighting under Saul against the Philis 
 tines. 
 
 Listen to the words of their champion ! David 
 hears them. His indignation, his wrath, is kindled. 
 He makes inquiries. His brother Eliab s anger is 
 aroused. He says : 
 
 Why earnest thou hither ? I know thy pride, and 
 the naughtiness of thine heart ; " and he tries to 
 squelch his brother. 
 
 But David lias a mission. 
 
 God had sent him. 
 
 He goes to Saul, and Saul says nnto David : 
 
 " Go ! and the Lord be with you. " 
 
 And God was with him, and although he came unto 
 the Philistine as unto a dog, with staves, God deli 
 vered Goliath into the hands of the stripling. 
 
 And then later, when Saul s jealousy was time and 
 again aroused ; and, on several occasions Saul fell into 
 the hands of the man he had so dor-ply wronged, liow 
 nobly did David requite good for evil? And when, as 
 captain of his band, he followed and slew the 
 Amalakites, how equitably and fairly did he divide 
 the spoil, not alone among the four hundred that 
 went to battle, but also among the two hundred that 
 were so faint that they could not follow David, but 
 had to stay back, and take care of the stuff. 
 
And follow him through his entire life. What in 
 spirations, what wonderful conceptions are his 
 Psalms, his Prayers, his Songs. 
 
 And to quote from the Bible itself, " He was a man 
 after God s own heart." 
 
 Yet this man sinned. 
 
 Turn to the Second Book of Samuel, the Twelfth 
 Chapter : 
 
 " And the Lord sent Nathan unto David. And he came unto 
 him, and said unto him : 
 
 * There were two men in one city : the one rich, and the 
 other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds, 
 but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which 
 he had bought and nourished up, and it grew up together with 
 him and with his children ; it did eat of his own meat and 
 drink of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him 
 as a daughter. 
 
 And there came a traveler unto the rich man, and he spared 
 to take of his own flock, and of his own herd, to dress for the 
 wayfaring man that was come unto him ; but took the poor 
 man s lamb and dressed it for the man that was come unto him. 
 
 And David s anger was greatly kindled against the man ; and 
 he said to Nathan : As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done 
 this thing shall surely die. And he shall restore the lamb four 
 fold because he did this thing and had no pity. 
 
 And Nathan said to David : THOU ART THE MAN, Thus 
 saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, 
 and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee 
 thy master s house, and thy master s wives into thy bosom, and 
 gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah ; and, if that had 
 been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and 
 such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment 
 of the Lord to do evil in His sight ; thou hast killed Uriah the 
 Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife." 
 
35 
 
 And then Nathan continues, and tells David, how 
 the sword shall never depart from his house, that he 
 will raise up evil against him in his own house, how 
 the child born unto David by Uriah s wife should 
 die, how his wives should be given before his very 
 eyes unto others, and concludes with : 
 
 " For thou did st it secretly, but I will do this thing before 
 all Israel, and before the sun." 
 
 And David said unto Nathan: "/ hare sinned against the 
 
 And God loved this man and forgave him. 
 
 How forcibly the above should impress itself on 
 every thinking mind. How indubitably it should 
 convince us that the very best of us are prone to sin. 
 "What believer in the Bible would dare to assert King 
 David is to-day other than near the veriest " Holy of 
 Holies " in Heaven ? 
 
 He sinned he repented God forgave him. 
 
 ******* * * * 
 
 After my George Sand dropped out of my life, 
 I met with many temptations, with many women. 
 
 Some were angels, some otherwise. 
 
 Among them was a girl who, when I first met her, 
 irresistibly attracted me. 
 
 We find our chief delights and pleasures through 
 out life 
 
 In the anticipation, not the realization 
 
36 
 
 In the seeking, not the finding ; 
 In the wishing, not the having ; 
 In the dreaming, not the awakening. 
 And thus it is with love. 
 Some poet says : 
 
 Love is of man s life a thing apart, 
 Tis woman s whole existence ; 
 
 and, although I hardly wish to throw down the 
 gauntlet, nevertheless, my experience with women 
 has taught me a woman may love passionately, 
 deeply, sincerely, but woman can only love one thing 
 at a time. Her love is selfish, (at any rate usually 
 so). She loves what she loves, because she loves. There 
 is no reason, no method, no fathoming her love. 
 When given at all, it is given freely, unthinkingly, un 
 wittingly, sometimes madly, always unreasoningly. 
 
 Man s love is of a different order. If the love of 
 a true man, of a man in full possession of his senses, 
 a strong constitution, a healthy appetite, a stout 
 heart, there is always in the man s love, the spirit of 
 what the French call "noblesse oblige" 
 
 The woman bends ; the man yields. 
 
 The woman clings ; the man protects. 
 
 The woman takes ; the man gives. 
 
 It is ever the story of the ivy and the oak. 
 
 And then there is another difference ; 
 
37 
 
 Man says : I am happy because I am loved. 
 
 Woman says : I am happy because I love him. 
 
 Man says ; I will work for her, slave for her, and I 
 will win her. 
 
 Woman says : I will love him so much, that he can 
 not help but love me. 
 
 Man says ; I love her too deeply. 
 
 Woman says : I do not love him as he should be 
 loved. 
 
 M.iu is satisfied when he can say : I am loved. 
 
 Woman is satisfied when she can say : 1 love. 
 
 The girl I speak of entered my life. I thought 
 I loved her. She thought she loved me. She 
 married another man ; and, whereas I thus early 
 learned 
 
 Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all ; 
 
 nevertheless 
 
 Love was, to my impassioned soul, 
 Not as with others, a mere part 
 Of my existence ; but the whole 
 The very life-breath of my heart ; j 
 
 and, as I was young scarcely twenty the scar left 
 at this early age, ever and ever has left its impress 
 indelibly on my mind. 
 
 Not that I turned woman-hater. On the contrary, 
 the rather 
 
38 
 
 Ah ! woman in this world of ours 
 What gift can be compared to thee ? 
 
 and having always been rather retiring, studious and 
 bashful, I had, until then, rather shunned, than 
 sought the other sex. 
 
 Now I sought relief, a change. I became fond of 
 society, of amusements, of distractions and even of 
 dissipations. I entered life with a vim. Nothing that 
 a young man of the period could do, I did not do. 
 From being parsimonious and close, I became prodi 
 gal and spendthrif ty. 
 
 I inaugarated a series of concerts. I moved largely 
 in a circle of Bohemianism, such as can be found in 
 New Tork City alone. My name became interna 
 tional. 
 
 Once I remember calling on one of my patronesses. 
 It was one evening at her apartment. 
 
 She asked me my age. 
 
 " Twenty-one next birthday; " I replied. 
 
 " Twenty-one next birth-day ! she ejaculated. 
 
 Why, Mr. F ! What a life you have before you. 
 
 Why, I thought you were at least twenty- eight, and 
 even that would be young for a man who has done 
 what you have done. Just think ! if you continue on 
 in this way, when you are forty, people will think you 
 are sixty, because you have commenced life so young," 
 
39 
 
 And thus I was flattered, sought after, and had 
 adulation lavished upon me, when fate would I should 
 meet a woman a saint, an angel whose voice 
 originally brought about our introduction, but whose 
 lovability, goodness and beauty so indelibly left 
 its impress on my mind, that ever after meeting her, 
 I have, involuntarily perhaps, looked upon homeli 
 ness in a woman as unpardonable. 
 
 Strong language perhaps, but 
 
 * **#*** 
 
 The recollection of the sermon on " David s Sin," 
 kept me from many a sin I otherwise would have been 
 guilty of. 
 
 And, irrespective of this sermon, the recollection 
 of a vow once taken, cannot but ever leave its 
 impress on a man, particularly when his early 
 " bringing-up " and education has been of a character 
 other than baneful and pernicious; and whereas, 
 when I became a church member, I was other than 
 what fate had made me at the time I now write of, I 
 remember, in early days, being presented with a 
 beautifully -bound pocket Bible, by a dearly-beloved 
 brother, 
 
 In presenting it to me, he wrote on the first page ; 
 
 44 And that from a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, 
 which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith 
 which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration 
 
40 
 
 of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor 
 rection, and for instruction in righteousness ." 
 
 In another part, he wrote the Fourth and Fifth 
 Verses of the Twenty-fifth Psalm : 
 
 " Show me Thy ways, O Lord ; teach me Thy paths. Lead 
 me in Thy truth, and teach me ; for Thou art the God of my 
 salvation. On Thee do I wait all the day." 
 
 Indelibly and forever they stamped themselves on 
 my mind. 
 
 Straws show which way the wind blows. 
 
 Ail of us are born in sin. In sin did our mothers 
 conceive us ; and, whereas I am far from attempting 
 to portray myself in the subsequent chapters as other 
 than what I am, nevertheless I do assert, thanks to 
 the font, from which all who choose may imbibe, 
 thanks to the Book of all Books, from which naught 
 but knowledge and blessedness may be gained, 
 thanks to that Book, and my study of it, I never 
 could wilfully commit a wrong my soul did not 
 revolt at. 
 
 Once I heard a minister, old in years and experi 
 ence, assert, had two men started in life under 
 similar advantages, one devoting his time and study 
 to Homer, Virgil, Cato, Plato, Herodotus and all the 
 classic and modern writers, and had the other only 
 read and re-read the Bible, the latter would im 
 measurably outstrip the other, even as a greyhound 
 
41 
 outstrips the turtle. 
 
 He claimed knowledge, God s knowledge, (know- 
 ledge of God) the one thing needful, and no matter 
 how little a man knew of aught else, Bible knowledge 
 would lift him way and above all fellow men. 
 
 But I must go on with my story. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 My most serious affair, was iny saddest. ] 
 
 Had this saint not been rudely snatched away, the 
 world would have heard of a singer, the like of 
 whom was never known. Her voice belonged to 
 Heaven, to Heaven it returned. Such as she are 
 not long meant for this earth ! Of such as she, 
 Heaven must be peopled. 
 
 I made her acquaintance at the Westminister 
 Hotel. 
 
 Oversleeping myself, I was awakened one morning 
 by a clear silvery soprano voice, which seemed to 
 penetrate and vibrate through every corner of my 
 apartment. The voice came from the room ad 
 joining. I listened ! " Blumenthal s Requital," was 
 the song. 
 
 The singer had reached : 
 
 " But fiercer the tempest rose than before, 
 "When the angel paused at a humble door." 
 
 This song essentially speaks " the history of a life." 
 
43 
 
 It is more ambitious than a mere ballad, and an 
 artist only can do it justice. 
 When the singer reached : 
 
 " A weary woman, pale, worn and thin, 
 With the brand upon her of want and sin ; " 
 
 her "very soul" seemed to permeate the words. 
 I listened spell bound, and when she came to : 
 
 When the eastern morning prew bright and red, 
 At the first bright sunbeam the angel fled, 
 Having kissed the woman, and left her dead." 
 
 I involuntarily felt "no voice could speak as that 
 voice had spoken " without belonging to that of a 
 "woman of sorrow, and acquainted with grief." 
 
 A few moments thereafter, she commenced the 
 same authors : 
 
 ** I had a message to send her; 
 To her whom my soul loves best. 
 But I had my task to finish, 
 And she had gone Home to rest." 
 
 and when she reached the agitato movement ; 
 
 " I cried in my passionate longing." 
 her voice trembling with very passion and emotion : 
 
 " I myself heard a strain of music, 
 lake unto an angels song," 
 
 and as her notes seemed to soar higher and higher, 
 involuntarily; I fell on my knees in a very excstasy 
 of delight. 
 
I had heard many singers, every note of those two 
 songs were familiar to me ; but never before had I 
 grasped the beauty, the depth, the possibilities, aye 
 the history these songs so graphically describe and 
 portray. 
 
 I felt perforce I must meet the singer. 
 
 That day I secured an introduction. Her name 
 was Adelaide Kingman. Her age just twenty-one 
 She was married, but not living with her husband. 
 She had secured a separation. A Catholic by birth, 
 she would not demand a divorce. 
 
 She was the leading soprano at one of our fashion 
 able city churches. On our first acquaintance I 
 accompanied her to her choir loft, although after 
 arriving there, I stole away to some distant chancel, 
 where I could the better enjoy "from afar" the sound 
 of her clear bird like notes as they would float up 
 higher and higher until finally they seemed to almost 
 reach the Heavenly singers themselves. And like 
 the singers above, her voice seemed the rather to be 
 part of that celestial choir, than that of ordinal y 
 mortals. 
 
 Worship of music had draw^i us to each other. 
 The love of music bound us close together. What 
 good to rehearse her history ? She was tall, willowy, 
 beautiful, queenly ! Her face like unto that of a 
 
45 
 
 portrait at Rome, which I had once seen when a boy, 
 ( it was the likeness of "Portia," ) Purity, nobility, 
 and goodness were indelibly stamped on her brow. 
 
 My life in those days was one continual song. She 
 had taken a cosey little flat. In the eyes of the world 
 I was her boarder she my landlady. How beauti 
 fully she arranged everything ! 
 
 Many a day would I recline at her feet, stretched 
 out full length on a rug, or tiger skin, my eyes half 
 closed, my ears listening to her sweet voice in 
 Handel s beautiful "Lascia chio panga," or some ne\v 
 * Ave Maria" which she had just corne across. 
 
 I wished her to appear in Opera. I induced Col. 
 Mapleson to hear her. He was enchanted, completely 
 carried away. 
 
 She refused all offers. 
 
 "No dear; she would say to me, * the glitter of 
 the stage, the glory of a histrionic existence does not 
 entrance me; I love quiet, home comforts, my 
 present existence. To sing to you, to please my 
 friends, to chant the Benedictus, the Benedic Anima, 
 the Jubilate, or the Te Deum in the temple of 
 the Lord, is the extent of my ambition. 
 
 In my day I had heard Patti, Gerster, Titien, 
 Lucca, Nielsou, Sembrich. In fact every noted singer 
 of the last two decades. When a boy, I once heard 
 
46 
 
 Clara Louise Kellogg in ^L Etotie ctu Aord" In those 
 days Kellog s voice was one of the purest, clearest, 
 most silvery sopranos heaven ever gave to woman. 
 When she reached that beautiful prayer which seems 
 to take the listener to the very Gates of Paradise 
 the tears involuntarily started to my eyes. 
 
 At my request Mrs. Kingman studied this Opera. 
 For days we were rehearsing it. I secured other 
 singers, and a splendid chorus, in short the best talent 
 then available. We gave a private performance at the 
 theatre to our friends, and the most select com 
 pany of critics, impressarios, musicans, and dilettanti 
 that I believe were ever gathered at a similar perfor 
 mance. 
 
 When Adelaide reached the prayer scene, our 
 audience involuntarily bowed ther heads, they felt 
 the presence of a divinity in their midst. I positively 
 believe half the people were speaking their Deus 
 Miserators. There was not a dry eye in the audience. 
 Every heart was touched. My old friend Maurice 
 Strakosch was among my invited guests. 
 
 "My God, Mr. F.; he exclaimed, "get her to 
 appear in public ! She is a second Malibran. Her 
 voice is like Jenny Lind s. The world cannot lose 
 so great an artist." 
 
 Genial old Max Maretzek went and embraced her, 
 
47 
 
 "Madame, you must adopt the stage," he ex 
 claimed. " Your fortune is assured. The world can 
 not afford to lose yv.u. You are born for Grand 
 Opera." 
 
 All of no avail ! 
 
 "What is the good of it, dear? " she would say to 
 me. "If I went on the stage, my life would be one 
 of hard work, drudgery, and finally disappointment. 
 I am happy as I am! I hardly think I will live long 
 anyhow! Should I however live to old age, with loss 
 of voice, I would lose friends." 
 
 "That ia no reason," I would answer. "Your 
 voice is heaven sent, by heaven given. If you once 
 appear under proper auspices, your fame will spread 
 throughout the world. I have heard many singers, 
 many voices, none like your*. Nobody can sing as 
 you do! " 
 
 "I know my voice pleases, I am grateful to those 
 who applauded me the other night, and if ever I was 
 on the point of yielding, it was when after the 
 "prayer scene " the house arose as if of one accord 
 and cheered and applauded as they did." 
 
 "And did not that awaken you? Did that not 
 send your bl o,l coursing through your veins with a 
 renewed impetus? Did you hear what Albites said? 
 Had you ever ? " 
 
" That is just it, dear ! The excitement was too 
 much. You know I have heart trouble. I honestly 
 believe if I underwent many such scenes of excite 
 ment, I would some day but you know what Dr. S. 
 says, and I then would be lost not alone to the 
 world, but to you as well, and you know, dear * with 
 that she stooped down and kissed me and I said no 
 
 more. 
 
 ****** 
 
 The Chicago Express was speeding at a lightning 
 gait to catch up on some thirty minutes which 
 had been lost before reaching Albany. It was 
 a dark and dreary night. The rain continuously beat 
 down in a slow, drizzly sort of way, but not heavily 
 enough to penetrate or lift the thick fog, through 
 which the weary engineer was steadily guiding his 
 puffing, snorting and noisy (almost human) servant. 
 
 Irvington, Yonkers and Eiverdale had just been 
 passed, Spuyten Duyvil had been reached, aud the 
 lights of the city were looming hazily through the 
 fog, when on making the bend that separates West- 
 chester County from the Island of Mauhattan, the 
 engineer saw the red light, the danger signal, ri< ht 
 in front of him. To reverse his engine, pull his 
 throttle valve, give the warning, and belch forth 
 shriek after shriek was the work of a serond. But it 
 
too late too late. The crash could not be 
 avoided ! 
 
 I was at the depot awaiting the arrival of her who 
 was my one fair singer. Train delayed, was announced 
 on the beards. Half an hour late ! 
 
 I was cooling off my heels as best I could, when 
 all of a sudden the wires flashed the news ; 
 
 GREAT RAILROAD ACCIDENT! THE 
 CHICAGO EXPRESS WRECKED AT SPUYTEN 
 
 DUYVIL 
 
 ****** 
 
 Through the influence of a friend who was con 
 nected with the railroad company, I was one of the 
 first to get aboard the special that was dispatched 
 to the scene of the wreck. 
 
 What need to describe the sights which there met 
 our view? The newspaper accounts the next day 
 were graphic and descriptive enough. 
 
 Among those who must have been instantly killed 
 through shock, (I never believed it from personal 
 injuries), was my Adelaide. 
 
 I lost a woman I loved a woman who loved me ; 
 the world a voice which only those who enter heaven 
 
 will ever hear again. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In one of the modest little plots at , 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 there has been erected an unpretentious monument. 
 T is the figure of an angel singer. Hand pointing 
 upward. 
 
 Among the many costly mausoleums, and elegant 
 works of marblic art, this one would ordinarily 
 be lost sight of, were not the beholders invariably 
 struck with the clear cut, beautifully chiseled 
 
 features of the face. When Mr. , (the sculptor), 
 
 executed his order, he enthused over his work : 
 
 The angel represents my Singer, 
 
 RECQUIESCAT IN PACE. 
 
CHAP1ER VIII. 
 
 44 Where, and how, shall I earliest meet her? 
 What are the words she first will say ? 
 By what name shall I learn to greet her ? 
 I know not now, but twill come some day! " 
 
 In the fall of 187 , I met the girl, the woman, who 
 in after years became my wife. 
 
 Always of an impressionable nature, quick to take 
 likes or dislikes, I had to meet a person but once to 
 either quickly form a liking for, or a dislike to 
 them. 
 
 The first time I met Edith B , I was attracted 
 
 to her. Or the occasion of our second meeting I 
 fell in love ! When we met for the third time, I 
 knew, no matter what my loves (t) of the past had 
 been, here was a girl whose face, whose eyes, whose 
 smile, were the whcle world to me. She was the 
 Alpha and Omega of everything, the beginning and 
 ending of life. 
 
 Previous experiences had taught me something of 
 the world, her eyes seemed to speak of heaven, and 
 when she smiled! what an indescribable glimpse 
 
52 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 of sunshine then lightened up her face ! Not that 
 prettier women had not come across my path, but 
 what she lacked in beauty was more than redeemed 
 by her classic profile, her graceful glide, her willowy 
 figure, her low musical voice ! In fact I thought 
 she possessed all that I cared for in woman ! To 
 me she was perfect ! Perfection personified ! ! 
 
 I had not known her a month before I undertook 
 to write her mother, asking permission to take the 
 daughter to the Opera. I had scarcely despatched 
 my messenger when I regretted doing so, and after 
 the young lady wrote me, in her mother s absence 
 she had opened my letter, and thanking me, knew 
 her mother would never allow her to go out 
 unaccompanied by one of her parents ; I thought 
 I had made an ass of myself, and was afraid my 
 impetuosity had ruined me. 
 
 Providence willed otherwise, and it was not long 
 before I was in the habit of regularly visiting the 
 family, never, however, seeing the daughter except 
 ing in the presence of the mother. In fact, as a 
 usual thing, the mother and I did most of the talking, 
 the daughter occasionally putting in a word or two, 
 but it was very seldom that she did other than listen 
 to our conversation, and whereas, many a time did 
 I become conscious of her well weighing what ever I 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 53 
 
 said, I nevertheless am to this day convinced the 
 young lady never dreamed of the havoc she was 
 playing with my heart, and how great a change was 
 in consequence gradually coming over my whole life. 
 Not that she was diffident, or I the least bit backward, 
 but I loved her so deeply, 1 was so anxious to be 
 near her and by her that I was perfectly satisfied to 
 let the old lady, (her mother), do all the entertaining, 
 if only I could look at the daughter. 
 
 Thus fully two years of my life were spent, and 
 during all that time no Sunday afternoon but 
 found me snugly installed, (as I heard later), making 
 love to the mother 
 
 Once the old lady happened to have other com 
 pany, and leaving her daughter alone with me, our 
 conversation drifted into a rather personal channel, 
 and while discussing the difference between a man s 
 and a woman s opportunities, the young lady 
 unconsciously reverting to herself said : 
 
 "Now supposing my mother and father die, what 
 will happen to me* They are all I have in the 
 world. I have no brothers or sisters, no rich 
 relations, and if thrown on my own resources, what 
 would I do ? " 
 
 I hardly think her mother had left us for over 
 fifteen minutes, but be that as it may, all the love 
 
5-4 A NEW ENGLAND 
 
 that had been pent up within me broke forth. What 
 would she do if left alone in the world ? 
 
 Ah Edith, I do not remember my words, but I do 
 remember telling you I loved you ; I do remember 
 coming over to the sofa whereon you were sitting 
 and breaking forth into protestations of the 
 love I felt for you. And you ? You burst into tears, 
 and when you had been partially quieted, and I 
 begged for your answer, you told me you were so 
 sorry. You liked me. You respected me, but you 
 never could marry me. And I ? Will I ever forget 
 that day ? I left you; you asked me to forget you; 
 that you had never dreamed I had grown to care 
 so much for you, and begged me to try and keep 
 up our pleasant acquaintanceship. 
 
 Ah, that is years ago, but will that day ever be 
 effaced from my memory 1 ? It was in mid- winter. 
 The snow was heaped on either side of the streets 
 fully six feet high, and I tramped for miles and miles 
 into the park, unmindful of the wind or cold, until 
 finally, nearly exhausted, I regained partial control 
 of my faculties and went home to my room. 
 
 And there I threw myself, tired and worn out, on 
 my couch, and for the first time in my life, found rest 
 and myself a stranger ! And when day dawned, and 
 the sun arose in his majesty and glory, no ray of hope 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 55 
 
 did he send into my poor broken heart. It was then 
 I took up pen and ink and told you, Edith, how 
 much I loved you. I asked you to have pity on me, 
 and that if you did not love me, to care just a little 
 bit for me. I concluded with ; 
 
 My future is in your hands. When I first met you I 
 knew I bad met my Josephine, my Queen ! If a life of 
 devotion can beget love, you cannot help but eventually c;ir- 
 for me. If you would but give me the thousandth part of the 
 love I give you ; I would be satisfied. 
 Write me, forgive me, and believe me, 
 
 Ever your friend, 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMORE. 
 
 and by the next mail you replied : 
 
 I feel honored by your showing me so much love, but I 
 do not wish to marry any one, or promise myself to any one 
 now. I also wish you would try and forget me, and I will 
 do all I can to help you do so, and perhaps in a year from 
 now, you will think differently. In the meantime, won t you 
 come and see me as you used to do, as doing so will prevent 
 talk, and although I cannot encourage you now, and this 
 letter may sound cold ; I do not mean it so, while you can feel 
 assured it is the hardest letter I hava ever penned, but as it is 
 the sixth one I have written, and each seems worne than the 
 other. I- hope- you will excuse me. Come find see me ; let 
 us be friends, and if you wait a yf<ar, I may feel differently. 
 
 Your sincere friend. 
 EDITH. 
 
 What c-ould I do * 
 
 Although nigh heart broken, I endeavored to keep 
 up appearances,, and as my life seemed to depend on 
 
56 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 seeing and being near her, I continued my calls for 
 several months thereafter. 
 
 One day she was at the piano accompanying me to 
 the "Lost Chord." At the end of the son<* she 
 suddenly asked me to kiss her. 
 
 Ah Edith, that kiss ! You asked it, not I. Your 
 soul seemed to meet mine ! You told me you cared 
 for me, and in time would marry me. I was delirious 
 with joy! Happier than I had ever been! I 
 thought you loved me. 
 
 Thus months passed, until one day, when 
 promenading in Central Park with y^u, we reached 
 a secluded spot and you requested me to sit down 
 and listen to what you had to say. 
 
 You commenced with : 
 
 "Mr. F , I have a great deal of respect and 
 
 liking for you, and there is no man whom I would 
 sooner trust with my future than you, but I have 
 made up my mind I never can marry. You then went 
 on to tell me you were, or rather had been before you 
 accepted me, clandestinely engaged to another man, 
 whom you thought you cared a great deal for, but 
 whose acquaintance you had dropped as you had 
 found out he was not as honorable a man as you had 
 thought him; that your mother disliked him exceed 
 ingly anyhow ; that you never would marry a man 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 57 
 
 your mother did not approve of ; that this man was 
 a Catholic, and your mother hated Catholics, and 
 that even if you had not learned what you did, the 
 former reason would have been weighty enough 
 for you to rescind your promise to him, but since 
 then, and after your engaging yourself to me you 
 found you did not love me as I should be loved, so 
 you thought you had better be honest tell me so at 
 once and break our engagement." 
 
 I was struck dumb. In sheer misery, I remember 
 sitting by your side as if dazed. How long we sat 
 thus, I know not, but I finally roused myself, or was 
 aroused by some remark which you made, which 
 induced me to ask as to whether; had you not heard 
 these stories about this other man, and as to whether 
 if your mother s dislike was overcome, you did not 
 think you might love him. 
 
 And you replied : Yes, you might ! 
 
 I forget how long I sat musing, and -figuratively 
 crushing my heart within me, and bringing every 
 noble impulse that I was capable of, to the fore, but 
 I do remember I forgot self, I forgot my own desires, 
 my own feelings, and I begged you, if you really 
 cared for the man, not to make your life, his life, as 
 miserable as mine was; but to marry him, no matter 
 what the consequence. As to the stories you had 
 
58 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 heard, I told you no man was true ; all men were 
 fast, I probably a great deal more so than he. / 
 belittled myself 7 I exalted him ! My love for you 
 was such, that to see you happy seemed to be my 
 only desire. 
 
 It was several hours before we reached home. 
 When darkness came on we walked the streets for 
 miles, I doing nothing but beseeching you to do 
 justice to yourself and to him, whom I suspected you 
 really loved- 
 
 At your door step I left you. You begged me to come 
 in. I refused. It was only when you held out your 
 hand at parting that I knew what a strain I had 
 undergone. 
 
 How I reached my hotel, I know not. A friend 
 tripped me up as I was about entering my room. He 
 saw there was something wrong. After a good deal 
 of questioning he elicited some of the facts. 
 
 He laughed them to scorn. 
 
 "Care for a girl like that," he said. " Why, Kob, 
 you are crazy ! Where is your manhood, your, .self 
 respect? A girl who will engage herself without. her 
 mother s or father s consent to a man they dislike,, 
 who will then play with you, and .finally, not know, 
 her own mind. Why, you need a guardian.! " . ... . 
 
 Poor consolation to me, and yet, strange irony of 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 6 
 
 fate! It was this very man tftat finally , after we were 
 married for over ten years, parted you and me, Edith. 
 
 But once again I digress, and run ahead of my 
 story. 
 
 Sleep and I, again were strangers, and it was with 
 a heavy heart that I the next morning plunged into 
 my cold bath, which that day chilled me to the very 
 bones, and after a futile attempt at breakfast, I 
 wended my way to my office. Arriving there the 
 first letter I opened was one in your well known 
 hand, as follows : 
 
 Dear friend, (if I may call you such): 
 
 For the last time I am going to say a few words on the 
 subject that has caused you so much misery. Knowing how 
 you feel, I suppose it is best for you not to come and see 
 me any more, but as you have come quite often during the 
 last year or two, don t you think you had better discontinue 
 your visit* gradually ? You need not see much of me unless 
 you wish to, although I shall always be glad to see you. In 
 your misery, remember you are not the only miserable one, as 
 your unhappiness makes me doubly unhappy, but as time 
 heals all wounds, my continual prayer will be, that it give yo* 
 the strength to forget, and if possible forgive. 
 
 Your always grateful. 
 
 EDITH. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I spoke in the preceding chapter of my refusal, 
 after our long protracted walk, to enter Edith s home, 
 and as my visits had at this period become very 
 frequent, it was not many days before I was 
 surprised with a call from her mother. 
 
 Kindly old lady, she came up to me in her good 
 motherly way, and asked me what was wrong. I 
 tried to parry her questions. I even prevaricated. 
 Finally she broke down. It was in my private office. 
 
 "Mr. F ," she said, "you are a man. I have 
 
 suspected you cared for my daughter for some time. 
 I have always liked you, and I think so does she. 
 She is a child. She is easily influenced. Not that 
 she would ever wilfully deceive her mother, but 
 there is a certain man who is crazy after her. I 
 know he sees her occasionaly, and rather than have 
 her marry him, I would prefer to see her dead in her 
 coffin, as I know he is bad." 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. l 
 
 In this strain she went on. What wonder confi 
 dence begot confidence? 
 
 I told the mother I loved the daughter; but with 
 the mother I did as with the daughter, I forgot self. 
 I begged the old lady not to judge hastily. I told 
 her many a bad young man had made a good 
 husband; I begged the mother not to sacrifice the 
 daughter, but that as I thought my rival was pre 
 ferred, nothing would make me happier than to see 
 her married to him, if by so doing her happiness 
 would be assured. 
 
 Talk about hatred, why the old lady was almost 
 beside herself at the mere thought of her child being 
 married to the man in question, and involuntarily I 
 thanked my stars I had not betrayed my dear ones 
 confidence by speaking of her cancelled clandestine 
 engagement. 
 
 The old lady wound up by requesting me to call, 
 and on my positively refusing to do so, told me that 
 on the very night on which, unbeknown to her, I was 
 unable to find rest, she herself had walked the floor 
 of her room all night, and finally when lying down 
 for a few minutes eeeme l to feel conscious of my 
 suddenly appearing before her and beseeching her 
 to do something, which at that time she could not 
 understand, but which concerned her daughter and 
 me. 
 
62 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 In a few days I received the following letter : 
 
 My good friend Mr. F : 
 
 I cannot be content without saying a few words more to 
 you on the subject we were speaking of when I saw you last. 
 My ideas of the way to live in this world, are I hope held by 
 many others. I think each and all of us should try to make 
 others happy as far as we may have an opportunity in our 
 associating with, or our friendship for them. I do not know 
 what I can say to comfort you. I know of no one for whom I 
 have a greater respect, or a more sincere liking. You have 
 commenced life with good morals, good principles, and a 
 higher ambition than young men generally start with. 
 Let nothing that has passed keep you from the bright path 
 mapped out for yourself in your happier days. Life is short 
 at best, but I think there is great happiness in store for you. 
 At present you are not alone in your sorrow, if it is any 
 consolation to you to know it. Thursday night your picture 
 was taken out of the album and placed on the parlor mantel, I 
 did not seem to notice it, but it looked as though she wanted 
 to have your face where she could see it as often as she 
 liked. You say you know her better than I do, and you may 
 not attach any importance to what was done, but I think I 
 understand her pretty well. She is up at half past seven 
 every morning now, something very unusual for her, but it is 
 because she hopes, or expects she may get some word from 
 you, and does not wish me to know it. She does not know I 
 saw you, or have seen you since you were here. I hope you 
 will not feel very much annoyed by this lengthy letter, but if 
 you knew how sorry I am for you, you could not be angry. 
 May be by this time you have arrived at a happier frame of 
 mind, but be that as it may, (and I sincerely hope it may be 
 so), t think your present course of silence, and absence 
 your best possible treatment of her. Yet she is never demon 
 strative, and a few words from her mean a good deal. You say 
 you think, she thinks a great deal of me. I know that, yet it is 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 63 
 
 a quiet affection, if I may use the word thus. Never a kiss, 
 nor an offer of one ; always kind, but never displaying any 
 affection, unless I am quite sick. Then she is all anxiety. I 
 am going to bring you in a few flowers this afternoon ; take 
 them as they are meant in kindness. Edith will never know 
 of it from me, nor that I see you. Take good care of your 
 health and try to be happy. " Into each life some rain must 
 fall ; some days must be dark and dreary." Write me if there 
 is anything you wish to know. Good-bye, until I see you. 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 A. C. B. 
 
 In the meantime, my misery was telling on me. I 
 became absent-minded, abstracted, gloomy and 
 morose, and finally nearly all my friends were 
 wondering as to what was the matter with me. Some 
 thought I was going into premature decline, and one 
 or two (particularly women) opined I was in love. 
 
 As fate would have it, I was just then taken sick 
 with the measles. My friends heard of it. Mrs. 
 
 B took the opportunity of writing me a number 
 
 of letters, of which the following is a fair specimen : 
 
 MY DEAR Mr. F., 
 
 You asked me not to mention your name any oftener 
 than necessary. I have not done so, yet your name has been 
 mentioned very often by some one else, sometimes it is Robert, 
 
 sometimes Mr. F . but always as if you were a very dear 
 
 friend in whom she had a very grent interest. Why I wrote 
 you as I did, (which may have been wrong) about your getting 
 a recall, was this : She was talking with me just at dusk, 
 before we lighted up. She was drumming on the piano, while 
 at the same time I was gossiping and talking with her. Sud- 
 
64 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 denly she said : Mamma ! would you be willing to have me 
 
 marry Mr. F ? " I told her what my ideas were, viz : that I 
 
 certainly would not object, provided she liked you well enough 
 or in other words, if she had the same regard for you that you 
 had for her. That certainly, if you are what you always seemed 
 to be, her love for you would not diminish by a more intimate 
 knowledge of you. I told her I did not wish nor mean to 
 influence her in any way. As far as wishing to have her marry, 
 I should never be willing, except that I saw it was for her 
 happiness, as well as the one she married. She did not make 
 any reply to me, but kept on playing for a while, yet she 
 seemed to change and feel happier thereafter. That is why I 
 thought as I did. She can be quite a jolly companion when 
 she has nothing serious to worry about, and now, if you are 
 ever friends again, try to lose the idea that she has such a sad 
 look and smile, as though she had secret grief. It is not so, 
 except she may be grieving a little over you, while I think she 
 is now getting to be a little ashamed of her expressed admira 
 tion for the individual you know of. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 A.C.B. 
 
 And as on my first being stricken, I was taken 
 home to my mothers, I was there almost over 
 whelmed with letters, flowers, jellies and what-nots 
 by friends who had marriageable daughters. 
 
 One young lady whom I had met at a wedding 
 where I had been best man to an old chum of mine, 
 sent me an elegant basket of jack roses, but dearest 
 of all \the remembrances, were a few loose flowers 
 that came anonymously, but which my heart told me 
 were sent by the one I loved. 
 
A NMs 1 -N.tl.AM> WOMAN. <!> 
 
 On my recovery her mother wrote me us follows : 
 
 MY DEAR MR. F., 
 
 How is it with you this stormy day ? It is enough to 
 give one the blues, I think, but I believe von are partial to 
 such weather. I hope you art- comfortable and happy. I know 
 Edith wrote you in regard to the picture, but what else I know 
 not, but suppose she must have written a word or two besides. 
 She was very much surprised by the picture, and very much 
 pleased too. Since then I know she received a letter from you. 
 The contents I am ignorant of, except one thing which sin- 
 told me yesterday that you would like her to be married in 
 one mouth. I asked her then if she cared enough about you 
 to marry you. " Oh ! yes," she replied, " but not so soon as 
 that. How could I ever get ready so soon?" and, I echo, 
 How could she?" She talked as though she cared more for 
 you than anyone else, but that she was differently constituted 
 from you, so that she did not think she could ever think quite 
 as much of anyone as you did of her. I may be wrong, but I 
 know her nature so well that I think as she does about it, jet 
 the true love of a nature like hers is something to be prized, 
 something her husband may rely upon in trouble or prosperity. 
 I told her yesterday, I did not think she was worthy of yon. 
 She wanted to know why. I told her because she did not half 
 appreciate you. Whatever she has written you, do not think 
 I have used my influence in your behalf, but when she asks 
 me a question, I answer it according to my idea of the facts. 
 She went upstairs saying she should write you. I told her she 
 must not do so except she could satisfy you that she really 
 loved you. I told her I thought you would grant her a litt o 
 time to prepare for the event. If yon care so much for the 
 daughter, spare her to the mother as long as possible. "You 
 may come every day to the house, but do not hurry about 
 taking away my one bright star. When you take her away 
 her love for her mother will in time merge into a love for her 
 other self, yet she has been BO much of a companion to me in 
 
A NEW ENGLAND 
 
 the few years past that I cannot but think I shall miss her 
 terribly. That I am unwilling to give her up to anyone you 
 are well aware. I may have erred in my home education of her, 
 yet have I always tried to keep her from all evil, and hare 
 endeavored to instil a love of truth in her. Her disposition is 
 peculiar, yet when you once know it, there will be no danger 
 of any serious trouble between you, as from what I know of 
 you, even in anger you are generous, while forgiving by 
 nature. Did I not know you so well I should not feel as I do 
 on the subject. I may be premature in writing this, yet there 
 is nothing wrong about it, and I can writ* 3 about it better thar 
 I can talk. If it should be settled as you wish, I could not 
 talk to you five words about it in the manner I have just 
 written. I do not think you need fear anyone as holding any 
 corner of her heart, however small. She did not tell me what 
 she wrote yesterday, so tis only guess work with me, yet I am 
 satisfied she hoped you would come last night, although her 
 letter was posted so late, and was very much disappointed that 
 you did not. 
 
 Good night, yours as ever, 
 
 A. C. B. 
 
 And the same day I received a letter from the 
 young lady, saying: 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND. 
 
 I am so glad to know you are well again, as I worried about 
 you all the time you were sick, and now I do not want you to 
 impatiently tear this op, as I know you will feel like doing, 
 but remember a patient waiter is no loser." In about a week 
 I am going to write you a long letter, so please do not go out 
 of town (which I hear you intend doing) until you hear from 
 me again. The painting "Forever" came yesterday, and I 
 thank you more than I can tell you for it. 
 
 Sincerely your friend, 
 
 EDITH. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 67 
 
 It was then that I looked the future in the face. 
 I loved, and I loved deeply. My love was pure and 
 unselfish, but my manhood required, if little love 
 much submission. 
 
 I carefully wrote, and re-wrote the following letter, 
 the draft of which I preserved to this day : 
 
 MY DEAR FKIEND EDITH B., 
 
 The painting was sent YOU as a birthday present, which 
 I promised when I abstracted the sketch from you. I imagined 
 you would be glad to receive it, aud I knew I would hear from 
 you. That you should intend writing me again, is in some 
 respects a, surprise, and yet the flowers you sent me - what I 
 have heard of you, and what I know of one who kuows I wor 
 ship her more than convinces me she is debating something 
 whereon more depends, than she is aware of. You are not to 
 blame for luy loving you. and yet you pity me ! Pity is akin 
 to love, but not I W. I know, when I hear from you, you will 
 either make me more miserable, or as happy as when in pity, 
 if after a year s probation I did not change- you once before 
 consented to become my wife. My iniiid is made up. Of my 
 love for you, you are convinced! I would rather see you 
 happy, than be happy myself. Your mother s dislike for some 
 body else, possibly made you think you liked him, as it is 
 but natural for us to stand up for those whom others abuse. 
 Hut are you sure you Ittc, nay ! lore me best ? How often v ave 
 I sung Preyer s exquisite " Will She Come?" But not until 
 after my misery did I grasp the pathos, the beauty of it. But 
 to come to what I intended. Edith , darling ! dearly as I love 
 you. deeply as I long for the touch of your hand, rather than 
 imagine pity induced you to send for me, I would prefer to 
 endure every agony, than ever to see you again. Ten thousand 
 times rather, would I suffer /or ever and mr than become hus- 
 band to a girl who, if she did not love me as deeply us I love 
 
68 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 her; {and I think no woman can ever love like a man) does not 
 at any rate know she cares more for me than for any one else . 
 Bring the truth home, and imagine that on the day on which 
 you beg me to come and see you, you had to become my wife. 
 My mind is made up ! Never and ten times never will you ever 
 see me unless in your heart of hearts you can say to yourself 
 as well as tome, " I care more for you, Kobert, than for any 
 one else in the world," and if that time should ever come, ah I 
 if I then, dear, I would come, but would insist on marrying you 
 within a month from that very day. And now. dear, good-bye j 
 and, in the words of " What matters it to hearts like ours. * 
 But it does matter, and matter a great deal, and life seems 
 bleaker and hope seems dead even though eternity may change 
 all. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMORE. 
 
 A few days thereafter I received her reply, which 
 said ; 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERT, 
 
 The promised letter will be all contained in the simple 
 little word, COME, and may it ruake you as happy to read it as 
 it has made me in sending it. 
 
 Your, 
 
 EDITH. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 How the hours seemed to drag before our 
 meeting ! How can I describe what at our meeting 
 took place? Up to that time when calling, I had 
 usually seen the mother first. On this occasion I 
 was ushered into the back parlor, where, reclining 
 on a lounge in front of a blazing hearth-fire, 
 evidently awaiting and expecting her husband, was 
 my wife that was to be. I can close my eyes and 
 conjure up that picture ! Neither of us said a word. 
 Our arms opened, our lips met, heart beat against 
 heart, and for several minutes not a sound came 
 from either. Two hearts had met; two eyes 
 looked into two other eyes, and in silence did we 
 
 
 
 commune. 
 
 I wonder how many of my readers have been in 
 a similar situation ! 
 
 In latin countries at the hour of the angelus 
 when the worker in the fields, or the laborer in the 
 town, hears the bell which calls to Vespers; 
 involuntarily his cap is lifted, unconsciously his 
 head is bowed, and in silent prayer the soul speaks to 
 
70 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 its Maker. And again when man awaits the angel of 
 death, we sit in silence, hand clasped to hand, our 
 souls too full for utterance. And thus when a true 
 man, a true woman for the first time know their love, 
 they involuntarily recognize the sanctity of the very 
 holiest of holy feelings, and the soul speaks, though 
 the tongue be mute. 
 
 I loved and I thought I was beloved. Our 
 wedding day was fixed, and the world held no man 
 happier than I. 
 
 And incidentally let me add: The man who 
 was my rival and primarily had the advantage, 
 hearing of my visits, knowing the mother liked me, 
 and disliked him, did everything in his power to 
 be-little, be-smirch and deride me. All this was at 
 the time unbeknown to me. In after years I found, 
 the stand I had taken placed me in the light of a 
 nobler, a better man, and whereas this stand was 
 prompted by love, pure and simple, and I db not 
 care to take any credit to myself, nevertheless the 
 hand of the woman I loved became mine in very 
 consequence of my being willing to sacrifice all, self 
 and everything for her happiness. He seemed to be 
 imbued with selfish motives only. My wife weighed 
 him in the balance. She found him wanting ! 
 weighed me, and she thought she loved me 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 We were mairied in church, May 25th. 18 , and 
 
 immediately after our wedding took the Fall River 
 Line of boats for Boston, where we intended spend 
 ing part of our honeymoon. 
 
 Our friends gave us a send-off. The boat was 
 crowded. We were literally overwhelmed with 
 flowers; and, when my six ushers at the last moment 
 carried on board an immense cradle of red roses, 
 which, to handle, required their united strength, 
 I remember hearing one old lady express the wish 
 that our life thereafter would be literally " a bed ot 
 roses." 
 
 Arrived in Boston, we spent a week there ; then 
 a few days with some of her relatives in Worcester ; 
 and, after an absence of about a fortnight, we 
 returned to New York, where I had previously 
 engaged apartments at the then, just finished Park 
 Avenue Hotel, at which place we held our reception, 
 to which most of our friends had been invited. How 
 proud I was of her ! How beautiful she seemed to 
 me, dressed in white lace, devoid of all color; and 
 
72 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 excepting a little solitaire I had given her, she 
 posessed no jewelry or jewels. And yet how all life, 
 how everything seemed to concentrate around and in 
 her! 
 
 The next morning I awoke early. She was still 
 asleep. Softly I stole to an easy chair, and gazed 
 from our apartments over the roofs of the surround 
 ing houses to where, in the dim distance, I could see 
 the tall walls of the building wherein my business, 
 my ware-rooms were. And while sitting there 
 musing, involuntarily communing with myself, I was 
 almost startled at a voice which seemed to whisper 
 to me, saying : " Well, Bob ! now you are tied ! Here 
 you have the girl whom you love. Is the reality 
 equal to the anticipation ? Do you think you love her 
 as much now as when, in your misery, you were 
 wooing her ? Does she come up to your ideas ? Is 
 she as perfect as you thought her ? Do you know 
 that you are now no longer absolute master of your 
 self, but that this girl has some rights a voice in 
 the management of all you do, and all your affairs ? 
 Do you think you will like it ? " 
 
 Just then (it had grown to be about eight o clock, 
 and I had been meditating longer than I knew of) 
 a knock came to my door. A voice said : 
 
 " A letter, Sir." 
 
A NEW KNOLAXI) WOMAN. Tit 
 
 i opened I read! 
 
 It was from a dear old friend a lady who, in the 
 past, had been of great help and service to me in 
 making me love the good, the true, the beautiful. 
 
 Her letter congratulated me on my choice ; stated 
 she had been at our wedding, had seen the bride, 
 had fallen desperately in love with her; but, as she 
 was unfortunately called out of town before our 
 reception, had to postpone the pleasure of meeting 
 my wife, till she returned to the city. She then went 
 on to give me kind and good advice ; and, in con 
 cluding, said : 
 
 Now, Robbie, I know you so well that I hope you will 
 take the following in good part, and understand me aright. 
 Successful as you have been in late years, I have noticed that 
 like all fortune s favorites you have become somewhat 
 spoiled ; and, if I have a fear as to your future happiness, it is 
 the thought that after you own what you have so craved for, 
 that lifter the norelty treat s off, posession may cloy with you. 
 Now, dear friend, I know you well enough to know you mean 
 right. I know your impulses are good, and your heart golden. 
 Keep up the old fare -feeling f When, in years to come, you feel 
 tired, wearied and worried, and perhaps find other than the 
 comforter, the help-meet you expected Keep tip the old lope- 
 feeling f 
 
 Strange words ! Strange time to reach me ! I 
 read her letter, and re-read it ! I went into the next 
 room ! I looked at my wife ! She was still sleeping. 
 I hardly know why, but at that moment the boy s 
 
74 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 love, the lover s love, seemed to leave me. Instead 
 there came into my heart the husband s love, the 
 protecting love that " for weal or woe," for better or 
 for worse forever and forever, when once given by a 
 man, remains with the woman till death them do part. 
 
 Until death them do part, unless the woman 
 trample on that love, unless she discard and stifle 
 it, and shows the man she is happier without, than 
 with it. 
 
 How many men, how many women marry, 
 thinking they love and are beloved? And after the 
 ceremony is over, their honeymoon passed, how few 
 find the reality what they anticipated. And then 
 what becomes of love ? 
 
 Emerson says ; 
 
 "Is not marriage an open question, when it is 
 alleged from the beginning of the world, that such 
 as are in it wish to get out, and such as are out wish 
 to get in ? " 
 
 The Bible says : 
 
 "And the Lord God said: It is not good for man to 
 be alone, let us make him a help like unto himself. 
 Then the Lord God cast a deep sleep upon Adam, 
 and when he was fast asleep, he took one of his ribs 
 and filled up flesh for it, and the Lord built the rib 
 which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 75 
 
 her unto Adam, and Ail am said : This now is bone 
 of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called 
 woman, because she was taken out of man, wherefore 
 a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to 
 his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 After a short stay at our hotel, and some 
 subsequent visits to Newport, Narragansett, 
 Saratoga Springs, and other summer resorts, we 
 settled down at the home of her parents, for the first 
 year of our married life. 
 
 Within a few months, my wife found herself in an 
 interesting condition. One night she felt very 
 badly. I asked her if her mother could not help her. 
 
 " My mother knows nothing of my condition ! " 
 
 " Why, child ! Did you not speak to her ? " 
 
 "No, I did not like to." 
 
 It devolved upon me to enlighten the mother. 
 Until that moment, few men had greater reason to 
 feel friendly with, and measurably sure of the 
 regard entertained for them by their mother-in-law. 
 
 From that moment I think the old lady regretted 
 ever having consented to our marriage. She almost 
 fainted away. She positively commenc ^ to cry, and 
 on my, in perfect amazement, asking her why she 
 should do so, the poor old lady told me she never 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 77 
 
 expected anything like that so soon. I ought to have 
 known better, etc., etc." 
 
 From that day I knew a great many of my 
 subsequent troubles indirectly came from my mother- 
 in-law. Not that she and I ever had any differences, 
 or that she was other than the most inoffensive, 
 unobtrusive, least selfish woman it was ever my lot 
 to meet, but born and bred in the state of Maine, 
 in later life living for years in that hot-bed of 
 advanced ideas Boston, she was a typical New 
 England woman, and whereas she was neither a blue 
 stocking, nor a believer in "Woman s Rights, (other 
 than in their sensible adaptability, and every 
 day application), she nevertheless positively thought 
 the command " to increase and multiply 1 did not 
 apply to American women anyhow, and having for 
 years preached these ideas to her daughter, for ever 
 and ever thereafter kept dinning them into my 
 wife s mind, until she finally became firm in her 
 conviction that the less children women had, the 
 better it would be for them, and the world in 
 general. 
 
 Our first child was born within less than a year 
 after our marriage. 
 
 At my request a physican whom I had known for 
 years called on us about a month prior to the event. 
 
78 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 My wife positively refused to see him! He has 
 since told me when he was telegraphed for on the day 
 of her accouchement, on entering the room, and his 
 introducing himself, she exclaimed: "I hate 
 doctors" And that excepting those few words she 
 said absolutely nothing, until after the child was 
 born. She had hardly been put to rights when she 
 insisted on having pencil and paper and personally 
 wrote me ; "You have a son." 
 
 A few weeks thereafter business called me away 
 on an extended trip. Jocularly talking with my wife 
 on having so long been deprived of her and her 
 society, she told me, (well do I remember her words): 
 
 "Do not mind, dear! As long as you love me 
 best, it will not make any difference to me if you 
 occasionally do see other women." 
 
 The words stung me to the quick ! They proved* 
 Twas not loved. 
 
 I went away. I was absent a month. While away 
 I did as I chose. 
 
 On my return I found my wife happy and glad to 
 see me, but as she did not seem to be over strong, 
 Edith s mother suggested she go away with her and 
 the baby to some friends in the country to 
 re-cuperate. To re cuperate, but to leave her 
 husband wifeless. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 7*> 
 
 All, inother-in-law, how little you remembered 
 " that whom God hath joined together, let no man 
 (woman) put asunder." 
 
 I firmly believe half our marital infelicities are 
 attributable to kindly intended, wrongly projected 
 separations, that well meaning friends, relations, 
 or business engagements force upon us. The 
 latter possibly cannot be avoided. But I firmly 
 believe if a man marry a woman, and neither one 
 ever part from the other, our divorce courts would 
 be less crowded; our newspapers would have less 
 scandal, and the community in consequence would 
 be the gainer. 
 
 My wife left me, and it was not long before I fell 
 into old ways, and met old acquaintances. Up 
 to that time I had always thought, next to man s 
 wronging a woman, a man unfaithful to his marital 
 vows as despicable a creature as the world contained. 
 How soon I changed my opinions ! And why ? 
 Because I was naturally wicked; because I was prone 
 to sin; because the devil is born in all men? Let 
 the reader judge! 
 
 After living with my wife s parents for a little 
 over a year, we started house keeping for ourselves 
 
 at the apartment house, where we rented a 
 
 cosey little flat for twelve hundred dollars per 
 
80 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 annum. We furnished it elegantly, neatly, but not 
 extravagantly, although my father-in-law once 
 commented on the purchase of a plush parlor suit 
 which cost us about five hundred dollars, as possibly 
 being a little beyond our means, while he jokingly 
 compared us to the young couple who started out in 
 life with the well intended gift of a solid silver 
 service, which induced them to buy everything 
 to conform thereto, and in consequence soon 
 found themselves bankrupt, and in trouble. 
 
 My wife at this time took up the study of art, 
 learned to paint, and accompanying her as I did 
 to art galleries, and sales of fine paintings, she 
 unconsciously and imperceptibly educated me as well 
 as herself. 
 
 Few people, who have not some sense of beauty, 
 but how few people there are who truly distinguish 
 between glitter and gold ! 
 
 In educating herself, and educating me, we both 
 acquired a distaste for anything other than the real. 
 Nothing was cheap or shoddy in our apartments. 
 Everything was good, and in consequence expensive. 
 I was fortunate enough to be successful in business, 
 and was making money. I accordingly could 
 afford our luxuries, but instead of saving, we became 
 prodigal. From starting out with the expectation 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 81 
 
 of living at the rate of three thousand or four 
 thousand dollars a year, we were soon spending 
 eight thousand, nine thousand, and finally twelve 
 thousand and even fifteen and sixteen thousand 
 dollars per annum. 
 
 In the meantime we made friends. Hospitable as 
 we had always been, I had particularly impressed my 
 wife with the difference between foreigners and 
 Americans. An American will be the most liberal 
 when he meets his friends outside of his home. At 
 nis home, unless it be on special occasions, an 
 American will talk and gossip by the hour, for the 
 half day, or for a whole evening without once 
 thinking of offering "a bite to eat, or a drop to drink." 
 And why? Because the men are niggardly, do not care 
 for home comforts, are averse to entertaining? Not at 
 all; but primarily because, unlike her European sister, 
 the average American city bred woman is &poor, aye 
 even a slovenly housekeejyer. They are not mean, or 
 penurious, the majority are prodigal in what they 
 spend but they lack the careful tuition that the 
 English mother, or the German " Hau&frau " 
 invariably bestows upon her daughter, and in 
 consequence there is more reckless waste, more 
 useless extravagance among Americans than is found 
 in any other nation on the globe, and whereas an 
 F 
 
02 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 American city bred girl is in most instances well 
 educated, the American mother usually forgets the 
 prime import of fitting her daughter for household 
 duties; and possibly without even being aware of it, 
 the average American is in most cases afraid he does 
 not live as well as his neighbor, that his wife does 
 not set so nice a table, or so clean a cloth as his 
 neighbor s wife, and so unconsciously he feels 
 ashamed of his home, of his table, aye, even of his 
 wife, and as a result hospitality is gradually dying 
 out and the American women not the men are to 
 
 blame. 
 
 Look to a man s stomach 
 And you win his heart. 
 
 And as Lord Lytton said ; 
 
 We may live without poetry, music and art ; 
 We may live without conscience, and live without heart ; 
 We may live without friends ; we may live without books; 
 But civilized man cannot live without cooks. 
 
 He may live without books what is knowledge but grieving ! 
 He may live without hope what is hope but deceiving ? 
 He may live without love what is passion but pining ? 
 But where is the man that can live without dining ? 
 
 As a sequence to our hospitality, we soon had a 
 great many friends, particularly among the male sex. 
 They were all agreeable companions, good sunny 
 day acquaintances, but none of them posessed of 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 83 
 
 qualities which go to make up the " friend in 
 need/ 
 
 Among these, there was one who soon became 
 deeply infatuated with my wife. 
 
 Himself a widower, an excellent talker, and of 
 necessity racher popular with women, he soon 
 ingratiated himself into my wife s favor. 
 
 I would permit him to call at any and all times, 
 and had not my wife herself opened my eyes to my 
 blindness, I might have continued his acquaintance 
 to this day. 
 
 Once upon a time I remember his telling me ; 
 
 "Bob, it is a wonderful thing how you ever ran 
 across a girl like your wife. To think in a city like 
 New York, among over a million of people, to find 
 " one woman in a million ! " 
 
 Another friend would tell me, how much he 
 admired her; that he had never seen so agreeable a 
 woman ; how beautiful she was ; how he loved to 
 see her smile ! 
 
 And If 
 
 I would be delighted, flattered, pleased. The 
 more men thought of my wife, aye, even if they loved 
 her, the better I liked them. My Edith was wy wife, 
 as such, no matter what I did, she was immaculate ! 
 Why, I would as willingly have doubted truth 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 itself, as to think her capable of a thought other 
 than pure. And I loved her ! I worshiped her, and 
 I was not mistaken in her. She was good, goodness 
 personified. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 At this time we were rushing things at a rather 
 rapid pace. 
 
 Fond of amusements, of music, of art, there was 
 not a theatrical performance, not a new production 
 of any kind at which my wife and I were not usually 
 first nighters. After the performances no place but 
 Delmonicos would suit us, (the Holland, Waldorf 
 and Imperial \vere then unknown), and seldom did 
 we retire until a rather early hour in the morning. 
 We were living very fast. 
 
 Just then my wife again found herself enciente. 
 In great part owing to our rapid life, the child then 
 born, was weakly and only lived a few weeks. Its 
 death was our fast sorrow. It however seemed to 
 knit us closer together. As I at the time took a 
 great part of the blame to myself, my wife seemed 
 to grow the more fond and affectionate towards me. 
 I honestly believe at the period whereof I now 
 write, my wife really loved me. 
 
 In the meantime our little boy had grown into a 
 
8G A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 manly looking tofc of three. Sturdy, strong, of a 
 splendid constitution, he had such fine eyes, such a 
 beautiful head, surmounted by such lovely golden 
 hair, that his nurses would be stopped in the street, 
 people would ask whose boy he was, and often when 
 he would be at our parlor windows, would I see and 
 hear of passers-by throwing kisses at, or calling 
 attention to him. He was so beautiful, so sturdy, so 
 manly a boy, that a famous dentist, who lived on the 
 next street, in the rear of our own apartments, sent to 
 us requesting that the beautiful golden haired boy be 
 brought over to his office. He wanted to see him. Ah, 
 Ry> J ou were the pride of both your mother s and 
 your father s life. The joy of your grandmother s 
 existence. Little did we think that you would so 
 soon step beyond us, into the infinite, where no 
 doubt you are at this moment awaiting the coming 
 of him, who took you in his arms when you could 
 hardly walk, who rocked and cooed you to sleep for 
 many a night, and who for fear of disturbing 
 "papa s boy " would hold you silently by the hour, 
 even until his very arms ached. And when you grew 
 older, how your papa was all in all to you ! How it 
 was papa first, last, and all the time ! How you 
 instinctively seemed to feel " my PAPA " was every 
 thing you had in the world. How once upon a time 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 87 
 
 when one of your nurses jokingly toldjou, your papa 
 did not know everything ; he heard you in perfect 
 horror pull her to rights, and rebuke her for her lack 
 of respect ! 
 
 Ah Roy, boy, this is years ago, but when your 
 daddy thinks of the pride he took in you, how before 
 you were a year old, he would buy you books which 
 he knew you would like to read when you got to the 
 a^e of nine, ten, or eleven, airl how his friends used 
 to joke and jive him on his compiling a " nursery 
 library!" Ah, my boy, it is hard to think that you 
 had to leave us so soon; you that were to be papa s 
 lawyer; papa s help meet; mamma s stand by; 
 mamma s prop. 
 
 At about this time I had business calling me to 
 Europe. I had taken passage for my wife as well as 
 myself, when at the last moment, she changed her 
 mind. I went alone. She to Newport. 
 
 While in Europe, making my stay as short as 
 possible, I purchased everything imaginable, which 
 I thought might be useful and at the same time 
 pleasing to my wife. Silks by the piece, stockings, 
 gloves, handkerchiefs, cloaks, dress goods, and 
 everything that I thought my wife could need, or 
 would like to have, and for my boy almost every 
 thing I could find. I almost impoverished myself 
 
88 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 On leaving, I cabled my wife when to expect me. I 
 arrived on the Aurania on a Sunday; just at 
 sundown. It was about half an hour too late for the 
 health officer to pass us. 
 
 Only those who have had similar experiences can 
 appreciate my feelings. In sight of land, with the 
 city I loved in full view of me, with my wife awaiting 
 me at my home, I was forced to stay on board ship 
 until sunrise, no matter how I longed to meet and 
 greet my dear ones ! And how my fellow passengers 
 grumbled and growled, and how drearily the hours 
 sped on, until the next morning we finally reached 
 our dock. "While slowly and majestically sailing 
 up the river, how I scanned the pier we were 
 bound for, trying to catch a glimpse of my wife, or 
 boy ! And then to be greeted by no one, and only, 
 when in the midst of a custom house officers 
 examination, to have my father-in-law come up to 
 me, grab me by the arm, give me a hearty shake of 
 the hand, and on my inquiring for my wife, to be 
 told she staid over at Newport till this morning, and 
 although she will arrive to-night, thought she would 
 ask me to meet you instead- 
 
 Good old man that you were, John B., and firm as 
 your friendship ever has stood the test of years, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 89 
 
 you were not my wife, and cruel it was for me to 
 be so heartlessly disappointed ! 
 
 Howsoever ; after I had been home some hours, my 
 wife and family arrived, and then what excitement 
 there was in opening my trunks, and how deeply I felt 
 It was " more blessed to give than to receive." And 
 after the last bundle had been opened, I was fully 
 repaid, when my wife in thanking me,drawled out : 
 
 "You have done a great deal better than I 
 expected, dear. I thought you would bring home a 
 Jot of trash 
 
 The years went by. We moved to more expensive 
 quarters, and from paying a rental of twelve hundred 
 dollars per year, we moved to the house, 
 where nothing less than about double that figure 
 would give us the desired accommodations. 
 
 There we made new friends, met new faces, and my 
 wife s health being excellent, fell into more than our 
 former round of pleasures. 
 
 It was there, however, that my Nemesis o er took 
 me, and whereas misery and desertion did not follow 
 until long after, it nevertheless was while residing 
 there that I met the " devil incarnate," to whom all 
 my subsequent troubles were attributable. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Solomon Nathan was a jew ! But one of those mis 
 named jews of whom, fortunately, the race boasts 
 but few. Born in Frankfort, educated in Venice, 
 transplanted to Paris, he had the audacity to style 
 himself a Parisian. He was ashamed of his nation. 
 A Jew of the Jews, both by name and in looks, 
 yet this "modern Macchiavelli " usually lied even 
 about his parentage. 
 
 Ashamed of his nation ! 
 
 What people can boast a history such as that of 
 the Jews ? The Roman claims a Caesar ; the 
 Macedonian an Alexander; the Franks a Charlemagne; 
 the Germans a Barbarossa; this country a Wash 
 ington ; the world a Napoleon. But who aside from 
 the Jews can boast of a Law-Giver who saw the 
 JLordface to face of a Ruler, a man after God s own 
 heart of a king who in riches and wisdom surpassed 
 all other kings ; and of ancestors such as Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob compare them with Remus and 
 Romulus and then think of tdie Prophets whose 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 91 
 
 glory will last forever ; and of Him, the KING OF 
 KINGS, the son of God, who born of the house of 
 David, was a Jew -one of God s own people, and 
 yet the Redeemer of the world. 
 
 And later, who has not heard of Mamonendes, 
 Aben-Ezra, Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, 
 Sylvester, and Isaac Goldschmidt ? And in more 
 recent times, of Juda P. Benjamin, Disraeli, of 
 Montefiore, Cremieux, and Hegel ? Among musicans 
 whose operas are grander than Meyerbeer s, Kossini s 
 and Halevy s ; whose oratorios (Handel excepted) 
 more soul-stirring than Mendelssohn s. 
 
 Among poets does not Heinrich Heine stand in 
 the front f 
 
 In " Ben Hur, Lew Wallace says : 
 
 I always think of great men marching down the centuries 
 in groups, and goodly companies, separable according to 
 nationalities; here t v e Indian; there the Egyptian; yonder 
 the Assyrian ; above them the music of trumpets, and the 
 beauty of banners ; and on the right hand and left, as 
 reverend spectators, the generations from the beginning, 
 numberless. As they go, I think of the Greeks, saying : Lo ! 
 the Hellene leads the way ! Then the Ilomau replies, Silence ! 
 What was your place is ours now ; we have left you behind as 
 dust trodden on. And all the time, from tVie far f*ont, back 
 over the line of march, as well as the foreward into the farthest 
 future, streams a light of which wranglers know nothing, 
 except that it is forever leading them on the light of 
 Revelation ! Who are they that carry it ? Ah, the old Judeau 
 blood ! How it leaps at the thought ! By the light we kn>\v 
 them. Thrice blessed, O our fathers, servants of God, 
 keepers of the Covenants ! Ye are the leaders of men, the 
 living and the dead. The front i* thine ; and. though everj 
 Roman were a Ciesar, ye shall not lose it ! 
 
92 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 My son, use your fancy and stand with me, as if by the 
 way-side, while the chosen of Israel pass us at the head of the 
 procession. Now they come the patriarchs first; next the 
 fathers of the tribes. I almost hear the bells of their camels, 
 and the lowing of their herds. "Who is he that walks alone 
 between the companies ? An old man, yet his eye is not dim, 
 nor his natural force abated. He knew the Lord face to face ! 
 Warrior, poet, orator, law-giver, prophet, his greatness is as 
 the sun at morning, its flood of splendor quenching all other 
 lights, even that of the first and noblest of the Caesars. After 
 him the judges ; and then the kings ; the son of Jesse, a hero 
 in war, and a singer of songs eternal, as that of the sea ; and 
 his son, who, passing all other kings in riches and wisdom, 
 and while making the desert habitable, and in its waste places 
 planting cities, forgot not Jerusalem, which the Lord hath 
 chosen for his seat on earth. 
 
 Bend lower, my son ! These that come next are the first of 
 their kind, and the last. Their faces are raised, as if they 
 heard a voice from the sky, and were listening. Their lives 
 were full of sorrow. Their garments smell of tombs and 
 caverns. Hearken to a woman among them" Sing ye to the 
 Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously ! " Nay, put your 
 forehead in the dust before them, they were tongues of God, 
 the servants, who looked through heaven, and seeing all the 
 future, wrote what.they saw, and left the writing to be proven 
 by time. Kings turned pale as they approached them, and 
 nations trembled at the sound of their voices. The elements 
 waited upon them. In their hands they carried every bounty 
 and every plague. See the Tishbite and his servant Elisha ! 
 See the sad son of Hilkiah, and him the seer of visions, by the 
 river of Chebar ! And of the three children of Judah who 
 refused the image of the Babylonian, lo ! that one who, in the 
 feast to the thousand lords, so confounded the astrologers. 
 And yonder, O my son, kiss the dust again 1 -" yonder the 
 gentle son of Amoz, from whom the world has its promise of 
 the Messiah to come ! " 
 
 And this man was ashamed of his nation ! 
 
 I originally met him while living at the 
 
 Hotel. Homelier than the majority of men, 
 
 he was one of those thin, wiry, nervous bodies, who 
 from their very lack of other attractions, seem 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 93 
 
 posessed of a certain animal magnetism, which 
 existing, as it usually does for evil mukt -s 
 of angels devils; of devils demons; and when 
 exerted to influence women in ninety-nine cases out 
 of a hundred succeeds love, honor and religion 
 notwithstanding in accomplishing its purpose. 
 
 His face was thin and cadaverous, his head (bald 
 and almost devoid of hair) abnormally small, 
 mouth large and wicked, eyes of a yellowish color, 
 like unto those of a rabbit or monkey, while the 
 most prominent feature of his face was a long, thin, 
 extra-ordinarily large nose, which at the end was 
 particularly broad and wide, and which uncon 
 sciously reminded the beholder when taken in 
 connection with his other features of "Darwin s 
 Descent of Man." In fact, if ever man descended 
 from animal, this one was less removed than the 
 majority. His looks proved it ! Beast was written 
 all over him. He always made me think of dirt. 
 His thin, colorless mustache seemed muddy, and 
 involuntarily I used to think his very touch 
 pollution. 
 
 Yet this man was poseesed of so much magnetism, 
 hypnotic influence, or whatever you chose to term it, 
 that I called him friend, and unconsciously made 
 more of him than I would of a brother. 
 
94 A NEW ENGLAND \VOMAK. 
 
 Instinct warned me against him. And yet, as the 
 glitter of a snake s eye is said to irresistibly attract 
 certain birds, so irresistibly did he attract me to him 
 that (as told in one of my preceding chapters), he 
 was the very man who personally was cognizant of, 
 and present with me, when undergoing the deepest 
 misery I, up to that time, had ever endured. 
 
 After my marriage, I lost sight of him for fully 
 five years. During that time he had married, and as 
 chance would have it, I again ran across him at 
 about the time I write of. 
 
 What evil genius prompted me to take him to my 
 house, introduce him to my wife, invite him to call 
 again, and bring his wife, I hardly know. 
 
 Poor little woman, she ! Pretty, as she once upon 
 a time must have been ; frail, as at the time of meet 
 ing her, she certainly was , her very looks seemed to 
 be a mute protest as to the character of the man she 
 had married. 
 
 She died within less than a year after our first 
 acquaintance. 
 
 She had a sweet face, and when she and Edith 
 first met, they seemed irresistibly attracted toward 
 one another. A week before she died, my wife told 
 me how the poor woman had wept at the thought of 
 her husband s selfishness, and apparent indifference 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 95 
 
 how she had complained of his taking other women 
 to the Opera ; particularly one, who under the guise 
 of respectability, had been forced upon her, and was 
 at that moment residing at their very hotel ! 
 
 And to think, that this man, this apology for man, 
 should shortly thereafter knowing his faults as she 
 did be able to hypnotize, magnetize and finally 
 influence my wife that eventually she became 
 perfectly impervious to everything but his wishes, 
 and permitted him to so control her, as to make her, 
 for a while at any rate, none other than a pliant tool 
 in his hands. 
 
 And I? 
 
 I almost permitted him to become one of my 
 family. At least six days out of the seven would he 
 dine at our table. Seldom a day that we did not see 
 him at our apartments, and whereas I never liked 
 him, he was with us so much, so often, and always, 
 that more far-seeing people used to remark upon it 
 and it was not long before gossip had it that he was 
 in love with my wife, and that I was perfectly blind. 
 When I did hear of these remarks. I was amused, 
 knowing full well, although the man might admire my 
 wife, and mayhap, even love her, she, why she was 
 adamant, alabaster, marble, and no matter what other 
 women were, my wife was purity, honor and probity 
 
96 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 itself. Her mother in talking about her to me had 
 once upon a time told me, she had never known her 
 child to be guilty of sin, even in thought. And 
 perhaps unconsciously I had grown to regard my 
 wife as of a higher order of being than ordinary 
 mortals. The result was when my relations and 
 friends warned me against the man s continual 
 companionship, I simply said I not my wife was 
 the attraction, and I honestly thought so too. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 At about this time happening one day to stop at 
 Sheepshead Bay, an English friend suggested we 
 attend the Coney Island races. 
 
 Never having visited a race course before, I was 
 comfortably ensconced at the side of my wife, when 
 after a rather exciting finish, my friend jubilantly 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Well that is worth just twenty pounds to me." 
 
 Thinking, if a perfect stranger could so easily win 
 money, I might succeed equally well, I entered 
 the betting ring, and selected a horse, where on an 
 investment of a fiver, I might win two hundred. 
 Needless to say, I was disappointed 1 Thinking I 
 would look for my money where I lost it, I invested 
 another fiver on a twenty to one shot, and again 
 found myself wiser, but poorer. Never having 
 gambled before, I remember, I felt particularly 
 uncomfortable, but having noticed that the short 
 odds seemed to win, and that the favorites were 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 reaching the goal first, I in the next race put up ten 
 dollars against sixteen, and won. 
 
 I was jubilant ! I stood in line, thinking 
 my ticket was worth sixteen dollars, and 
 that in consequence I was ooly four dollars loser 
 on the day. when I was surprised to receive back 
 twenty-six dollars, the sixteen, and my original 
 investment. 
 
 Hello ! thinks I, what fools men are ! They are 
 greedy, and want to get rich too quick. Four 
 favorites have won to-day, and only one outsider. 
 I will come here some day, will play favorites only : 
 and, if I lose twice, I am pretty sure to win the 
 other four times. 
 
 Accordingly, unbeknown to anybody, I, some days 
 thereafter, visited the races again ; and, as absolutely 
 every favorite won, I arrived home with my pockets 
 literally bulging out with money, and telling my wife 
 to count what I had, I told her I thought going to 
 the races the greatest sport I knew of, and that I 
 had discovered the secret " as to how to do it." 
 
 The very next day I visited Brighton, where I, 
 however, soon found the associations somewhat 
 different, and also found favorites were not winning. 
 After playing them four consecutive times and 
 finding myself quite a loser, I happened to alight on 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 99 
 
 JL horse, whose jockey in previous races had evinced 
 good judgment, and as this horse won, on an invest 
 ment of twenty dollars, I found myself some four 
 hundred the richer. As good luck seldom travels 
 alone, on an investment of fifty dollars in the very 
 next race, I cashed in over five hundred dollars, and 
 being paid pretty largely in small bills, I was actually 
 almost unable to pocket my winnings, and had to 
 put the money into every conceivable place about my 
 person. 
 
 I refer to the foregoing as I thus contracted a 
 habit which eventually induced me to join all our 
 reputable jockey clubs, and whereas I only frequented 
 the legitimate tracks, and then only on #ala days, it 
 was on one of these gala days, where, as a member 
 of the C. I. J. C., I was sitting with my wife in our 
 club house, where an episode occurred which at the 
 time passed unnoticed, but which in subsequent 
 years I have often thought of and reverted to. 
 
 It was on the occasion of the famous Suburban 
 which Salvator won. 
 
 In my day I have seen Hindoo, Luke Blackburn, 
 Monitor, Parole, Eole, Iroquois, and Miss Woodford. 
 Later on Fireiizi, The Bard, Troubadour, Hanover, 
 Tremout, Domino, Tammany. Lamplighter, and 
 every other king or queen of the turf who ever 
 
100 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 looked through a bridle. But as among men there 
 was only one Julius Caesar among horses, (to my 
 mind at any rate) there was only one Salvator. 
 
 Among the grand lot above enumerated, all 
 excepting Tremont were repeatedly disgracefully 
 beaten. The latter only ran in thirteen races as a 
 two year old, and if he had continued in training, it 
 is very doubtful as to whether he would have been 
 able to go a distance, as to the best of my recollec 
 tion speed not stamina seemed to be his forte. 
 
 But Salvator : 
 
 As a two year old he started six times. He was beaten 
 twice. Once, when green, the first time out of the box he 
 came in a close fourth to his stable companion, who was only 
 beaten a neck by the Faverdale colt. The next time he was 
 only beaten a head by the famous Proctor Knott, who then, was 
 pounds better than any other horse in America. 
 
 As a three year old, he started eight times, and then was only 
 beaten once by Longstreet, and Proctor Knott, to whom he 
 was conceding from five to seven pounds each, and nearly all 
 knowing horse-men have since conceded the race was one of 
 those flukes which unaccountable as they are, nevertheless 
 go far toward making the "sport of kings," the game of 
 chance it is. 
 
 In his four year old career he started five times, each 
 time scoring brackets, and if he had started fifty times, I 
 doubt whether in his four year old form, there was a horse in 
 the universe who could make him extend himself ! 
 
 But to my story : 
 
 Early in the winter I had managed to place quite 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 101 
 
 a little sum of money on this horse, at the odds of 
 twenty -five to one to win, and ten to one to show up. 
 When the weights were announced, I looked upon 
 the race as a gift to my favorite. A few days before 
 the event, the papers were full of accounts of the 
 wonderful trial he had shown. The odds had 
 dropped from an average of twenty to one, down to 
 three, and even two to one, and had it not "been 
 for an an insane plunge on Tenny, Salvator would 
 beyond question have been barred in the betting. 
 
 On the day of the race, the city seemed wild, the 
 sporting fraternity at any rate so. Here there were 
 adherents of the Haggin colors, there believers in 
 the prowess of Pulsifer s " Sway Back/ I have 
 known of judges excusing, nay of courts in New 
 York City and Brooklyn adjourning, so as to enable 
 members of the bar, and others, to attend this much 
 talked of, never to be forgotten race. 
 
 My wife and I left the city early, and were 
 comfortably and snugly installed, while thousands 
 of less fortunate spectators were not only unable to 
 secure seats, but in a good many instances were 
 prevented from even obtaining a view of the tracV, 
 so dense was the crowd. 
 
 After three ordinary races had been decided, which 
 only whetted the anticipations of the spectators, 
 
102 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 who one and all came to see the great Suburban, 
 and after the nine participants had been duly 
 warmed up, and had been given their finishing 
 touches, they duly formed in procession, and were 
 paraded in front of the grand stand in the following 
 order ; First to appear was Longstreet, with Martie 
 Bergen on his back. Next to him, Prince Koyal, 
 with Spider Anderson as his pilot. Then Mr. 
 Gal way s Montague, with Martin as his jockey. 
 Next Kaceland,(the previous years winner), on whom 
 sat sphynx like Tony Hamilton. Then Stride way, to 
 ride whom, George Taylor had been specially 
 engaged. Then Cassius, on whom Fred Taral had 
 the mount. After him the " sway back " Tenny, 
 speedy, game, but uncertain, with whom Garrison 
 felt cock sure of winning, and on whom he was 
 practicing all the clap trap, love of applause, 
 theatrical jockey tricks he only was capable of; and 
 lastly the two Haggin representatives, Firenzi and 
 Salvator; Kay on the former; Ike Murphy on the 
 latter. 
 
 Beturning to the starting point, it took Mr. Cald- 
 well but a few minutes to align them in almost 
 perfect order, and suddenly catching them to a 
 wonderfully prompt and even start, he dropped his 
 
A NEW FNUHNU WoMv.V ll)) , 
 
 flag, and fully thirty thousand voices involuntarily 
 shouted : 
 
 " They re off." 
 
 The first to show was Strideway; hardly a 
 fractional second thereafter Cassius broke through 
 the ranks, and rushing to the front, he led past the 
 stand, followed by Longstreet, and Strideway. As 
 they neared the quarter post, Cassius had increased 
 his lead to four lengths, while hia nearest 
 attendants were still Strideway and Longstreet, with 
 Salvator in the rear of Raceland and Prince Royal. 
 Tenny absolutely last. 
 
 At the half mile post, Cassius lead had been some 
 what shortened, while Longstreet and Strideway 
 were running close up, with Salvator next. 
 
 An eighth of a mile further, Longstreet dropped 
 back beaten, and without any apparent effort the 
 colored Archer gave Salvator his head, and he 
 quickly disposed of the fast tiring Strideway. Once 
 in the home stretch it seemed as if Fred Taral, on 
 Cassius, still had something in reserve, as with 
 little apparent urging, the latter gained on his 
 closest attendant, but Ike Murphy knew what sort 
 of cattle he had in front of him, he knew the Titan 
 he was riding, but he also knew that the wide awake 
 snapper was on the only thoroughbred who had any 
 
104 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN". 
 
 pretentious to class in the same category, and 
 knowing Garrison s tactics, Ike Murphy played 
 possum, and waited. 
 
 On they come! Cassius still leading, and 
 apparently gaining; Salvator second; Strideway 
 third. 
 
 Some enthusiasts commenced shouting ; Cassius 
 wins ! Cassius wins ! When all of a sudden the cry 
 was raised: Look at Garrison; just watch Tenny ! 
 And well they might ! 
 
 Up to this point the snapper had permitted his 
 mount to trail in the rear, but as they neared the 
 last quarter, humping his back, and bending over in 
 his " do or die style," Garrison seemed to whisper to 
 Tenny, and his horse, understanding what was 
 expected of him, seemed to be taking two jumps to 
 every other horses one. He actually seemed to be 
 flying. 
 
 TENNY WINS TENNY WINS ! they yelled. 
 
 Just then Murphy awoke. Riding his horse like a 
 centaur, he gave one look behind, and merely letting 
 out a link, the noble chestnut was given his head, 
 and striding over Cassius as if he were tied, the 
 Suburban was won by Salvator in the fastest time it 
 had ever been run in. 
 
 Oh, the shouting, the cheering, the hurrahing. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 105 
 
 I had seen many races. None grander than this. 
 My investment had netted me, what to some men, 
 would seem a fortune. I hurried to my wife, who, 
 although ordinarily phlegmatic and indifferent, on 
 this occasion awoke. She smiled, she congratulated 
 me. I almost embraced her in public. I was too 
 delighted to stay, the strain had been such that I 
 needed relaxation. 
 
 We went to Manhattan Beach to dinner. There 
 we met a gentleman friend. Mi/ wife greeted him. She 
 smiled! She positively seemed more delighted at 
 meeting him, than at my wonderful good fortune. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 In the meantime, my family had increased, and I 
 now was the proud father of Koy, and a little 
 daughter we called Enid, and a little baby boy. 
 
 Children seemed to come to my wife without 
 effort. Not that she wanted them, but paradoxical 
 as it may seem perhaps because she did not want 
 them they were born to her apparently without 
 trouble, and whereas she always felt miserable when 
 carrying them, and invariably vowed she never would 
 have any more, she nevertheless seemed destined to 
 have her fair share of them. 
 
 Once, on my telling her this was the natural order 
 of things, she flew at me in a perfect rage, and 
 whereas, ordinarily she was gentleness and goodness 
 itself, on occasions such as these, she seemed to be 
 a different woman entirely. 
 
 Later on, I discovered most of her perverted ideas 
 and hallucinations on this subject, were attributable 
 to her mother s occult teachings, in which she had for 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 107 
 
 years persisted. She would always condole with her 
 daughter, would always say ; 
 
 " Oh, Edith, dear. You must not have any more 
 children. Think how it will eventually affect your 
 health ! Think how it will ruin your figure ! 
 
 And in this she was joined by some equally over 
 wise zealots, mostly of New England extraction, 
 and whereas I know the generality of the world 
 attribute the worst of crimes to the French, I for one 
 feel convinced, puritanical, straight-laced, New 
 England vies, if it does not actually out-do France. 
 In fact, incidentally, I want to take this opportunity 
 of stating : 
 
 The world judges the French by the Parisians- 
 France by Paris ! I wonder how many of my 
 readers know that there is less bastardy in France 
 by fully forty per cent, than there is in either 
 Scotland, England, Norway, or Germany? Further 
 more, as to general family life and characteristics : 
 There is no nation where the love of home, the 
 veneration for the old, the care for the aged is more 
 evidenced than in France. 
 
 But as to my wife ! Principled, high minded, 
 noble and honest woman that she was ; she and I 
 never could in calmness discuss the subject of 
 raising a family. 
 
108 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 She had been an only child. As such, she had 
 been spoiled by both her father and mother ; and, 
 whereas by nature she was gentle, kind and deeply 
 considerate of others, she nevertheless had, in child 
 hood, been allowed so much of her own way, that 
 unconsciously, after marriage, I had seldom thwarted 
 or circumvented her in any of the least of her 
 wishes. 
 
 She was a very cold woman. Few of the ordinary 
 endearments such as are apt to exist between 
 husband and wife passed between us. I hardly 
 remember an occasion when she ever voluntarily 
 offered to even kiss me, and in her case I often 
 mentally reverted to Tennyson s immortal lines : 
 
 Oh woman them art lesser man 
 
 And thy passions unto mine 
 
 Are as moonlight unto sunlight 
 
 And as water unto wine. 
 
 But T loved her ! Nay I worshipped her ! As in 
 the days when I was courting, I was perfectly 
 content to sit at her side, to feel her presence near 
 me, to know she was mine, and perhaps love her the 
 deeper, because unconsciously, her arrogating to 
 herself the posession of more voluntary chastity and 
 virtue than her neighbor, she made me believe she 
 was the chaster, the purer, the better a woman. 
 
 I looked upon her as upon a beautiful picture 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 109 
 
 , 
 
 which I loved to have before me. It might be costly, 
 but I owned it; it V</N muie, and I was a fool. 
 
 At about this time, resultant on our increasing 
 family, we gave up apartments and joined the ranks 
 of house-keepers, on the new and beautiful west side 
 of town. 
 
 We commenced furnishing elegantly, went from 
 one extravagance to another, and when our house 
 was completely finished, I remember Edith one 
 day voluntarily telling me she had never in our 
 early days dreamed she would be mistress of so fine 
 a house. 
 
 We seemed perfectly happy, and excepting one 
 instance which later occur ences brought back to my 
 mind, I never saw the least sign of dissatisfaction or 
 rebellion in her. 
 
 The instance I refer to, occurred at about the time 
 of Mrs. Nathan s death. Edith saw a great deal 
 of her, and thinking my wife s health might eventually 
 be affected by too frequent calls, I requested her to 
 partially discontinue her visits. I remember 
 her saying : 
 
 "I will do just as I choose! In fact I have not 
 enough of my own way anyhow. I really think you 
 imagine I am a fool, but you \vill find out 
 differently some day, young man ! You do not know 
 
110 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 , 
 
 me at all, and if ever I make up my mind, you had 
 just better look out. 
 
 Mere words, they seemed to me. I believe I even 
 laughed aloud at her spunkiness. But in after years, 
 when I questioned myself, when thread by thread I 
 took up our old life, these words came back to me, and 
 I saw them written in letters of fire. Not that by 
 heeding the warning, I could have averted the 
 catastrophe, but the " Mene, mene, tekel upharsin" 
 might if I had not been so trusting and over confi 
 dent, been at any rate heeded. 
 
 We were hardly comfortably settled in our new 
 home, when one evening missing Hoy s cheerful 
 " Good evening papa," which invariably greeted me, 
 I was told he had gone to bed with the stomach-ache. 
 Bushing up to his room, I found him in his crib, but 
 complaining of a pain which he had been bothered 
 with for pretty much the whole afternoon. 
 
 On inquiring as to whether our physican had been 
 called, my wife told me she had not thought it 
 necessary, but on my telling her he was hardly the 
 boy to take to bed unless he were really sick, we 
 sent for a neighboring physican, scarcely thinking 
 his trouble serious enough for us to send for our 
 regular house doctor, and on the former individual 
 making his appearance, and finding my boy asleep, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WoMAtf. Ill 
 
 he merely left some simple stomach powders to be 
 given him in case he awoke, and promising to call 
 the next day, left us. 
 
 The following morning Koy appeared slightly 
 better, so not worrying about him in the least, I was 
 surprised on my return home, to be told he had 
 again taken to his bed, the neighboring physicau 
 had seen him and prescribed for him, but if he was 
 no better the next day, wanted to again be called in. 
 
 I went up to my boy ! I carried him down stairs, 
 I put him in his papa s bed, and there tried to 
 amuse him, although he could not but complain of 
 the pains he was laboring under. 
 
 It was on the next day that this nimcoop of a 
 physican suggested to us that our boy might 
 possibly have something serious the matter with 
 him, and in consequence would like us to call in our 
 regular physican for consultation. No sooner said 
 than done. 
 
 I sent for my old friend. He consulted with 
 this nimcoop for over an hour, and anxious and 
 upset as I was, I was finally called in. 
 
 From the face of my old friend, I saw something 
 serious was amiss. 
 
 "Mr. F ," he said, "your boy probably has 
 
 appendicitis. 1 We cannot be sure of it, but he has 
 
112 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 every sympton and indication of it. If lie really has 
 it, there is only one chance among a thousand of his 
 surviving, unless he has an operation performed on 
 him. And in his present condition I would not 
 advise it. 
 
 Cold, cruel, hard, every day words ! How ye 
 struck me like sledge hammer blows ! 
 
 "Doctor, what shall I do, what can I do? " 
 
 "Nothing, Mr. F , merely wait and see. We 
 
 may be wrong in our prognocis, and in that event as 
 he is now so weak, an operation might be fatal. If 
 he were my son, I would not permit it." 
 
 With that he was about leaving. I followed him 
 to the door. 
 
 " Oh doctor," I cried, " can we not do anything, 
 could not something have been done differently ? " 
 
 "Yes, if I had been called when first he was taken, 
 I would probably have advised an operation at once. 
 Now I am afraid it is too late. I am so sorry, and 
 Eoy such a fine boy ! " 
 
 Ah, old friend, your words were meant kindly, but 
 they drove all hope out of my heart. 
 
 It was then I went into my lone chamber. It was 
 then I fell down upon my knees, and prayed to God 
 to save my boy, my son. " Oh God, grant my boy 
 may live," I cried, "grant, oh Lord, that his life 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 113 
 
 may be saved ! Thou gavest him to me, oh Lord, 
 save him for me if Thou wilt ! Oh Lord, if Thou 
 spare his life, I will dedicate him to Thee, and to Thy 
 cause. I have siuued against Thee, oh Lord. My 
 sin has found me out. Against Thee, oh Lord, Thee 
 only have I sinned. Spare my boy ! Spare him, oh 
 Lord, for his mother s sake, if not for my sake, and 
 as 1 offer his life to Thee, oh Lord, spare him for 
 Thy own glory." 
 
 I had not prayed in years ! At first I found I WHS 
 not on speaking terms with my Maker. A life of 
 ease, luxury, and indifference had made me forgetful 
 of Him, who watches over all things. When my 
 misery brought me to Him, I knew not how to pray. 
 Finally, I kept repeating and repeating the words 
 that came to me, as in the prayer just written, and 
 it was only, after hours of misery, after hours of 
 wrestling, that I arose and felt resigned to leave to 
 Him the out-come. 
 
 "Thy ways, oh Lord, not mine, be done!" 
 I looked up the mother ! She had known how 
 seriously sick he was even the night before, but in the 
 practice of secretiveness, and the unconscious love of 
 secrecy, she Had purposely refrained from worrying 
 me, thinking that the physican we had was doing all 
 he could. 
 
114 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 And I found the mother at the foot of my boy s 
 couch. Her face set and hardened, not a tear in her 
 eyes, and our boy suffering the tortures of the 
 damned. 
 
 I beckoned to her. I told her, with eyes suffused, 
 how great the danger ! She bowed her head. She 
 was speechless. In desperation we sent for other 
 physicians, for the famous surgeon, Dr. Bull, who 
 drove up in his brougham, merely looked at our boy, 
 repeated what we had been told before, and left. 
 
 I could not remain in the room and witness my 
 child s sufferings. Several times when partially 
 conscious he called for me. 
 
 " Where is papa? " I heard him say. 
 
 I would be in the next room. I would rush in. 
 
 " Papa," he would say, "you promised me a pony 
 pretty soon. Will I have it ? " 
 
 "Yes, my darling," I would answer, and off he d 
 go. A few moments thereafter he would open his 
 eyes, and exclaim ; 
 
 " Papa, when I get better, you told me you would 
 let me have whatever I wanted ! 
 
 "Yes, my child," I would say. In another 
 second he would be imagining himself on his- bicycle, 
 with two or three other bicycles and a wagon behind 
 him. He working away for dear life, pulling 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 115 
 
 them all up hill. The next moment he would give 
 orders to James (our butler) to hurry up dinner, 
 papa s in a hurry! Then again he would imagine he 
 was at school reciting his lessons, and on other 
 occasions he would be telling a girl, Margery, to 
 now take these reins and hold them tight; no that is 
 not the way, and he would chide her and tell her 
 girls didn t know much, and all the time his breath 
 would come in quick, sharp, gasps, and his heart 
 would be plainly neard beating like unto the hard 
 puffings of an overworked engine. 
 
 As I think of those hours and bring to 
 mind this death bed scene, my eyes fill with 
 the pent up tears of years. Not that I 
 could sit through one -half of it. His misery 
 seemed to drive me out of my mind. I would rush 
 off into the next room, throw myself face downward 
 on my bed, and there moan and pray and beg and 
 beseech my Father in heaven to have mercy, to 
 have mercy upon his mother and me, and through it 
 all. for full thirty-six hours, his mother sat motionless, 
 quiet, too miserable to even weep, her face alone 
 showing the agony she was enduring, and only once, 
 a few minutes before his last gasp do I remember 
 her jumping up, wringing her hands and exclaiming : 
 
 " Oh God, there cant be a God. Why should he 
 
116 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 take my boy, my angel darling? He has never 
 done any wrong ! It is not right ! not right ! not 
 right!" 
 
 In another chapter way off at the commencement 
 of this book, I spoke of my not believing as I had 
 believed, and I had better say right here in great 
 part resultant on the worship I had for my wife, 
 I had involuntarily fallen from all semblance of 
 religion, and had even refrained from having any of 
 my children baptized, believing, in later years when 
 they had arrived at man s or woman s estate, they 
 could choose for themselves as to what form of 
 religion, if any, they wished to follow. 
 
 When in my misery I cried out to my Maker, I 
 remembered my child was not baptized. Thinking 
 in later years I might possibly return to my old 
 beliefs, I consulted my wife as to sending for a 
 minister. She consented. He was baptized. 
 
 A few minutes thereafter he breathed his last, and 
 the world seemed the darker, life the drearier, and 
 my wife and I the most miserable beings on earth. 
 And when his mother s grief finally gave way, I for a 
 time, feared for her reason. 
 
 In his conscious moments he would ask his 
 mamma : "Why is papa crying ? " and as she did 
 not wish him to see her doing likewise, she had 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 117 
 
 kept back her tears, and only at the very last did 
 nature give way. And when I tried to console her, 
 and she to comfort me ! ! ! 
 
 Ah, who thought in those days the loss of this 
 very child, this boy, who in life had knit us 
 closer together would be conducive to severing the 
 ties that should have kept us twain ONE " forever 
 and forever 1 ? " 
 
 And when she put her hand in mine, and recalled 
 some of his baby prattle, and when one of my sisters 
 whose life was devoted to the child, told me how he 
 had always gloried in the love of his father, how his 
 PAPA was the very life of his life, and how she tried 
 to console me by telling me I had been a good, a 
 kind father to him, that I had other children who 
 needed my love and care, ah Alice, it was only after 
 your well meant words and sisterly admonitions that 
 I in a measure regained strength to face the every 
 day duties of life again. 
 
CHAPTKR XVIL 
 
 Until death deprived us of our " first-born," 
 neither my wife nor I knew what misery was. We 
 had lived, but we had not suffered. 
 
 Friends of ours had experienced similar afflictions. 
 We felt sorry for them, but we knew not how deep 
 their sorrow. 
 
 Our trial awoke us. 
 
 Tis not all of life to live ; ") 
 Not all of death to die. 
 
 Having no religion, my wife could find no comfort 
 in the thought of meeting our boy in the bright 
 beyond. 
 
 Time passed; and, once again she became a 
 mother. 
 
 It was a girl. We named her Beatrice. 
 
 Boy s death the more firmly settled my wife in her 
 determination to have no more children. She even 
 once went so far as to assert she would rather die 
 than have any more. 
 
 Well ! she had no more. 
 
 My little Enid, in a measure, took Koy s place 
 with me. She was very much like him. At the 
 time she commenced toddling, he would guide her ; 
 and, poor boy ! he seemed so fond of his little 
 sister. Often, jokingly, I would have her pull her 
 "brozer s" hair, which she would "grinningly grab 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 119 
 
 at," and never would a murmur or a word of 
 objection come from my little hero. At other times 
 I would say " Dodo loves only papa. Dodo don t 
 love Roy, does she?" And the little man would 
 take his little sweetheart (as he called her) to his 
 arms, he would press her close to his heart, her head 
 on his shoulder, and he would invariably say : 
 
 "Yes, little Dodo loves her brozer Roy, doesn t 
 she ? " 
 
 And a remarkable fact it was, after his death, Dodo 
 would never permit any one to ever give her Roy s 
 chair. They both had similar ones which we kept in 
 our dining room for them, Dodo s just a little bit 
 different from Roy s, but with a difference which 
 was hardly perceptible. But this little tot of three 
 invariably knew one was sacred to the memory of her 
 dear good brother, and to this day she still remem 
 bers him as if they had only parted yesterday. 
 
 Well, in the watching and care of my other 
 children, and in the love and worship of their 
 mother, I found plenty to take up such time as I 
 could spare, and in the continued close relationship 
 that existed between Mr. Nathan and myself, (he 
 was with ua more than ever after we moved up 
 town), we found the months gliding by, the years 
 
120 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 coining and going, and never did my life seem more 
 peaceful or serene. 
 
 After my boy s death I became more attentive to 
 the serious duties of life, I mixed considerably less 
 in society, such as I had up to that time frequented, 
 and haunts and sets that had in a measure looked upon 
 me as upon one of their bright, particular stars, saw 
 but little of me. I was really settling down to the deep 
 realities, and consequent serious duties of this world, 
 when like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky, a 
 burst of thunder in the midst of sunshine, T was all 
 of a sudden awakened, and found myself in misery 
 second to that only, which the death of my boy had 
 made me experience. And even the heart rending 
 loss of my boy was possibly not felt so acutely, so 
 deeply as the blow that came next. 
 
 It was about the end of June 189-, when on 
 arriving home I was given a scrawl, wherein my wife 
 told me our baby having a quick touch of summer 
 complaint, the doctor had told her the only chance 
 of saving its life was to take it at once to the seaside, 
 that she in consequence had gone to Manhattan 
 Beach, and if I cared to follow, to bring what I 
 thought might be needed, as she did not have time 
 to carry along anything. 
 
 As fast as I could I hurried down there, and on 
 
A WEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 121 
 
 inquiring for her, found her in the parlor of the 
 hotel, her face the picture of despair, her child the 
 image of death, and her nurse helpless beside her. 
 The look my wife gave me was enough to freeze my 
 soul within me. 
 
 In her misery, in her love for her off-spring, her 
 very eyes seemed to say : 
 
 " And this comes of having children." 
 
 Oh ! the agony of those next few hours, of the 
 next few days, of the weeks that followed ! Our 
 baby s life hung on a shred. When I saw her in her 
 mother s arms, she, poor woman, the embodiment of 
 misery, my child appeared as lifeless as her brother 
 when he lay in his coffin. But for occasional quick, 
 sharp, piercing shrieks, we would have thought the 
 child dead. 
 
 Her mother had held her in her arms for over four 
 hours, and was so dazed she had not even secured 
 a room. To fetch a doctor, hustle the mother 
 and child up-stairs, and put every possible means 
 at her disposal, was but the work of a few minutes. 
 
 Once again my wife and I sat side by side, facing 
 the "angel of death," and only thanks to an excellent 
 doctor, although primarily thanks to unequaled 
 devotion and nursing such as I hardly deemed my 
 wife capable of, our childs life was saved, and the 
 
122 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 mother saved the father a breavement such as he 
 could hardly have again undergone. 
 
 While down at the beach, where I hastily brought 
 my entire family, Mr. Nathan wrote us he had been 
 suddenly taken sick, and whereas on my daily trips 
 to the city I only once found time to call on him, my 
 wife on her first visit managed to spare him a few 
 minutes in order to bring him some flowers and 
 inquire after his health. 
 
 Recovering, Mr. Nathan soon joined us, and 
 apparently became one of our family. Later on, I 
 heard guests of the hotel thought he appeared more 
 like a husband than I did, as half the time I would 
 either be absent, or when there, would be sitting 
 alone by myself, while Mr. Nathan, if not prome 
 nading the piazza with my wife, would be snugly 
 ensconced in another part of the hotel, assiduously 
 entertaining and amusing her. 
 
 After a while my wife thought the Berkshire Hills 
 would benefit her, and the children more than a 
 continued stay at the Beach, and as at about this 
 time Mr. Nathan s seven year old boy was expected 
 back from Europe, he proposed my wife chaperone, 
 and look after his sprosling, and the boy s 
 "Fraulein." 
 
 Acquiescing, and seeing them safely aboard the 
 
A KEW ENGLAND WOtfAtf. 123 
 
 cars, I bid my wife farewell, intending to join her 
 within a few weeks thereafter. 
 
 Mr. Nathan, in the meantime, moved his quarters 
 to my residence, and after a lapse of about two 
 weeks, I decided on joining my family. I intended 
 stopping at Saratoga, and possibly staying there 
 for three or four days, but agreed to meet Mr. 
 Nathan in on the Saturday following. 
 
 Arrived at Saratoga, and finding more gayety 
 there than I cared for, and really longing to be with 
 my wife and little ones, and thinking Edith would 
 be delighted to have me join her, I stopped at 
 Saratoga for one night only, and the next day- 
 unannounced arrived in . 
 
 Instead of the customary embrace, which after 
 absences, Edith never failed to greet me with, on 
 this occasion she merely bowed her head on seeing 
 me, and as I subsequently discovered, felt somewhat 
 annoyed to be thus surprised, whereas she had 
 expected Mr. Nathan, who that day had wired her 
 (it was Thursday) he would arrive that night instead 
 of Saturday. 
 
 Although noticing her coldness, I thought nothing 
 of it, although when Mr. Nathan arrived, I did notice 
 he seemed considerably surprised, and I particularly 
 recollect angering my wife by insisting she devote 
 
124 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 herself to me and my company, and not bother 
 herself concerning our friends room and his belong 
 ings. 
 
 Her indifference struck me to the heart. We had 
 been married over ten years. For six summers, 
 I remembered she had gone her own way; I mine. 
 Although repeatedly asked to, I never up to that 
 time had found it convenient to look her up during 
 her absences, and in this particular instance, where 
 for the first time I did so, my wife seemed to be not 
 only far from pleased, but positively annoyed at my 
 sudden arival. I thought I would giye her a Roland 
 for her Oliver. I would appear indifferent. Worse ! 
 I would endeavor to arouse her jealousy. So I 
 commenced a serious, really desparate flirtation with 
 a little bit of a young woman who ordinarily would 
 not have attracted me at all, but who, knowing my 
 wife, admired her very much, and who, notwithstand 
 ing my apparent preference for her society, will bear 
 me out that most of our talks concerned my wife, my 
 admiration and love for her, and although I spoke of 
 her coldness and indifference to me, and that she 
 did not seem to mind what I did, I nevertheless 
 convinced my listener there was only " one face in 
 the world that I loved." 
 
 However ! My attempt to arouse jealousy failed. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 125 
 
 It rather had the opposite effect ! My wife became 
 indignant, sarcastic, and to the young lady in 
 question positively rude. She and Mr. Nathan went 
 off by themselves for long walks, and I devoted 
 myself to the young lady, and although nothing 
 unpleasant passed between us up to the day on 
 which I took my departure, (my wife seeing both 
 Mr. Nathan and me to the depot), on parting, 
 instead of her lips, only offered me her cheek. 1 
 drew back and she merely smiled! 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Before commencing the next chapter, I must 
 revert to a matter which inadvertently has heretofore 
 been omitted. 
 
 In the winter preceding the events narrated, I was 
 taken with La Grippe, which, culminating in 
 pneumonia; my life was at one time despaired of. 
 My wife gave me the best of care; but, as Mr. Nathan 
 persisted on continuing his calls he came daily 
 and in consequence thereof, Edith had to give him 
 some of her society, I really began to dislike his 
 continual presence, although I was not rude enough 
 to say so. 
 
 On one occasion when my wife was out, noticing 
 some flowers that were in the room, Edith s mother 
 asked me if Mr. Nathan had sent them, and on my 
 saying no; but, that they had come from a lady friend, 
 the old lady said she was thankful, as she thought Mr. 
 Nathan might have sent them, and she did not think 
 I ought to permit him to be around so much, and 
 still less permit him to send Edith flowers and other 
 
A WEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 127 
 
 trifles which he was continually doing. I remember 
 smiling, which somewhat nettling the old lady, 
 induced her to say : 
 
 " Well, Robbie, I do not approve of his coining 
 and you ought not to permit it." 
 
 "Don t I know Edith," I replied, and with what 
 supreme confidence I spoke ! 
 
 "Oh yes, she is all right," she replied, " but I hate 
 that man, with his long nose." 
 
 The day all danger was past, and on being 
 congratulated by my physician, possibly feeling as 
 all convalescents from La Grippe are said to feel 
 mean, nasty, weak and indifferent I remember 
 saying ; 
 
 " Well, doctor, I am sorry I did not die." 
 
 On his laughingly asking me why? I replied : 
 
 "Oh, what s the good of living ? Life is nothing 
 but a struggle. I have now arranged all my affairs 
 so that if I skipped off, my business would continue, 
 my debts would be paid, and my life being heavily 
 insured, my wife would be rich and well provided for. 
 
 Just then the front door bell rang, and I heard the 
 well known click of Mr. Nathan s cane in our 
 porcelain umbrella stand, and if I had died, I 
 added, my successor, who is down stairs, would have 
 been sure to have attended my funeral. 
 
128 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 The first afternoon I was able to sit up, I had 
 arranged to have Edith dine up stairs with me. Our 
 waiter had just set the table near my lounge, when 
 as usual, although on this occasion we did not expect 
 him, Mr. Nathan popped in. My wife at once 
 wanted to join him down stairs. Not much ! 
 
 I insisted on having her remain with me. I 
 politely suggested he would not mind dining alone 
 for once. He took the hint ! Edith s face was not 
 the most pleasant " vis a vis " for that meal. 
 
 The next day she told me Mr. Nathan had not 
 eaten a morsel. That he did not like to eat alone. 
 Expressing my regrets, I said " Neither does your 
 loving husband." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 On returning from , and intending to have 
 
 our servants give the house a thorough cleaning, 
 and in consequence of carpets being lifted, some of the 
 rooms being in the hands of painters and decorators, 
 I temporarily took a suite of apartments at the - 
 house, where Mr. Nathan also joined me for a short 
 while. 
 
 We had been there hardly a week, when he told me 
 his physician had advised his giving up all business 
 and mental labor, and in consequence he thought of 
 going to his boy, who was with my wife and family. 
 No sooner said than done ; although that was 
 absolutely the first time I thought possibly the 
 world might think it peculiar for him to be so much 
 with my wife. In fact I spoke of it. He laughed. 
 He went. 
 
 Left alone, I rushed into the enjoyment of life 
 with a vim. Nightly, two or three friends would 
 dine or sup and wine with me, and on one particular 
 
130 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 evening I remember being on the roof garden of the 
 
 Casino with a very old friend of mine. A Mr. B 
 
 (an old gentleman) passed, accompanied by a most 
 beautiful girl. Being a relative of my friends, I 
 asked the latter if the young lady were his daughter. 
 
 * Not much," he replied. 
 
 Just then Mr. B beckoned us and we joined 
 
 him. After introducing us to the young lady, Mr. 
 
 B was temporarily called away. His absence 
 
 unexpectedly, lasted over an hour. On his return, 
 considerably the worse for wine, he unguardedly 
 admitted he might have hurried back somewhat, but 
 that he was not afraid of us, etc., etc. Getting 
 rather boisterous, he threw down the gauntlet in 
 such a braggadocio style that I picked him up, 
 particularly as the young lady in question was 
 nodding to me with her eyes, kicking me under the 
 table, and previous to his return had admitted he 
 was a little bit too fatherly for her 
 
 Out of pure love of mischief, I thought I would 
 tantalize the old man, and in consequence, proposed 
 his lady and I take a drive through the park, 
 and that on our return we would meet him and my 
 friend. No sooner said than done. She and I went 
 off. It was a lovely moonlit night, and after 
 enjoying the delights of a cosey ride to Mi St, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 131 
 
 Vincent and back, I arranged to take the young lady 
 the following day to the Morris Park races. 
 
 Spending a pleasant afternoon, we stopped at 
 Claremont for dinner, and taking her to her home, I 
 arranged to have her lunch with me the next day at 
 my hotel. After luncheon we took a drive through 
 the Park, from there up the road to Washington 
 Heights, Fort George, and the West End, (the most 
 beautiful part of Manhattan Island), and on our 
 return stopped at the Casino, in the Park. There 
 we came across Mr. B . 
 
 No sooner espieing us, and being invited to join us 
 at dinner, (which he refused), he undertook to tell 
 us he was through with the young lady; he had not 
 thought she would throw him over as she had ; we 
 were two of a kind, etc., etc., until becoming rather 
 personal, I undertook to tell him, in the presence of 
 the young lady, I would permit no further talk of the 
 kind he was indulging in. 
 
 He bad no sooner left than the young lady said : 
 
 " He will now go to the roof garden and tell all his 
 and my friends he has shook me, and I would really 
 like to show them that I am the one that shook 
 him." 
 
 Nothing loathe, hardly considering how fool-hardy 
 a thing I was doing, I drove to my hotel, donned 
 
132 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 another suit, and hastened with her to the very spot 
 where two nights before we had met. 
 
 As expected, he was there ! Also a number of 
 his and her friends, not to speak of the many that 
 knew me. 
 
 The old man s face blanched when he saw us alight 
 from our cab, and whereas shortly afterwards he was 
 seen on the roof, it seemed as if he was only brought 
 there by chums and confreres, whose special mission 
 it seemed to be to point us out to him, and tease, 
 nudge, and joke him about it. 
 
 The following day I met the friend who had been 
 the means of our introduction. 
 
 " My God, Rob, what have you done ? Mr. B 
 
 is wild, he is almost out of his mind. You have 
 made him the laughing stock of the town. He is 
 almost ashamed to be seen any more at the Casino. 
 He swears he will get even with you. He is going 
 to send detectives to your wife, and is going to tell 
 her all about it." 
 
 I smiled ! 
 
 " Julius," I said, " if he sent all the detectives in 
 the world, do you know what my wife would say 1 ? 
 Whatever my husband does is right. Such is her 
 faith in me." 
 
 Ah fool, fool that I was ! Such rather was my 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 133 
 
 faith in her. How little I koew or understood 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Nathan was all this time with my family, and 
 returned to town about September sixth. 
 
 Of all the temptations, insidious, invidious, 
 
 Contrived by the devil for pulling men down. 
 
 There are none so seducive, abusive, delusive, 
 
 As the snares for a man with his wife out of town. 
 
 He feels such delightfulness, stay out all-nightfulness, 
 
 may I get tightfulneas, 
 Which none can explain. 
 
 His wife may be beautiful, tender and dutiful, 
 "Us not that her absence can cause him delight, 
 But the cursed opportunity , baneful immunity, 
 Scatters his scruples as day scatters night. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 My wife returned home September 10th. I had 
 written her to do so a week before that, but as she 
 seemed anxious to prolong her absence, I acquiesced. 
 Then when the week was up, she still wanted to 
 remain away, and only on my finally telegraphing 
 Come home without fail to-day did she do so. 
 
 I met her at the depot. Mr. Nathan was also 
 there in his hand a handsome boquet. 
 
 She arrived rather late at night, and after greeting 
 me no more cordially than she did him I took up 
 my children one by one, and finally embracing little 
 Enid, who was shivering and scared at the unwonted 
 noises, we entered our carriage and made for 
 home. 
 
 For what reason I know not, but in house cleaning 
 a brass bed stead, which usually was in an adjoining 
 room, had been moved into our bed room, and 
 thinking if my wife continued as cold and indifferent 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN.. 1 
 
 as she had been, I might make use of the extra bed 
 myself, I permitted it to remain in our room until 
 after she returned. Greeting me as she had, I made 
 up my mind to occupy it, when, what was my 
 surprise on entering the room, after having remained 
 in my library for the best part of the evening, to find 
 my wife ensconced in the bed in question. I said 
 nothing, but wishing her a pleasant good night and 
 thinking she was tired, I went to sleep. The next 
 evening the same thing repeated itself. I remember 
 then saying: 
 
 " Young .woman, you got ahead of me. In conse 
 quence of your indifference, I left that bed here for 
 myself." 
 
 Smiling, she replied : 
 
 " Well, so I did get ahead of you for once in my 
 life, did I?" 
 
 After this sort of thing had repeated itself the 
 next night, I thought it was time to have an under 
 standing, and asking my wife as to her reasons, she 
 replied : 
 
 " I will give none ; but, as we have now been mar 
 ried over ten years, I do not see why you and I should 
 live other than as rich Europeans do ; and, as I want 
 no more of a family, I have made up my mind " 
 
 " To what ? " I queried. 
 
136 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " To live with you hereafter, if you wish it, but 
 not as a wife. 
 
 I do not know what then possessed me. I 
 certainly lost my temper; and. although I never 
 before had even an unpleasant word with my wife, 
 I became all of a sudden, sarcastic, bitter and 
 acrid. 
 
 I talked to her as I had never talked before. I 
 told her I had been too easy-going for years, 
 and that few men would have tamely permitted 
 what I had countenanced for so long ; and finally 
 I wound up by exclaiming ; 
 
 "Well ! let me tell you it will not suit me. I am 
 married, and not married ! Know now, then, that 
 there is not a man in New York City who is known 
 more extensively than your husband. And do you 
 think I care to live this way forever ? If you have 
 grown tired of me, say so ! But all these many 
 years have I put up with indifference, because I 
 loved you ; because my love for you, and my 
 children, induced me to put up with it, more as 
 as a matter of duty, than because I cared to 
 do it ; and, if things do not change soon, I 
 certainly will make a change myself." 
 
 One remark awakened an echo within her. 
 
 " Yes ; I have heard of your being the best 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAtf. 13? 
 
 known man about town, and among women." 
 
 They were the very words Mr. Nathan had a few 
 days before that used to me. Deliberately, slowly he 
 had been instilling a deadly poison into my mind, 
 and given me an opinion about myself such as I had 
 never previously entertained ! Had he been 
 instilling the same foul thoughts into my 
 wife s mind? I dismissed the proposition. It 
 returned to me later with ten times the 
 persistency. 
 
 I turned over and went to sleep. The next 
 morning neither of us spoke. Thinking I would 
 teach a lesson and brin^ my wife to her senses, I 
 purposely staid out to dinner, and came home 
 late at night. Few words were spoken the next 
 morning. In the evening I proposed we visit a 
 theatre. Although seemingly indifferent, she accom 
 panied me. After the theatre to supper. 
 
 On our way home, I thought (as she was so very 
 pleasant and lively) our spat was over, she would 
 change her tactics. Not so ! Arrived home she 
 again made use of the brass bedstead. Telling her 
 if this sort of life was going to continue, I would 
 prefer to have the bedstead moved into the front 
 room, to which she replied; very well; I went 
 to sleep. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 The next day I found the front sitting room had 
 been turned into a bed room, and the objectionable 
 brass bedstead had been taken there. In no 
 way angry, I joked her about her literally taking 
 up everything I said. She joked in reply. I then 
 asked her to sit on the same sofa with me ! I wished 
 to talk to her ! On her complying, I commenced to 
 reason with her. She was adamant. I said, " Edith, 
 you cannot mean to continue this sort of life." She 
 turned ice ! I used every argument I was capable 
 of. All had no effect. I said : 
 
 " Well if you really mean this, I will leave you and 
 find enjoyment elsewhere." 
 
 "Do as you choose, was her reply. 
 
 Without another word I left the house. I walked 
 the streets for an hour. Then bethinking myself, and 
 hoping my wife had come to her senses, I sat down in 
 the - hotel reading-room, and indicted a letter 
 wherein I told her how miserable I was, wherein 
 I begged her to reconsider her decision and 
 telling her she could do as she wanted to, I 
 would not want her to change at once, but I merely 
 did want her, before driving me out of my home, to 
 promise she would do her best, to try and be 
 different. Despatching the messenger, I awaited her 
 reply. It was as follows ; 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 139 
 
 DEAR ROBERT. 
 
 I do not wish to drive you out of your own home, and I 
 do not wish to pain you. I have only made up my mind on 
 an old subject; and I think you act very foolishly. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 For fully an hour I awaited her answer. For fully 
 two hours I pondered over her reply. It cut me to 
 the quick. I had neither the heart for amusement 
 or pleasure. I visited a Russian bath, and there 
 spent the night. The next morning I reached the 
 house early, and on awakening my wife, asked her 
 how she liked being alone. I forget her reply. We 
 breakfasted and she acted as if nothing out of the 
 ordinary had happened. I remained home the entire 
 day, feeling too miserable to go to my office, ancf after 
 luncheon on her preparing to go out and asking her 
 whither she was bound, she told me it was none of 
 my business. 
 
 Things went on in this way for two or three days 
 longer, (Mr. Nathan coming nightly, noticing our 
 strained relations, but not having the delicacy 
 to absent himself), until finally one Sunday I told 
 my wife I had made up my mind if she persisted in 
 her course; to leave her, and that whereas I would 
 provide for her and my children, I could not continue 
 
140 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 a life such as she was evidently anxious to have 
 me submit to, 
 
 That very day, her mother happening in town, 
 called on us, and a great deal of private talk, 
 whispering, and plotting seemed to take place 
 twixt her and Edith. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 The next morning, having packed my trunk over 
 night, I called my wife and asking her if she was 
 willing to have me leave, and in consequence 
 eventually break up our home, she, although 
 bursting into tears, exclaimed : 
 
 " You know best, I can t promise anything, and 
 I won t." 
 
 "Edith dear," I said, " promise this much. I 
 ask nothing more, promise that you will try, try to be 
 different. It is all I ask, but I cannot continue this 
 sort of life, and live face to face with you, and have 
 you tell me you will never change. 
 
 " I cannot do it. Why was I born ? I am all 
 wrong anyhow," she exclaimed. 
 
 Thinking she would yield, and not having the 
 heart to order my butler to carry my trunk to the 
 cab which was then waiting, I said : 
 
 " Well, order James to carry my trunk down." 
 Drying her tears, she gave the order. 
 
142 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 Kissing her good bye, I jumped into the cab, 
 and directing the driver to go to the Imperial, 
 I asked for a suite of rooms, hastily unpacked, 
 and went to my office. 
 
 When night on came I felt lonesome, miserable, 
 as miserable as I thought I ever could feel. But 
 I knew not what the future had in store. 
 
 After dinner (and almost unable to restrain myself) 
 I wrote the following letter, which two days there 
 after I found on top of my wife s desk, where any 
 and everybody might have read it. 
 
 DEAB EDITH. 
 
 The only excuse that I can frame for you is that you 
 know not what you do. I did not mean to write you until 
 you called me home, but if that day is never to come; end my 
 suspense by telling me so at once. You know nothing in the 
 world can bring me back unless you write me you so wish it. Please 
 do not smile and think because I have been weak, I can no 
 longer be as firm as I should be, and before you reply, weigh 
 your answer well. I am not writing at random, but seriously, 
 and in earnest ! The hardest blow I ever received is the one I 
 am now laboring under. Were I to blame, I would ask 
 nothing of you, but you know I am not. The trouble your 
 baby this summer gave you, has probably been deeper than I 
 dreamed of. To it, I attribute your unsettled state. You had 
 a great deal to bear then, and I see it has affected you. Do 
 not bring more troubles on yourself, your children, or on me ! 
 For the last time, be a woman, a wife, and my angel ! Love 
 such as mine never dies. I have tried my best to keep from 
 saying this, but my pen involuntarily gives utterance to my 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 heart s thoughts. At the same time, I can no more live with 
 you as you icifth it, than you could as deeply wrong anybody 
 else, as you have wronged me. Death alone did I think would 
 ever part us, and when it came, I had hoped your hand 
 would be in mine, 09 it was in our boy s. Edith, think, think, 
 what you are doing ! My eyes are full of tears. Where you 
 are concerned, I am weak, but you know I am right and you 
 know you are wrong. You need not tell me you are sorry, but 
 ask me to come home 
 
 Your, 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 This letter I mailed. 
 
 No answer reached me the following day, and feel 
 ing well nigh disconsolate, I then sent Mr. Nathan 
 word to come and see me. He did so at once. He 
 found me in the dining room. His first words were : 
 
 "Where is Edith?" 
 
 "Home," I replied. "Did you not know I live 
 here, that I left the house 1 " 
 
 "Are you crazy? " he exclaimed. 
 
 On my assuring him I was perfectly sane, he went 
 on to say : 
 
 " I Was at the house last night. Edith received me. 
 I asked her where you were. She replied evasively : 
 We then sat down and played cards until 
 about eleven and on leaving, I thought you possibly 
 had business keeping you." 
 
 "And how did she appear? Naturally? Com 
 fortably?" 
 
144 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Why, yes," he replied. " She beat me at several 
 games last night, and did not speak of you at all." 
 
 Miserable as I was, I then made the one mistake 
 of my life. I unbosomed myself to mine enemy. I 
 told him everything. I told him what had occured, 
 even what I had written." 
 
 " And what answer did she give ? " 
 
 " None," I replied. 
 
 "I will go up and see her ! " 
 
 " I do not think your doing so will do any good," 
 I replied. 
 
 "Well, it cannot do any harm," he said, " and I 
 can ask for a reply to your letter, anyhow." 
 
 " All right," says I. 
 
 He had no sooner closed my door when impulse 
 prompted me to call him back- I restrained myself. 
 A few minutes thereafter I commenced packing, 
 meaning to return to my home anyhow. 
 
 No sooner was my trunk locked, than pride 
 asserted itself. If I give in now, I thought, I will 
 never be master again. 
 
 I waited ! 
 
 The minutes seemed hours; the hours, days! 
 
 Nathan left me at eight o clock. He returned 
 near midnight. 
 
 His first words were : " It is all up ! You might 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 145 
 
 as well make up your mind now as at any time. You 
 have lost your wife. I believe if you went to her 
 with pistol in hand, threatening to blow out your 
 brains unless she re-called you, blow out your brains 
 you would. Your wife would remain as she is, 
 impassive, dead, indifferent: 
 
 He then went on to tell me on first announcing 
 himself, and entering the parlor, my wife, after a 
 few minutes delay, appeared and said ; 
 
 " This is something of a surprise, Mr. Nathan." 
 " Edith," he replied, "I have just come from the 
 Imperial.?? 
 
 " Well ? " was all she volunteered. 
 "I have come from Robert." 
 "And?" she ventured. 
 
 " He is almost beside himself. He wrote you a 
 letter, which you have not replied to." 
 
 " Oh, yes I have, I did not feel well enough to do 
 so when I received it, but I did so immediately after 
 dinner. Had I known you were coming, I would 
 have held it, but as it happens, it was mailed almost 
 an hour ago." 
 
 "Well, what did you write? Tell me so I can 
 carry its contents to him." 
 
 " Mr Nathan," she replied, " I can hardly enter 
 into matters of this kind with you," 
 
146 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 "But, ray dear Edith," I said, " you cannot want to 
 drive Eobert to destraction," and he then went on to 
 tell me he had argued and talked with her for hours. 
 She remained immovable. He finally wound up by 
 telling her to think about the children, that as a 
 woman of family, she had nD right to force me to 
 live apart from her; if she contemplated leaving 
 me, she should have done so years ago, not now, 
 and that to his knowledge, I had changed wonder 
 fully during the last few years, particularly since 
 Boy s death, and since he (Mr. Nathan) had made 
 it his business, on her account, to come up so much 
 to entertain me, in order to keep me home with 
 her, and make her happier. (Ah ! the sophism, the 
 irony of this devil s remarks) ! 
 
 "What did you want to say that for?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "What did I want to say it for?" he replied. 
 " You might as well know now as at any time, Rob, 
 that I think a great deal of Edith, and I really did 
 say what I did without thinking, hoping it would 
 bring her to her senses but as it is; she says she 
 sne has written you, you will get her letter 
 to-morrow, and then you will know what to do. 
 
 1 threw myself on my couch, but little sleep did I 
 find. It must have been about four in the morning 
 when I was awakened. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 147 
 
 I had dreamed a horrible dream ! 
 
 Diseased as my mind was, affected as it had been 
 for the week or ten days which had just passed, I 
 had fancied my wife and I had become separated in 
 some way. We were out on the ocean. The waves 
 beat around and about us. I could distinctly see 
 them in their mad rage, rushing over and over each 
 other, now mountain high, then breaking against 
 each other and falling apart, the wind roaring, 
 blowing a perfect hurricane ! All of a sudden there 
 was a smash a crash ! I apparently lost conscious 
 ness ! When I awakened and looked for my wife, I 
 could not find her ! I hunted high and low. She 
 was invisible ! My dream was interrupted then I 
 dreamed I was in a dark room, a form was lying on 
 a table all covered up. Somebody lifted the 
 sheet, under it, was the face of my wife. 
 
 I awoke with a shriek ! Never in my life had I 
 dreamed so horrible a dream ! My own cry awoke 
 me ! My hair was literally standing on end. I was 
 in a sea of perspiration ! ! ! 
 
 All dressed as I was, (I was positively wet through 
 andthroughjl had to take off every stitch of clothing, 
 and after plunging into my bath and re-dressing 
 myself, I locked my trunk, called for my bill, 
 and jumping into a cab, I was soon on my way 
 
148 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 home. I reached there just as my man was about 
 opening the front door. 
 
 After entering our library, one of the first things 
 my eyes alighted on was my letter. 
 
 I tapped on my wife s door. She opened ! Not a 
 word did she say. 
 
 c< So you see I am home," I exclaimed, at the same 
 time making an attempt to smile. 
 
 " I see you are," she said. " Did you receive my 
 letter ? " 
 
 " No," I replied. 
 
 "I do not think you would have come home, if you 
 had." 
 
 " What did you write? " I inquired. 
 
 " Well, you had better send for the letter." 
 
 I told her I had left word with the hotel people to 
 send it up by special messenger. 
 
 We went to breakfast. After what Mr. Nathan 
 had told me, I was almost afraid to re-enter my own 
 house. Once there, it seemed so cosey, so comfor 
 table, that when we went down to breakfast, I 
 was glad I was home again even if home was not 
 home. 
 
 At breakfast, I could not help but notice: My wife 
 had always laid every extravagance and all love of 
 good eating and drinking to me. We always 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 breakfasted alone our children much earlier here 
 I had been away for three days, certainly was not 
 expected home that morning, and yet my wife had a, 
 regular course breakfast, consisting of grapes, 
 oatmeal, scollops, a porterhouse-steak, potatoes, 
 coffee and hot rolls. There was Darlington butter at 
 one dollar a pound, and at least a three pound porter 
 house-steak, and it struck me if my wife did feel 
 badly, her appetite remained fairly good. 
 
 After the meal, I lay in the front room dozing. I 
 must have just about fallen asleep, when my little 
 Enid awoke me, crying " Papa, papa, here is a 
 letter ! I opened it; it was from my wife, it read as 
 follows : 
 
 ROBEUT. 
 
 I do not see the use of further discussion in regard to the 
 present situation. I had decided before you left the house 
 and I have not changed in any way since, nor shall I ever. 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 This in answer to a letter wherein I, the master, 
 had begged the woman to write me to come home. 
 
 I was heart broken ! I had been stung before ; I 
 had been hurt, but this blow dealt me when I was 
 only half awake, and being deliberately sent by my 
 little angel of a daughter, cut, cut right into my 
 heart. 
 
150 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 Letter in hand, I rushed into the next room. I 
 went to my wife, who was sitting at the window 
 sewing. I fell on my knees, my arms around her 
 
 
 
 waist, and with tears streaming down my face, I 
 cried ; 
 
 "Edith, child, wife, what have I done? " 
 I was so hysterical, I was so unnerved that I 
 really affected her. I appealed to the memories of 
 the past, I spoke of our dead children, of those that 
 were living. I know I completely won her / She 
 put her face next to mine. She wiped away my 
 tears, she kissed me on my forehead, and I am 
 convinced to this day, if ever a woman relented, if ever 
 a woman meant to take up the duties of life, my wife 
 then did. Luncheon was announced. I told her I 
 cared for none. She begged me to come down. She 
 told me I had eaten no breakfast, (she had evidently 
 watched me) that I would have to eat something. 
 She persuaded me to go down stairs. After luncheon 
 we talked quietly, pleasantly until about three o clock, 
 when she all of a sudden recollected she had to go 
 out. I staid home amusing my little ones. 
 
 My wife was gone inordinately long. Dinner was 
 waiting for over an hour before she returned. When 
 she sat down to the table, I knew something had 
 happened. That same, set, hard look that I had so 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 151 
 
 often seen on her face of late, was again there. We 
 ate our dinner in silence. After coffee was served, I 
 visited the library. She remained below. After a 
 vain attempt at reading, I entered my room. It was 
 about nine o clock. 
 " Edith," I called. 
 " What is it ?" she replied. 
 
 " Come up stairs here, dear, I want to talk to you." 
 She came ! 
 
 Sit down here beside me," I said. 
 "I prefer not to," she replied, at the same time 
 nervously walking up and down the room. 
 
 " I want to have an understanding, dear, and I 
 cannot talk if you keep on walking. 
 
 She stood still. She refused to sit down. 
 "Edith, dear," I commenced, "tell me what has 
 happened ; what have I done that you should be so 
 indifferent ? " 
 No reply ! 
 
 " Why do you act so ? " 
 No answer ! 
 
 "Tell me what there is; I must certainly have 
 done something for you to feel and act as you do." 
 " You have done enough ! " she answered. 
 " Well, tell me just one thing" 
 "I do not care to discuss the matter any further, 
 
152 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 and now, to let you understand me aright, since you 
 have coine home, I have made up my mind to leave ! 
 Now I want to know what you will do, whether you 
 will take a flat for me and the children, or whether 
 you will leave me this house and provide for me, 
 as I have made up my mind and nothing will 
 change me." 
 
 I tried to reason with her, and, she having again 
 resumed her walking, I reached out for her, caught 
 her by the wrist and firmly holding her for a minute, 
 tried to have her tell me what had brought all this 
 about. Claiming I was hurting her, I released her, 
 and having stood about as much as my unsettled 
 state would permit, I broke down. She kept on 
 walking, never saying a word. After I had become 
 somewhat quieted, I asked her : 
 
 " Tell me one thing, Edith ! Do you hate me ? " 
 She stopped her walk ! She hesitated ! Finally, 
 looking me squarely in the eye, she nodded her head 
 and in almost a whisper said : 
 
 Oh! Oh! the misery! I collapsed like a broken 
 reed. The iron had entered my soul. 
 
 I saw my whole life had been a delusion, my house 
 was built on sand, and I felt the waves rushing up 
 and engulfing me. I fell as if struck by a thunder- 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 153 
 
 bolt. When I had in a measure regained my 
 composure, I remember saying ; 
 
 "All right, that is all I wanted to know. Leave the 
 room ! I cannot breathe the same air with you." 
 
 I sat where I had fallen for hours. I finally called 
 her to me, and on her coming into my room, I said : 
 
 " Now I understand ! For our children s sake let 
 us keep up appearances, you can occupy the front, I 
 will use this room, and I will see between now and 
 the next week or two as to what I can do, and will 
 then talk further with you." 
 
 The next morning I was unable to get out of bed. 
 My life had been crushed. Something seemed to 
 have snapped. I lacked strength. I sent for my 
 physician. He found me utterly prostrated. My 
 nerves had given way. I was as weak as a child. 
 He was puzzled. He said something must have 
 happened. What is it ? I confided in him. 
 Knowing me for almost twenty years, he understood 
 me pretty thoroughly. He said : 
 
 "I am awfully sorry Mr, F , but keep quiet, 
 
 keep calm. Do not rasp your wife. Let her go her 
 way, you go yours. I have never before met with a 
 woman like your wife, but in our practice we are 
 apt to occasionally hear of them. You do not think 
 she cares for any one else ? " 
 
154 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Certainly not," I said. 
 
 " Well she is an anomaly. Among all my many 
 patients, I have often (without mentioning names) 
 spoken of you and your wife, as to how happy you 
 seemed, what a beautiful home you had, how you 
 were continually bettering your condition, and I 
 cannot help but think, your wife will eventually come 
 around all right." 
 
 He said furthermore, he would talk to her on his 
 way out, and tell her what to do for me. 
 
 He had not been gone long, before (without any 
 unnecessary words and yet with much of her old 
 accustomed gentleness) my wife joined me, and 
 after administering my medicines, at about luncheon 
 time, begged me very hard to partake of something 
 which she would send up. In the afternoon she 
 went out as usual. 
 
 The next day I attended my business, but I could 
 only give it attention in a dazed sort of way, my 
 thoughts continually reverting to the domestic 
 affliction I was laboring under. 
 
 The next Sunday, my physician popped in, and 
 taking me aside, said he had purposely come in to 
 see how matters stood. On my telling him that my 
 wife had that very morning asked me as to what I 
 had decided on, he said ; 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMArf. 155 
 
 " Mr. F do not be foolish ! Do not break up 
 
 your home, ruin your life, and your children s future. 
 I have seen so much of this in my practice ! Take 
 a bold stand ! Tell your wife your home is her 
 home ! Tell her you will not permit her to break it 
 up ! If she left you, where would she go ? " 
 
 "To her mother and father." 
 
 Well, they are reasonable people, they -will soon 
 convince her she is wrong, and probably she will 
 never leave anyhow. 
 
 I acted on his advice. 
 
 When next my wife spoke to me, I told her 
 quietly, but firmly; I would live with her, and let her 
 go her way. I would provide for her as in the past, 
 but would not permit her to ruin either my life, or 
 that of my children. 
 
 During all this time, Mr. Nathan, (notwithstanding 
 even requests to stay away), on some excuse or 
 other, managed to inflict himself on us, and the 
 thought, later on struck me, that possibly he might 
 be aware of more that was going on than I knew of, 
 as inadvertently he admitted having met my wife on 
 the very afternoon of the day I returned, when 
 previous to going out, she had seemingly given way 
 to her better nature, and appeared something like 
 her old angelic self. 
 
156 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 The last time Mr. Nathan called, he invited us to 
 accompany him the following evening to a perfor 
 mance of Dick Mansfield s "Nero." Also to dine 
 with him ! My wife declined. I accepted. 
 
 The following morning as I was about leaving, 
 she called me into her room, and said : 
 
 "Robert, will you now tell me whether you will 
 take a flat and provide for me as I wish, as 
 should you not do so, I have made up my mind " 
 
 " To what ? " I replied. 
 
 " To get a divorce" she answered, " and if I do ; 
 it will be a sorry thing for you, as I will bring 
 married women into the case, whose husbands will 
 hardly feel friendly toward you." 
 
 Married women! 
 
 For a moment I was staggered. Then I remem 
 bered having told a Mrs. A., (a friend of my 
 wife s) about a certain married woman whom I had 
 known when she was a girl, and whom I had seen 
 quite often in late years in fact the very Gertrude 
 of whom I spoke in my early confessions but 
 knowing there was nothing twixt her and myself, 
 other than friendship a little out of the ordinary 
 I merely smiled, looked steadily at my wife for a 
 minute, and said ; 
 
 " Edith, do you not think we have been at swords 
 
A KEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 157 
 
 points long enough ? Is it not time to make up? " 
 And I would have added more, (as even her acknow 
 ledgement of hatred, I looked upon as an ephemeral 
 feeling) when she transfixed me with a look. 
 
 Ah, that one glance! It was enough! Tis a 
 wonder, all love did not then leave me. I turned on 
 my heel and left her. 
 
 Arrived at my office, the very Mrs. A., whom I 
 have before referred to, was awaiting me. She 
 called in answer to a request from me. I had been 
 bothering my head as to what I might have done, 
 or what my wife might have heard. Knowing Mrs. 
 A. as one of her most intimate friends, I had 
 requested the interview, particularly as the lady in 
 question married to a man considerably her senior, 
 had some little peccadillos of her own, concerning 
 which my wife and I were both cognizant. In fact 
 Mrs, A. was the reverse of a prude, and 
 confiding certain facts to my wife, she, strange 
 mixture of puritanism, straight -lacedness, and 
 liberal mindedness, more than wincked at her friends 
 derilictions. 
 
 I asked Mrs. A. when she had last seen Mrs. F. 
 
 "Yesterday," she replied. 
 
 " Did she say anything to you? " 
 
 "No! Yes! That is, nothing particular. Why?" 
 
A NEW ENGLAND 
 
 Then I broke forth. I told her what had happened. 
 I told her how badly I felt; I told her of what 
 things I had been guilty; but, I finally wound up by 
 saying how I loved, how I cared for, how I had 
 always loved and worshiped my wife. 
 
 Mrs. A. at first acted rather coldly, in fact, 
 indifferently. As I proceeded in my story, the 
 woman softened, she thawed, and finally affected to 
 tears, she drew out her handkerchief, gave me her 
 hand, asked me to stop talking for a minute or two, 
 and when she had quieted down somewhat, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 Oh, Eobert, I never thought you loved her so! I 
 never dreamed it. You have been a fool ! It was 
 only yesterday that Edith spoke to me about leaving 
 you. She claimed she was not happy. I tried to 
 reason with her tried to calm her but it seemed 
 useless. She almost turned on me when I hinted 
 you could hardly be expected to take care of her if 
 she was no wife to you, but now, after what you 
 have told me, if I were you, I would not let many 
 days go by before I found out, who was at the bottom 
 of my trouble." 
 
 " What do you mean? " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Mr. F. you are a fool ! " she answered. " Do you 
 not know who is to blame for all this ? Do you 
 
A SEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 159 
 
 think it natural for a woman to turn on a man as 
 Edith has on you ? Do you think any woman would 
 do so, if she were not infatuated; not in love with 
 another man ? " 
 
 If I recollect aright, I positively laughed. 
 
 " Mrs A," I exclaimed, " Edith in love with another 
 man ! Why the one trouble with her is she hates 
 men ! Something is at the bottom of her present 
 indifference and dislike, or whatever you choose to 
 call it, but it is not love, or another man, but since 
 you have 3 r our own notions on the subject, supposing 
 you tell me who the man is, as I really urn a little 
 bit curious." 
 
 "Do you not know ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " No ! Nor do you, nor anybody else in the whole 
 world." 
 
 What man has been continually in her and your 
 society for the last half dozen years ? " she inquired. 
 " What man spent the whole summer with her in 
 the couutryf Do you know that for years past, Edith 
 has met Mr. Nathan every afternoon on 23d Street, 
 that she has visited him at his apartments, that they 
 take carriage rides together, and that the very 
 day on which she came so near yielding, and left you 
 after luncheon, she had an appointment with this 
 man?" 
 
160 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 I grew serious. I had learned more than I had 
 expected to hear. 
 
 " Pshaw!" I exclaimed. " Mr. Nathan has been in 
 our society for years, because his company was 
 agreeable to both of us. He has been almost a 
 brother. He spent the summer with her because he 
 had to leave town, his boy was with Edith, and so 
 naturally he would be apt to be with him. As to 
 meeting him on 23d Street and taking carriage 
 drives, I know they often met, and for convenience 
 sake, rode home together, and as to visiting him in 
 his apartments, I know of that too, but that was 
 only when he was sick, and I scolded her at the time 
 for being so foolhardy." 
 
 "Robert, Robert, you are one man in a thousand. I 
 wish to heaven some man loved me as you do her." 
 
 With that she left me. 
 
 That afternoon, I early left my office. 
 Expecting to dine and go to the theatre with Mr. 
 Nathan afterwards, I had decided to make another 
 effort to persuade Edith to accompany us. 
 
 Arrived home, I took my time about dressing, and 
 inquiring after my wife, found she had not returned 
 from her customary afternoon s outing. I waited until 
 after six o clock, and then leaving a hasty message for 
 her, I joined Mr. Nathan at his hotel, partook of 
 
A NEW KN(tLANI) WOMAN. 
 
 161 
 
 dinner with him, and afterwards accompanied him t<> 
 the theatre. The play as beforesaid, was "Nero." Well 
 in keeping with my moody spirits. Mansfield acted 
 grandly, but as the play progressed, and the tyrants 
 cruelty and wickedness became more and more 
 evident, involuntarily a feeling of I know not what 
 a foreboding of the blow that was to come came 
 upon me. I could not sit out the play. I had to 
 leave before the last act ! I hurried home. My 
 butler s first words on opening the door, were : 
 
 "A telegram, sir!" 
 
 With an indefinable feeling a consciousness of 
 evil, I tore off the wrapper, and read : 
 
 " I have gone to Worcester to see my mother. 
 
 MRS. FENNIMORE." 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The blow had been struck ! 
 
 I have before this referred to myself as of an 
 inpressionable nature. All my life I had carried within 
 me a certain feeling of I knew not what a kind 
 of premonition of evil that was to come and in my 
 very happiest moments, I would often impress others 
 that I had about me a far away, dreamy sort of 
 air a meditative, pensive expression of face that 
 would frequently induce friends to inquire as to 
 what I was dreaming about. 
 
 I, myself, was at a loss to account for it. I had 
 been fortunate, successful and happy. Fortunate 
 beyond my expectations, successful beyond the 
 anticipations of my wildest dreams, while I had out 
 stripped and passed all my youthful friends in the 
 mad rush for wealth and fame. 
 
 I had been as happy as I thought man ever could 
 be, and yet withal that, there always was that silent 
 
i. NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 163 
 
 voice within me whose language I failed to 
 understand, but which voice I perhaps best 
 interpreted as saying ; In the midst of life, there is 
 death. And yet, I knew that voice intended to 
 convey an entirely different interpretation to ine, but 
 for the life of me, I could not find the solution. 
 
 That voice was locked within my breast, 
 The key I ne er could find. 
 
 All of a sudden I understood it ! It was the old 
 Mosaic command ; 
 
 "THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS 
 BESIDE ME." 
 
 My wife had been my God, my idol ! I needed the 
 blow. It struck the old lock. The springs yielded. 
 I then knew what, that indefinable dread, that indes 
 cribable fear portended I had built mine house on 
 the sand, and the waves were engulfing me. 
 
 Controling myself as best I could, I enquired : 
 
 " Where are the children 1 " 
 
 " Upstairs, sir ! " 
 
 " Where is their nurse t " 
 
 "With them, sir!" 
 
 "Wake her up, tell her I wish to see her." 
 
 With that I collapsed. 
 
 The nurse appeared. 
 
164: NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " What time did Mrs. Fennimore leave the house, 
 Mary ? I inquired. 
 
 At about noon time, sir ! " 
 
 "Did she say anything about not returning 
 to-day?" 
 
 " No, sir ! " 
 
 " Did she see the children, before she left ? " 
 
 " No, sir, or rather, yes, she saw the baby for a 
 minute." 
 
 " Did she take any valise with her ? " 
 
 " I do not know, sir, I will find out," and with 
 that she called her assistant, and soon came rushing 
 down with the information that my wife had taken a 
 small hand satchel, but absolutely nothing else. 
 
 I went to my room. 
 
 It was midnight. I sat on a chair near the open 
 window. I placed my arms on the window sill, and 
 I gazed up at the stars that were shining down 
 upon me, in all their brilliancy and splendor. My 
 thoughts traveled through space to that night some 
 eleven years back, when I had first felt 
 
 " The deep sorrow of loving," 
 
 and I remembered how, on that occasion, after 
 fruitlessly tossing on my bed, I had gazed from my 
 window for hours at the sky and stars, until finally, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 1 f>5 
 
 for the first time in my life, I saw the sun arise in 
 his majesty and glory and as I sat there thinking, 
 my poor head aching as if it were fit to split, once 
 again I forgot self ; once again iny better nature 
 triumphed, and forgetting my own wrongs, remem 
 bering only the sins I had been guilty of, I took 
 paper and pencil and sent the following telegram to 
 her father : 
 
 Make Edith return to-<lay, with her mother if she is 
 willing. Come yourself, if possible. Am willing to have 
 you and her mother, decide as to the future. Send answer to 
 house. There all day. 
 
 And what did I mean ? 
 
 For the sake of her who was the mother of my 
 children, I was willing to give up my home, give up 
 my comforts, give up my children, and if her parents 
 demanded it, was even willing to cast myself again 
 into the world, and living by myself, endeavor, if 
 possible, to atone for the misdeeds of the past. Not 
 one thought of her being wrong of my being 
 sinned against ! My one, my only desire to bring 
 back the mother, to her babes. 
 
 It was thus for the second time in my life, my 
 better nature triumphed, and when a few 
 hours thereafter, her father replied : " Will see you 
 
166 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 to-morrow." I mentally prepared myself for the 
 inevitable. 
 
 The day passed in sorrow and waiting, and when 
 the next day dawned, I hourly awaited her father s 
 coming. 
 
 Not hearing from him. I at a late hour in the 
 afternoon, sent to his office. No answer was 
 returned. Late at night, I received a line, which 
 simply said : 
 
 " I cannot see you ! " 
 
 In my lonesomeness, I had sent for a friend ! In 
 his presence I burst into tears. He tried to console 
 me. I suggested he take a letter from me to my 
 wife, or that he go and see her parents. He thought 
 it would be the height of intrusion ! Finally we 
 both jumped into a hack, and were whirled to my 
 father-in-law s abode. 
 
 We rang the bell. 
 
 Her mother and father had returned, so had my 
 wife, but they had gone out to a theatre. 
 
 Our baby was sick. The nurses month was up, 
 and she had given notice. 
 
 In desperation, I left a note : 
 
 Have Edith come home nt once. Baby sick. Nurse 
 leaving. I cannot take care of it. House open until two 
 o clock for Edith to return. 
 
A HEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 The house remained open all night. My friend 
 and I sat up, until after three o clock. Exhausted 
 nature, then gave way. I fell asleep. 
 
 On awakening, it was broad daylight. Almost 
 noon. My friend had breakfasted alone. He was 
 sitting by my side. 
 
 " Any word ? " I inquired. 
 
 "None!" he said. 
 
 I turned aside to hide my tears. 
 
 " Rob," he asked. " If she were to return now, 
 could you forgive her ? " 
 
 " Hal," I answered, " I have nothing to forgive 
 I want my wife; the children want their mother; I 
 have wronged her, I drove her from me; I must have 
 her come back" 
 
 " But d n it man, you certainly do not mean to 
 
 say you still love her? " 
 
 " Hal, I answered, "you remember my mother? 
 How she loved my brother Tom ! Once, when I 
 undertook to upbraid her for caring for so heartless, 
 so wicked a son, she looked at me with tears in her 
 eyes, and said : 
 
 You can say all you wish ! lie was my first-born. 
 Love him I do, and love him I must until I go to 
 join your father ! 
 
 It is thus that I feel towards Edith. She has 
 
16S A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 deserted me, she has turned on me, she has bowed 
 my head to the dust, but love her I must, andloveher 
 I do, until death us do part" 
 
 I forget what reply my friend made, as just then 
 my butler announced, Mrs. A. 
 
 I went down stairs to receive her. Seeing me, she 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " You home ! Where is Edith * " 
 
 Half choking, I gasped: " She has gone ! " 
 
 " Gone ! Gone where I " 
 
 " To her mother ! " 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 "The day on which you came to see me/ 
 
 The poor woman blamed herself, she told me how 
 sorry she was, and finally wound up by saying : 
 
 " I ought to have warned you. I should have 
 come to you in time." 
 
 After a while, when in a measure composed, she 
 inquired : 
 
 " And, Nathan. What of him * Has he been 
 here ? " 
 
 "Yes, for a minute or two," I replied. 
 
 " What did I tell you about him, do you believe 
 me now? " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Mrs. A.," I said, and I arose from my seat, "I 
 am sorry you have taken so much trouble, you 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 1C9 
 
 judge my wife by a standard of your own. I judge 
 her differently. Good day ! " With that I ushered 
 her out of the house. 
 
 She had hardly been gone an hour, when Mrs. B. 
 (my wife s mother) called. I was at the parlor 
 window. Seeing her, I opened the house door, 
 myself. 
 
 " I have come for the baby," she said, " that is, 
 if I can have it." 1 
 
 " Of course you can," I replied. 
 
 " And I would like some of Edith s things, if 
 you will let me get them," she added. 
 
 " Take whatever you want, madame, but before 
 doing so, let me have a few words with you. 
 
 I then went into a history of her daughter s life 
 with me. I told her; none knew, better thap she, how 
 I had worshiped her child before she became my 
 wife, none ought to know better than she, how in all 
 these years I had cared for, and loved her daughter ! 
 I quickly went into the details of how the years had 
 been passed. I even told her, how her daughter had 
 within a year after our marriage told me, she did 
 not care for me as I should be cared for ; and, after 
 exclaiming : 
 
 " But, although Edith never cared for me, I can 
 not understand why she should now leave me, " the 
 
170 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 old lady replied : 
 
 " She has given me no reason at all ! She has only 
 talked with her father. All she says is : She is 
 tired and wants a change" 
 
 11 Tired and wants a change, does she ? Well, 
 madame, let me tell you; you, her mother, I have 
 done my duty as best I know how to her, and by 
 her. I have many a time done wrong, but no woman 
 other than she, has ever held a place in my heart. 
 She knows it! You know it! For what has happened 
 I blame myself ! She has threatened divorce pro 
 ceedings. If it comes to a divorce, perhaps the 
 divorce will be mine" 
 
 I then went on to tell her, as to what I had heard 
 about Nathan. I concluded by saying, a few minutes 
 before you entered, I showed the door to Mrs. A., 
 but after what you have said, I ana sorry I did so. 
 
 " And you believed that woman ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " I believe her ! Do I not know Edith even 
 better than you do ?" And that same look of confi 
 dence, that same indefinable tone, which says more 
 than words, which I had always used when my 
 Edith s, my wife s, honor was concerned, was mine. 
 
 Just then the bell rang again. A legal friend, 
 who had some business, called. The old lady went 
 upstairs, and after my friend s departure, I met her 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 171 
 
 on her way down with a large bundle, and accom 
 panied by Beatrice, who was in the arms of her 
 nurse. 
 
 Ah, little one, how little your father dreamed when 
 he allowed you to leave him, and subsequently tem 
 porarily, permitted your brother to follow, you would 
 never see him again, until the law had cruelly taken 
 you from him, and deeded you forever to your mother! 
 You were so puny, so helpless, and it seemed so 
 cruel to keep you from her, that I involuntarily, 
 even irillingly surrendered you, whereas, had I 
 known the law as Ida now, and been able to read 
 what the future had in store, neither the king, nor 
 all the king s men, could have induced me to surrender 
 you for a brief part of a fraction of a fractional 
 second. You vere my child, you are my child, and 
 although we are separated, and the law has taken 
 you away, may God grant you never miss the father s 
 love, which some day, he prays to heaven, he may be 
 able to bestow upon you. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Before the old lady departed, she asked me as to 
 whether her daughter might send for her trunks, 
 which she had, previous to deserting me, taken the 
 pains to pack, lock and fasten. 
 
 "Madame, she may send for the trunks, and what 
 ever else she wants, but first, I want to see her 
 face to face. Ask her to come up to-morrow, 
 (Sunday) with her father, or with you. I will be 
 home all day." 
 
 "I will tell her," she replied, "but I am afraid 
 she will not come." 
 
 " Why not ? I certainly will not harm her." 
 
 " Well, you know how funny Edith is," was her 
 reply, and with, that she entered her carriage and 
 drove away. 
 
 I lived in hopes ! I wanted to see her. I felt 
 sure if I did see her, she would return to her home, 
 which, if necessary, I was willing to leave. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 173 
 
 I waited in vain. 
 
 Friends called galore ! I was in a fever of excite 
 ment all day. Whereas, I had sympathy from all, 
 the majority were so narrow minded, some blaming 
 her, some blaming me all sure Nathan was at the 
 bottom of everything that I finally, in sheer 
 desperation, locked myself in my room, and refused 
 to be seen. I even went so far as to drive away the 
 friend who voluntarily had sacrificed his time and 
 business to my wishes, and only after writing 
 Nathan, who had called only once, (and then only 
 in answer to an imperative telegram), did I awake to 
 the facts. 
 
 When left alone, I finally became almost frantic. 
 For four days I had not left the house, partly for 
 fear my children might be taken away from me, 
 partly because I felt too miserable to care to enter 
 the world. 
 
 My little Enid used to come up to me 
 
 "Papa, don t cry," she would say. "Wat is loo 
 dying about ? " 
 
 I would stoop down, take her on my lap, press her 
 to my heart. 
 
 I would tell her, " Mamma does not love me," 
 
 " Why does mamma, not love papa?" she would 
 inquire, and then she would pat me with her little 
 
174 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 baby hand, draw my handkerchief out of my pocket, 
 and gently wipe away my tears. 
 
 Ah, little sweetheart, when you were born, your 
 father was afraid you might be taken away from 
 him, as your little baby sister had been. You were 
 so tiny, so frail, and he so much feared, he would 
 lose you ! Little did he dream you would grow into 
 the heavenly little comforter you proved yourself, and 
 when I then vowed, for your sake, I would concede 
 everything, for the sake of keeping you, I would 
 agree to almost anything, I little thought, how soon 
 my trial would actually begin. 
 
 Among my <f sunny day friends," there was one 
 who hearing of my affliction, hastened to me, 
 Like unto others, he tried to console me, but 
 unlike others he offered to do what he could, to 
 bring the wife to the husband the mother to the 
 children. 
 
 Heart broken as I was; the suspense, the uncertainty 
 as to what she intended, positively unfitted me for 
 anything. 
 
 At his suggestion, I wrote my wife the following 
 letter : 
 EDITH. 
 
 There is such a thing as being more sinned against, than 
 sinning. I have been in the depth for a week. You have 
 known my misery. Things have changed. You have been 
 
A HEW ENGLAND WOMAN. l/> 
 
 my wife, and as such I wish you well. I asked your mother to 
 come up with you yesterday, but as you failed to do so, I wish 
 you would let me know by the bearer what you want. You 
 hare left my bed and board. You have deserted your huskim! 
 and children ! I have some rights, and a good many, but as 
 the house I live in, is hateful to me, I want to close it, and let 
 jou take such things as you wish, and arrange with you as to 
 the future. Let me hear by Al what you want, or send me a 
 letter through him. 
 
 YOUR HUSBAND. 
 
 This letter I sent by my friend. It was at night. 
 At first, thanks to her mother, he had difficulty in 
 seeing her. 
 
 Edith received him pleasantly. She took the 
 letter, and after reading, said : 
 
 44 Tell Mr. Fennimore he will hear from me." 
 
 "Let me take your answer," he exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, I hardly know what to say," she replied. 
 
 " Mrs. Fennimore," he said, " pardon the liberty I 
 am taking, but I think you are a very foolish woman. 
 Naturally, I do not know what brought all this 
 about, but I know Robert loves you. He is your 
 husband ! He is heart broken ! Go home to him; 
 or let me know what word of encouragement I can 
 take to him." 
 
 44 Mr. Price," she inquired, 44 you have known us a 
 good many years. Did lever strike you as being a 
 happy woman ? " 
 
176 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 In telling me of this, poor Al, told me, lie was for a 
 minute or two almost staggered. Then he replied ; 
 
 " Happy woman! Why, I thought you and 
 Robert were the happiest couple I knew of ! Why I 
 used to talk to my friends about your seeming 
 happiness ! He certainly always showed he loved 
 you, and I most assuredly thought, you had every 
 thing your heart wished for." 
 
 He then went on to say he talked with her for an 
 hour; that he reasoned with her ; told her if she 
 persisted in her course, she not alone would lose a 
 husband, but ran the chance of losing her children; 
 that the law gave them to the man when the wife 
 deserted him, that she had deserted me. and on her 
 saying : 
 
 "Oh no, he left me first!" 
 
 " Yes, for a day or two," he replied, (f but he came 
 back ; he is now home with his children you are 
 not! 
 
 Just then her mother came in. 
 
 " Edith," she exclaimed, " do not worry yourself, 
 and bother about what Mr. Price says, you are tired, 
 you had better go to bed." 
 
 "No, mamma, I am not tired leave me alone 
 please ! " 
 
 Mr. Price then continued in a vein similar to his 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 177 
 
 previous one, when the mother on leaving the room 
 rudely said : 
 
 " Rubbish and rot ! Do not be foolish, dear, you 
 will have the children, all of them, and with that she 
 banged the door to. 
 
 On returning, Mr. Price told me as to what 
 had occured, and concluding, said : 
 
 " She promises to write to-morrow." 
 
 The morrow came, but no letter. 
 
 At about dinner time, when entering my dining 
 room and seating myself, Ae loiiesomeness, the vacant 
 chairs, the absence of my wife and friends aye, 
 even the vacant chair so often occupied by Mr. 
 Nathan struck me to the heart. I attempted to 
 eat. The first morsel choked me. I collapsed. My 
 butler, good hearted old soul, broke down at the 
 same time. In supporting me to the adjoining 
 room he wept, he wept with me. I never thought 
 man could have positive hysterics. I learned other 
 wise ! The butler called the cook, she the laundress, 
 and eventually the nurses came running down. All 
 tried good, honest souls that they were to console 
 me. Just then one of my sisters arrived. 
 
 " Robert, calm yourself ! Keep quiet ! Out on 
 such a woman ! After a letter such as you sent her; 
 to vouchsafe no answer ! Close your heart to her ! 
 
178 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 Be a man ! " 
 
 The bell rang. Mr. Price arrived. He put his 
 arms about me. He felt for me. He understood 
 my misery. 
 
 " Oh Al, bring Edith to me, bring her back ! " 
 
 After quieting down somewhat, I persuaded him 
 to once more go and see her; to once more take a 
 a letter from me. 
 
 I wrote as follows : 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 When I s*nt yesterday s letter, to which no reply has been 
 received, I thought it best to acquiesce in whatever you 
 wished. I have seen Al, and he has told me of his interview 
 with you. From what he says; I know you have not lost all 
 heart. So I write Come home ! Come home ! There are no 
 two niches in the world for you to fill. I am your husband, 
 the father of your children. Discarded I may be, but I cannot 
 believe a traitor s allurements, a pretended friend s flattery, 
 can have completely turned you. I have been blind, but you 
 know what my faith in you was. The world says you are false. 
 Prove yourself true ! Even your mother (in my last sickness) 
 tried to warn me against the man. But I care not for him. / 
 do care for you. Come home! Come home! I will do any 
 thing you demand. You can be master, and although I cannot 
 be a slave, I can be a nonentity. Come to your children, and 
 do not let us wreck thtir lives, as well as our own. I cannot 
 write more. Come home ! Come home ! 
 
 " Take a cab, Al, bring her back with you, and may 
 God speed you." 
 "With that I fell almost limpless in my chair. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 179 
 
 Al, was gone for over two hours ! During his 
 absence I had gradually quieted down. "When he 
 returned I was walking the floor. He entered the 
 room smiling. By his looks I saw, he was attempting 
 to deceive me. I took him by the hand. 
 
 11 Al, I said, " it was useless? " 
 
 " She will let you hear from her, to-morrow ! I 
 think she will come ! " 
 
 "Al, you lie," I exclaimed! 
 
 He looked at me, he saw I was calm. 
 
 "Well yes, I was afraid to to tell you, as I thought 
 you could not stand it." 
 
 "I am all right Al," I replied, " what happened? " 
 
 He then told me that this time, he had considerable 
 difficulty in being admitted at all, and only by 
 insisting that he positively must deliver my letter to 
 Edith in person, was he allowed to take a seat in the 
 parlor, where, after quite a delay, my wife joined 
 him. Without in any way attempting to make him 
 feel at home, Edith, merely bowing, stood twixt 
 the folding doors that divided the parlor from 
 the next room, her very attitude seemingly inquiring 
 better than words well! what do you want? 
 
 "Mrs. Fennimore, I have brought a letter from 
 Kobert." 
 
 I do not care to receive it. I want no more letters 
 
180 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 "But, Mrs. Fennimore, I have just left your 
 husband, he is almost out of his mind, he has broken 
 down completely, he is beside himself. I brought 
 you this letter, and I have furthermore come in a cab 
 to bring you home. You must come!" 
 
 Without a word she took the missive, and without 
 changing her attitude, which necessitated Al s also 
 standing, she read what I had written ; glanced over 
 what the very anguish I was laboring under had 
 forced from my heart, and contemptuously throwing 
 my letter on the piano, said : 
 
 " There is no answer" 
 
 11 Gad, if 1 ever saw the * Marble Heart" 1 in real 
 life, it was then before me," Al exclaimed, when he 
 was describing his interview to me. 
 
 " No answer !" he ventured Why Mrs. Fenni 
 more, you cannot mean it." 
 
 And then, poor boy, he spoke to her as best he 
 could, finally saying : 
 
 "You promised last night to write him anyhow. 
 Why did you not do so ? " 
 
 " He will hear from me in due course.^ 
 
 And with that my friend knew the interview was 
 at an end. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 He will bear from me in due course I 
 
 The next day I received the following letter : 
 
 OFFICE OF 
 
 CHARMER AND KEEPAM, 
 ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELLORS AT-LAW, 
 
 BKOADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
 MB. Kobert FENNIMORE, October CM, IK 
 
 WEST STBEET, 
 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 DEAR SIB, 
 
 Your wife has consulted us, with reference to some family 
 matters. If it is your desire, wo should be glad to have you 
 call upon us, Thursday afternoon, the 8th inst., for the purpose 
 of consultation. If, upon seeing your attorney, you conclude 
 to call, kindly bring him with you, and let us know to-morrow 
 what hour in the afternoon, on Thursday, you will be here. 
 Yours respectfully. 
 
 CHARMEU AND KEEPAM. 
 I had Jieardfrom her. 
 What need to go into details? 
 
 I consulted my attorney, and with his son, and 
 another lawyer, who was a personal friend, and as 
 
A KEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 such, was willing to be of service, but did not care 
 to appear in the case, I called on Mr. Charmer. 
 
 Previous to doing so, both my friend and my 
 attorney thought a legal separation would be asked 
 for. 
 
 My friend, whose name was Maurice, was almost 
 knocked off his feet when Mr. Charmer coolly informed 
 us : 
 
 " We want an absolute divorce." 
 
 " Why, I cannot believe it ! " he exclaimed. I know 
 Mrs. Fennimore; I know Mr. Fennimore. She 
 surely is not the woman who would take herself, 
 and her troubles to an open court and force this 
 issue on us." 
 
 "I am merely obeying my client s instructions, 
 replied Mr. Charmer ; " and, under the circumstances 
 of Mr. Fennimore s being as well known as he is, and 
 as I always do in similar cases, I wrote him, 
 thinking we could possibly avoid publicity, and " 
 
 He was going to add something further, when my 
 attorney, Mr. Dollars, interrupted him, by inquiring : 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "You mean, what alimony we demand f " 
 
 "Yes, how much alimony, and how much counsel 
 fee t " 
 
 " Well, we ask alimony at the rate of eighteen 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 183 
 
 hundred per annum, and a counsel fee of five 
 hundred dollars." 
 
 "And as to the children t " 
 "We want them!" 
 
 "Well then, there is no good of proposing any 
 amicable settlement. Mr. Fennimore is imperative 
 and positive. Even in case of a separation, he 
 positively demands Enid. In case of a divorce, I 
 know he will want her. (This much I had before calling 
 irrevocably decided on). 
 
 "Well, perhaps we can agree to that." 
 " All right ; we merely came here in answer to 
 your letter anyhow, Mr. Charmer. How many days, 
 will you give us to consider? " 
 
 "Until next Monday, Mr. Dollars." 
 Just then my friend Maurice queried ; 
 " And if we refuse an absolute divorce S " 
 " I shall bring the action in this city, which will 
 require making my motion in open court, which 
 as you gentlemen know (ever since the Flack case) 
 has become an invariable rule in divorces, while if 
 we can agree on terms, why I can bring the action 
 in Rockland, Queens, or any other county; it can be 
 tried before a referee, who can be brought on here, 
 and there will be no publicity." 
 
 "And what proof have you," Maurice further 
 inquired ? 
 
184 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Proof, (although I am a little surprised at your 
 asking me a question like that, Maurice) why I have 
 enough proof to give us a hundred divorces if they 
 were required." 
 
 (At both Mr. Dollars and Maurice s request, I had 
 been careful up to that moment, to merely act as a 
 passive listener.) 
 
 " Allow me to say, Mr. Charmer," I exclaimed, if 
 it comes to a divorce, perhaps I prefer to have it 
 public, in open court, and before a jury" 
 
 " You are the best judge, Mr. Fennimore," he 
 replied, and with that he bowed us out of his office. 
 
 Mr. Dollars accompanied me to my friend 
 Maurice s lair. 
 
 As I sit here and write the foregoing, I can hardly 
 credit my ability to write cooly and calmnly 
 concerning matters which when originally forced 
 upon me, made my very head reel. " We want an 
 absolute divorce f " How these words haunted me, 
 how they seemed ever before me ! How my heart 
 sunk within me ! How horrifying the bare thought 
 seemed to me ! 
 
 " You can congratulate yourself that they did not 
 ask three thousand, or even five thousand dollars 
 alimony, which if Charmer was smart, he might 
 have demanded," exclaimed Dollars. 
 
A NEW KNC.I.AM) WOMAN. 185 
 
 "Well, I do not know!" interjected Maurice. 
 " Robert is not as well fixed as he was, and even 
 eighteen hundred per annum is a matter to seriously 
 think over. I would make it less." 
 
 " But how do you know that I will agree to any 
 thing ? " I cried, feeling as if the future were indeed 
 a blank one. 
 
 " Well ! we have till Monday, anyhow ; come in 
 and see nie Saturday," and with that Dollars left us 
 
 Maurice then told me he was much surprised ; h- 
 could hardly credit the demand as coming from my 
 wife, but it only proved " women were peculiar 
 creatures ; " and he then went on to tell me not to 
 regard Nathan as a friend of mine, as he had met 
 him by chance, and, on questioning him, was con 
 vinced, although he had heretofore thought differently 
 that Nathan was at the bottom of everything." 
 
 * What makes you think so ? " I queried. 
 
 * Think so ? I know so ! Are you aware that Nathan 
 has been calling on your wife nightly ; in fact, every 
 night since she left you * That he meets her in the 
 day-time, and that from what he has himself told 
 me, he is evidently working against you f " 
 
 No, Maurice : I am net aware of it ; but, if it is 
 so, somebody $ funeral may take place very soon. 
 
 Stepping into my office on my way up-town, who 
 
186 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 should I find seated there awaiting me, but Mr. 
 Nathan. When I was too broken-hearted to leave 
 my house, and too miserable to attend to business, 
 (which ordinarily helps to detract a man from his 
 sorrows), Nathan had avoided me ; sending me 
 telegrams and letters, wherein he claimed to be sick, 
 unable to go out, etc. To-day, when I knew him to 
 be mine enemy, and when I intended hunting him up 
 anyhow, he presented himself. I could hardly keep 
 from making a grab at him. I felt like squeezing the 
 dog s life out of him. His greeting prevented me ! 
 
 " Robert, I am so sorry for you ! You have probably 
 heard of my calling on Edith, and ostensibly working 
 in her interests against you. It is not true. I have 
 called on her, and I intend continuing my calls(unless 
 you say otherwise), but I want you to understand 
 they are solely in your interest" 
 
 Hypocrite ! Ananias ! Dog that he was; he had 
 reduced the science of lying to such a fine point, that 
 he verily almost made me believe him. Almost, but 
 not quite ! 
 
 After a long conversation. I finally got him to 
 understand unless I personally requested it, I wished 
 him to discontinue visiting my wife. He promised 
 to do so. 
 
 I then thought of my position. Here I was, at the 
 
A NEW ENQLAN1) WOMAN. 187 
 
 age of thirty-four, a young man yet, with the future 
 apparently, all before me. But what a future it 
 was? 
 
 As I have before stated, I had been successful. 
 Success had made me arrogant, imperative and 
 possibly, in my treatment of others, somewhat harsh. 
 I was proud a very proud man. I was proud of my 
 business, proud of my reputation, proud of my 
 children, proud of my home, but proudest of all, of 
 my wife. Knowing well, the immutability of things 
 earthly, I had often thought I might lose my business, 
 lose my friends, lose my children, aye ! even lose my 
 wife ; but, as long as life remained, I felt surer of her 
 than of all else besides. When I met her, I looked 
 upon her, as the Alpha and Omega of life to me. In 
 thinking of the possibility of losing her, I had 
 thought the world itself, would then be lost to me. 
 
 Here I had actually lost Aer,and although she was 
 alive, I was dead to her. 
 
 Many years before that, I had read in a legal 
 friend s office a just granted " Decree of Divorce, " 
 wherein the words occurred and she may regard him 
 as dead. 
 
 Dead, dead, dead ! Divorced, divorced, divorced ! 
 
 These words haunted me. They were ever before 
 me. Saturday came around. I could not make up 
 
188 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 my mind. I wanted anything, anything but a 
 divorce. I wrote a long letter. I was afraid it 
 might be intercepted. From what Al had told me 
 about Edith s mother, I thought she was at the 
 bottom of my wife s desire for a divorce. I took this 
 letter to Dollars, requesting him to give it to 
 Charmer, and have Charmer give it to my wife in 
 person only. Dollars read my letter. 
 
 "It will never do, he said. " In case you decide 
 to fight; it will be used against you." 
 
 He made me re- write one, to conform to which, 
 the following was kept as a record. 
 
 EDITH, 
 
 Until yesterday I felt aggrieved. No replies to my lettej s 
 had, I thought, stifled love. I find it otherwise. Loving you 
 is part of my being. I cannot help it. I have tried to cast 
 you from me. I cannot ! When I saw Mr. Charmer, my heart 
 seemed frozen. I was willing to agree to anything. Since then, 
 the thought of an eternal separation has deprived me of all 
 life. It will break my heart. The thought of your being alone, 
 unnerves me. If your mother and father die, whom will you 
 have ? You seem to hate me ! Let us agree on a separation. 
 Through your lawj^ers if we must ; between ourselves if you 
 will. Do not, do not deprive me of the right to watch you 
 from afar, to provide for you as my Jieart wants to, not as a 
 divorce might require me to. I do not think you contemplate 
 re-marriage. If you did, I would acquiesce. So what good in 
 a divorce ? Think of our children ; think of Enid, and rest 
 assured I will naver thrust myself upon you, and will never 
 ask you to ever even see me, until possibly at such time as death 
 may call me to a happier future. YOUR HUSBAND. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 180 
 
 Dollars took this letter. 
 
 " I hardly think it will do any good," he said, "but 
 I understand your feelings, I respect them." 
 
 There was no reply ! 
 
 A few days thereafter, without Dollars being 
 aware of it, I called on Mr. Charmer. I asked him 
 if he had given my wife the letter. 
 
 " No, I sent it to her by a trusty messenger. She 
 has just sent me her reply. I am just on the point 
 of writing your attorney." 
 
 " Mr. Charmer," I said, " you are human. I am 
 guilty of every crime in the decalogue, but my worst 
 crime is that of loving. I love my wife ! I worship 
 her ! Friends tell me to call pride to the rescue. 
 Maurice and Dollars say in all their experience, they 
 never knew a man to so love a woman. I cannot 
 help it ! Before commencing proceedings, which I 
 dread worse than death, see my wife, try to persuade 
 her to agree on a separation, I will allow her three 
 thousand, aye even five thousand dollars, instead of 
 eighteen hundred dollars per annum. Do anything, 
 but do not force this divorce upon me! I will pay 
 you thrice the sum you have asked ; you will not 
 lose anything, and you will forever make me your 
 friend." 
 
 "Mr. Fenniraore," he replied, "I will do what I can. 
 
190 A KEW EtiGLAtfr> WOMAN. 
 
 I am surprised you love your wife so deeply ! I hare 
 never known so great a love. As a matter of duty 
 between " man and man," I will do my utmost, 
 my everything to change her, but I am afraid it will 
 be useless." 
 
 It was useless ! 
 
 " The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders." 
 
 A New England Woman may love, and her love 
 may die. If a New England Woman hate, her hatred 
 lives forever. A woman of New England never 
 surrenders. 
 
 In ancient Greece, history tells us there once 
 upon a time lived a very wise old man. He was 
 ungainly in looks, unpopular with the masses, but 
 his heart was golden, his mind one of the 
 grandest, the world ever knew. Happy indeed were 
 those who sat at the feet of this grand old man, and 
 imbibed of the truths that fell from his lips, the 
 gems of thought that from generation to generation 
 have been preserved as the prof oundest that were 
 ever uttered by man only. This man s name 
 was Socrates. He had a wife. She was called 
 Xantippe. Wonderful man that Socrates was, his 
 wife is said to have been a veritable shrew, a very 
 virago. His life, it is said, was made unbearable by 
 her. Had Socrates lived, and had he been able to 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 191 
 
 have chosen in this the nineteenth century twixt a 
 Xantippe and a New England Woman, I verily 
 believe granted this man the philosopher we take 
 him for he would have chosen Xantippe and 
 Xantippe ten times over, rather than a daughter of 
 New England, such as Edith Fennimore. 
 
 I think I have spoken of my never having had a 
 word with my wife. Excepting on the occasion of her 
 return from the country, we never even had a 
 quarrel. She was apparently perfectly content to 
 live in the quiet enjoyment of the good and easy 
 things of life. Excepting in the case of severe 
 sicknesses, she invariably left our children in the 
 care of the nurses, or to their own devices. Seldom 
 did she ever take them out ! When we went 
 driving, I would be the one who would want to take 
 them along, not she. Many a time would she even 
 protest against my doing so, but never strongly 
 enough for me to think her even serious, and after a 
 life of ten years spent with a woman who never 
 seemed to have a will of her own at all, it seemed 
 inexplicable, unexplaiuable, incomprehensible to find 
 her so firmly set in her ways. 
 
 All of a sudden I recollected ! Loving peace, 
 most men love peace more than women I had, 
 thinking the contrary, asserting the opposite, per- 
 
192 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 mitted my wife to usurp the reins, and whereas I 
 had gone my way, I had allowed her to do the thinking, 
 while I did the talking, and all the time she was as 
 much going her way, as I was going mine. 
 
 "Put a beggar on horseback, and everybody 
 knows the rest. Give a woman an inch, and she 
 will take an ell. Let a man worship a woman, let 
 him show it, let him for an instant if only once 
 give the woman the bit and gad, the veriest angel 
 will become a very termagant. Man loves power, 
 because God gave it to him. " A true man 
 seldom misuses it." " Women love power, because 
 it does not belong to them." Let opportunity but 
 once put it within their grasp, and grim death itself 
 can hardly loosen their grip. 
 
 Edith Fennimore, in some way or other, had 
 gained the " whip hand," and Solomon Nathan 
 was right when he told me : If you went to her 
 with pistol in hand, and told her you would blow 
 out your brains ; blow out your brains you would ; 
 she would never yield. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 In the meantime, my home had become positively 
 hateful to me. I left it in the care of servants, 
 offered it for rent, and placed my two little ones, 
 (the baby having been sent to the mother,) in the 
 care of one of my sisters. 
 
 Talking of the servants ; my old cook suggested I 
 leave the house! In my misery, she as well as the rest 
 of them, truly felt for me. My wife and I had always 
 treated our servants well, my wife actually leaving 
 the management of the entire house to them, and in 
 a joking vein, when finding fault (as I occasionally 
 had to),I once told her when she died, I would erect 
 a monument to her memory, and inscribe it: " She 
 lived for her servants /" Of the two, she probably 
 was the easier with them. In consequence, their 
 sympathy, silent as it was, will ever be a grateful 
 memory to me. They knew she was wrong ! I 
 heard later they had told some friends " they had 
 
194 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN". 
 
 lived in many families, but never in one where there 
 was less bickering and a kinder husband, than 
 their master." In the world to come we are judged 
 by our lives ! In this world we can meet no better, 
 no juster judges, than the servants or the people we 
 employ ! 
 
 I moved to the Hotel, and shortly after doing 
 
 so, Judge Dollars wrote me ; all questions as to a 
 "JVew England Woman" yielding were settled, and 
 it only remained for him and Mr. Charmer to agree 
 on figures. I then thought I would play my master 
 stroke ! Every one of my friends had interested 
 himself, or herself in some way or other in my 
 behalf. At least half a dozen undertook to call and 
 reason with my wife. One old lady, after consider 
 able difficulty in seeing her at all, actually told me 
 she went on her knees and begged my wife to relent. 
 That Edith however proved adamant ! She went to 
 her again with a message. Of no use ! You might, 
 as well appeal to marble, as to Edith, she told me ! 
 I had written letters by the score. At this date it 
 seems to me I should have kept back, perhaps not 
 written so much, but at that time I could hardly 
 reason. I acted solely under impulse, with one 
 object in view my ship was foundering. I tried to 
 save it ! 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 195 
 
 It was then, I conceived the idea of selling my 
 household effects at auction. I thought if anything 
 could, a public sale would, bring my wife to her 
 senees, as I knew she valued some of our belongings. 
 I placed the matter in Ludlow s hands. 
 
 Two days after the sale had been announced, my 
 attorneys wrote me Mr. Charmer had been instructed 
 to demand certain things which my wife considered 
 hers. 
 
 " She can have them ! " I replied. 
 
 A day or two thereafter, another demand came in 
 the shape of a request from her, to be permitted to 
 go through the house with me and select such 
 further articles as she considered hers. I acquiesced 
 merely stipulating she come alone, positively 
 refusing to have her come with her parents, as I 
 would not breathe the same air they did, as up to that 
 time, I had attributed all my troubles directly or 
 indirectly to the mother, and felt very bitter against 
 her father for his want of manliness in refusing to 
 meet me in answer to my telegraphic message. 
 
 On the day appointed, I was at the house early. 
 Shortly thereafter, one of Mr. Charmer s clerk s 
 appeared, and stating he had come to help Mrs. F. 
 if she required him, I could hardly restrain myself 
 from telling the fellow his room was better than his 
 
196 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 company. When Edith arrived, I happened to be 
 engaged with a party who had come to see me in 
 reference to the auction ; so merely acknowledging 
 my slight involuntary bow, she took a seat beside 
 Mr. Charmer s clerk. As soon as I could, I told her 
 I hardly thought she needed the services of the 
 gentleman ; and, on her acquiescing, I showed him 
 the door. In the least constrained manner possible, 
 I then requested her to go through the house, and 
 select what she wished. 
 
 " That s mine, that s mine, this is mine ! I do not 
 know whether you consider that mine, or not ; " and, 
 thusly she went through the entire house, while in 
 every instance where she expressed a doubt, I 
 promptly said : 
 
 " It is yours."" 
 
 After we had spent over an hour in this way, and 
 not a word having been spoken on .any other subject, 
 I said : 
 
 " Now, Edith ; since you have selected all you 
 want, let me just have a few minutes conversation 
 with you, as in view of what has occurred, I do not 
 know that we will ever meet again." 
 
 " I do not care to discuss the matter ; " she replied. 
 
 "But it is to your own interest, child, and I 
 must talk ! " 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 197 
 
 Talk I did, and for fully two hours. 
 
 I asked her the use of a divorce. I said : 
 
 " I do not want to marry again, nor do I believe 
 you do. So why divorce ourselves ? " 
 
 She replied : " I wish to be divorced, so as to be 
 free." 
 
 "But you will be free if we are separated;" I 
 ventured. 
 
 4< I do not care to discuss the question ; " was her 
 reply. 
 
 " But why do you insist on a divorce ? I think it 
 almost sacriligious ! Think of what the world ,vill 
 think of ine ! Think of our children ! " 
 
 " It will not affect our children in any way ; " she 
 replied. 
 
 " Well, then ; think of me ! Think of my honor !" 
 
 " Honor ! what is honor ? " she queried, ** Pish ! " 
 
 " Honor to me is everything, Edith ! " I exclaimed. 
 " Honor to a man is life ; life itself. Take honor 
 away, and a man loses his own self respect, as well as 
 that of the world. For the sake of honor, man will 
 risk all his everything. HONOR IS TO MAN 
 WHAT VIRTUE IS TO WOMAN." 
 
 " You will excuse me, Mr. F., but I do not care to 
 prolong this discussion." 
 
 I then appealed to her cupidity. 
 
198 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Instead of eighteen hundred per annum, I will 
 give you three thousand ; aye ! even five thousand, 
 if you remain my wife ! I will, furthermore, furnish 
 a flat for you, as you may wish it ; and, you can 
 depend, I will never, never disturb you but, if I 
 furnish a flat for you, and you discontinue residing 
 with your father and mother, I would make one 
 stipulation" 
 
 We were then standing side by side, toasting our 
 feet in front of a blazing hearth fire. And in her 
 slow, measured drawl, she inquired : 
 
 " What is the stipulation ? " 
 
 " The stipulation is " 
 
 Just then I stopped. I would not, in thought even, 
 wound her. I knew she was an honest woman. I 
 knew she was pure. I would not, at this important 
 crisis, hint at anything I had heard. 
 
 " I will make no stipalation ; " I answered, 
 
 But she, woman-like, suspecting, or rather reading 
 my thoughts, then undertook to say : 
 
 "I never change, when once I make up my mind. 
 I, however, want you to thoroughly understand what 
 I am doing, what I have done, I have done alto 
 gether by myself. I have counselled with no one, 
 and taken nobody s advice other than my mother s. 
 If anybody is to blame for my acts, other than 
 
A N E\V KN.ilANI) WOrfAtf. 19i 
 
 myself, it is my mother only. You need not blame 
 Mr. Charmer, nor Mr. Nathan, nor anybody." 
 This she repeated two or three times. She laid so 
 much stress, particularly on Nathan having nothing 
 to do with advising her, that mentally I thought : 
 Methinks my lady protests too much. 
 
 As she was about to leave me, she said : 
 
 By the way, Weber will call for my Grand, but 
 as I did not want to use your name, I signed the 
 order * Marie Frankenstein ! 
 
 " Frankenstein ! " I exclaimed. " What did you 
 do that for?" 
 
 And then I recollected this was the name of 
 Nathan s fraulein, his little boy s governess ! 
 
 " And why did you use her name? " I repeated, 
 and on my wife telling me it was the first one she 
 thought of, the first that had come to her mind, I 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " If my name was not good enough, did you not 
 have your mother s your father s? Did you have 
 to use that of my enemy s servant ? A few minutes 
 ago, when about making a stipulation, I said : No, I 
 would not make any ; Now hear me ! I do make 
 one ; and, that stipulation is * You stop and discon 
 tinue all acquaintance and communication with 
 Nathan, while you are my wife, anyhow; and. if you 
 
200 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 fail to do so, I will take measures to compel you to. 
 
 From the hard, set look that again came on her 
 face, I regretted my words, and my anger subsiding 
 about as quickly as the words left my lips, I said : 
 
 " Well ! he has promised not to see you, anyhow. 
 So, forgive me, Edith, if I speak hastily; I am almost 
 out of my mind, and partially breaking down," I 
 again commenced pleading with her. I reverted to 
 the years gone by; to the memories of the past; to our 
 dead children, as well as to our living ones ; I even 
 spoke of the misery she might entail on our Enid, 
 (who was to be left to me) by depriving her of her 
 mother s love and care. Just then, and only then, I 
 fancy she melted. To this day, I think, had I at that 
 moment been able to put my arms around her, as in 
 days gone by, she might have yielded. But although 
 I was trying my best to persuade her, and if the 
 whole world had then been put before me, and I 
 could have chosen twixt the world, wealth and my 
 wife, I would have chosen my wife and beggary ; but 
 such is human nature, I positively could not make the 
 first move, while, if I had, this book would possibly 
 never have been written. 
 
 She left me ! I accompanied her to the door. Her 
 last words were : " Understand, nobody advised me" 
 and without even offering me her hand, we parted. 
 
A HEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 201 
 
 I fell into a chair, and long after twilight had 
 grown into gloaming I sat motionless, and in tears ! 
 It is said in drowning, a man s whole life quickly 
 passes before him. 
 
 In misery, when a man s heart is broken, when he 
 sees the work, the hopes of a life-time shattered and 
 wrecked, when his very soul is sinking within him, he 
 involuntarily " on the death of hope" sees his whole 
 life pass in review, and as 1 sat thus, crying aloud : 
 
 " Edith, Edith, what have I done ? Come back ! 
 Come back 1 " I unconsciously reviewed the life we 
 had lead. 
 
 We had started together under good auspices. I 
 loved, I worshiped ; She liked, she respected ! 
 
 I kept on loving and worshiping ! (I had shown 
 it too plainly !) She grew tired of liking ! 
 
 Dissimilar as we were, she had chafed under my 
 egoism in daring to think that she had grown to love 
 me. We had been drifting apart ! Slowly, but 
 surely ! The adulation I had lavished upon her, the 
 flattery of friends, the loving herself, which my love 
 had encouraged, had slowly born fruit. I plainly saw , 
 on my side it had been " all give ; " on her side " all 
 take." I recollected one of her mother s letters ; 
 " You are generous even to a fault ; forgiving even 
 in anger." 
 
202 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 I remembered how I had lavished all a wife could 
 wish for, on Edith. 
 
 I thought of Al s words, when first seeing me in 
 my desolation ; "To think of the home you gave 
 her ! How many women would jump at the chance 
 of stepping into her shoes ! " Of his reminding me 
 of a certain Christmas when I literally sent a wagon 
 load of goods to my house, and when box after 
 box, package after package was brought to my wife, 
 how she opened each one, and how, finally when the 
 last bundle was brought forth and unpacked, how 
 calm and indifferent she appeared! "If she had 
 loved you Robert, would she not then have thrown 
 herself on your neck, as your little Boy did when 
 you brought him that immense horse? Do you 
 remember how he threw himself right on your neck, 
 and exclaimed : * Oh papa, papa, you are so good ! 
 You are the best papa in the world ! " 
 
 Did she ever do that? and, if she loved you, 
 would she not at least have kissed you I 
 
 I thought of all those things. 
 
 Until that moment, I had been weak. From that 
 moment, I regained strength ; and, whereas until 
 then, I had lived in hope, when hope died within me 
 
 despair also lef b me ; and, remembering 
 As gold must be tried by fire, 
 So the heart must be tried by pain j 
 
A NEW ENiil.VND WOMAN. 203 
 
 I then ami there resolved, come what will, from 
 thenceforth, I would crush sorrow, forget pain, and 
 endeavor, l>y apparent indiflerence, even if divorced, 
 eventually to win back, her, whom I believed I had 
 \v rouged. 
 
 A few days thereafter, my household effects were 
 sold. I had reserved some paintings, a few rugs, my 
 library, some china-ware and bric-a-brac ; but, 
 excepting some presents from friends, absolutely 
 everything was sold, although I had reserved some 
 property, which I thought my wife would dislike to 
 lose. 
 
 A day or two thereafter, I received the following 
 letter : 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMOBE, ESQ. 
 MY DKAK Siu, 
 
 I have just seen Mr. Charmer. Everything is arranged. 
 You are to have Enid, Mrs. F. the other children. Mr. Charmer 
 advises me, part of his proof will consist in your having been 
 
 a t the Hotel with a certain woman who was a friend of 
 
 :i Mr. B. Also of jrour having been at the at various 
 
 times with different married women. If you want to ke<-j) tin- 
 latter out of the case, I would suggest your seeing Mrs. M , 
 
 and Mrs. C , and t 11 tin-in if iiuy one calls, from the office 
 
 of Charmer ami K- . pam, to ^ i\t tht-m such information as 
 they desire. 
 
 Respectfully. 
 
 DOLLARS, BRANDY AND SODA. 
 
 " Part of the proof will consist of your having 
 
204 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 
 
 been at the Hotel with a certain woman, a friend 
 
 of a Mr. B.! " 
 
 Great God ! I exclaimed : so that old rascal s 
 threats to my friend Julius were not vain. Because 
 out of pure love of mischief, I inconsiderately hurt 
 an old man s feelings, he deliberately carried out his 
 threat, and probably wrote my wife. Had I known! 
 Had I known ! 
 
 How little I did know. 
 
 The next evening, I met Judge Dollars son at the 
 firsb performance of La Cigale, at the Garden 
 Theatre. Seats were at a premium. Mine cost me 
 twelve dollars, but I paid it as I wanted to see the 
 young man on a matter of information which had 
 just reached my ears. 
 
 All the world, and everybody of any consequence 
 in New York, was there. Among others, Mr. Nathan, 
 accompanied by a stylishly- dressed, very beautiful 
 woman. When I felt his presence, (there seemed to 
 be something that irresistibly drew attention to him) 
 I almost cried out in very joy, at not seeing him 
 accompanied by my wife. I had come to the theatre 
 specially to see my attorney about him. And here 
 he was in the very flesh. 
 
 During the intermission after the first act, I 
 greeted young Dollars, and saying ; " I heard to-day, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 205 
 
 in a round about way, Nathaii is again visiting my 
 wife ; " Dollars smilingly said : 
 
 Why, yes," "not alone that, but he is the one who 
 is your wife s only witness! He is the one who told 
 her about Mr. B. s friend ; about the married women 
 you took to the etc., etc." 
 
 Dollars had hardly said this much, when Nathan 
 ran right into us. 
 
 "Sol, see here," I exclaimed. 
 
 " Hello," he cried, " you here ?" and extending his 
 hand, it was all I could do to keep from jumping 
 at him, and then and there administering the booting 
 and kicking he deserved. Refusing his hand, 
 looking him steadily in the eye, he noticed from the 
 curl of my lip, from the glance of withering con 
 tempt I cast upon him, that at last I had discovered 
 him in his true colors, but true to his macchiavdian 
 education, true to his lying cowardly nature he 
 again managed to almost make me doubt facts, at 
 any rate as far as his devilish machinations were 
 concerned. 
 
 " Vat s de matter ? " he exclaimed in his broken 
 English. 
 
 " Matter ! " I answered. " You are a ! 
 
 " See here, dat von t do ! I see your friendt, 
 Mishter Dollars is here; he ish a lawyer, and 
 
206 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 aldough he ish yours, you must not say dat again." 
 " No, don t," interposed Dollars as lie was about 
 
 turning off, with a half concealed smile. 
 
 "Well I won t," I answered, "but I want you here 
 
 Dollars. Understand now, you dog, (turning to 
 
 Nathan) I have found you out ! If I hear further 
 
 " Vat ish de matter ? Exblain yourself ! Mr. 
 Dollars, vat dosh he mean ? " 
 
 " Mean ! " I roared, (and quite a crowd had by 
 this time gathered around us), " mean," I yelled, 
 " why, I mean you are at last found out, and I mean 
 either to stop you right here, or " 
 
 " Mr. Fennimore," then interposed Dollars. " Do 
 not forget yourself! He means turning to Nathan 
 * that he has been informed, you are the man who 
 has been giving all the information that Mrs. 
 Fennimore has secured; that you have acted the 
 part of a scoundrel." 
 
 Who says dat I It s a lie." 
 
 " Mr. Charmer says so !" I exclaimed. 
 
 "It s a lie; it s not drue; I vil go to-morrow to 
 Mishter Charmer mit you, or I vil get your vife to 
 Write you dat I am innocent, dat she received a 
 annonymous letter from a barty vitch set her 
 Unking about de matter, and as I dold you vatever 
 
A NE\V 1.N..1.AM V.M.MAN. JllT 
 
 1 have done, I did mit a hope to help you, and hoc 
 I ;uu to-day mit auoder lady. dUli very day your 
 vifo sent me vord to come over and see her at do 
 Astor lloux-, vitdi I did, but I den told lu-r I vas 
 now disgusted, dat she ought to go back to you." 
 
 " She sent for you ! " I asked. What for ? " 
 
 " She vanted some advice. Her farder vas oud of 
 down, uud she tought I could doll her vat to do 
 about certain life bolicies, und so fort." 
 
 Thus he kept on trying to get away from my 
 indignation and wrath, and finally he said ; 
 
 " I vill gjt Edit to write you a letter to-morro.v 
 justifying me, dat I am no tale bearer, und your 
 friendt." 
 
 With that he disappeared behind an usher, and 
 made his way to his orchestra stall. 
 
 When I reached my hotel, I could not sleep. I 
 wrote the following letter ; 
 EDITH, 
 
 Aud now I know an anonymous l.-ttn , -which a bhu-k^imrd 
 sent, was at the bottom <>l" your s -miin^ hard-hearteduess ; 
 ami, hail you confronted me with it. I would h,r.<- und. rM-M-d 
 till. Had you, however, known what I said, when a senile old 
 scoundrel told others lie would write you, your heart would 
 have responded to th-- faith I had in you. Erred. I may have ; 
 misunderstood yu I s. . I have; but, wicked against you, I have 
 never been. To-night I was at /,- Ci /,. , ; my thoughts, my 
 In-art were vith you. It is the first time in years I have been 
 at a first production without you. Wife, wife ! I cannot forget 
 
208 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 you ! You won t have me. You shan t 1 It s a month since 
 you left me, and I am not changed. My tears scald me. They 
 come from my soul. I won you because I loved you ; I was 
 willing to die for you. If you wish it, I ll die for you to-day 
 Edith, my heart is breaking ! To spare you, I have sinned ; 
 but, never has any one -not even our children had, from me, 
 the love their mother has. I would see other women : scorn 
 all, kiss none ; because I loved, nay ! worshiped you. All I 
 have done has been mis-represented to you. Everything has 
 been contorted. Your father, your mother care for you. 
 There is only one heart that loves you. The man whose 
 advice you ask, whom you sent for, to meet you at the Astor 
 House, tells me to forget you ; says even he is disgusted with 
 you. But my heart will not change. It was yours when I 
 first saw you. When you wanted me to leave you, I did nt 
 know why; I asked you what I had done. You said enough 1 
 More than enough, perhaps. But I have suffered for it. 
 Wife, wife ! forgive me. I know what heart you have, is no 
 other man s. No soul can blacken you to me. ***** 
 You can have a flat, you can have everything I can give you. 
 You can live alone. You can punish me as you wish, but 
 don t, don t let us be divorced. I have said, * I pity you. 
 I don t ! Pity me! You know how I love you. You can t 
 have forgotten everything ! I appealed to you for our children s 
 sake. It was useless I Let me appeal to you by the love a boy 
 bore a girl ; for the sake of the only good in me, let the 
 woman forgive the ruan. And were I to die to-night, my love 
 for you would take me from the very gates of hell. Whatever 
 I have done was thoughtless. Even in my anger against you, 
 my love showed itself. As to you ! Can any woman have 
 stabbed a man deeper ? Where I have been thoughtless : my 
 wrongs were my excuse. Have you however not been deliberate, 
 unforgiving ? Were any proofs needed as to the purity of my 
 love, the life I have led since you left me, speaks for itself. 
 That love asks nothing, it permeates my every thought, it is 
 given to you, as yours is to your baby. It sanctifies the breath 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 209 
 
 I draw. Accuse me of everything, but stop ! stop ! before you 
 break the heart you have crushed. I will write you 110 < \pln- 
 
 natiou as to the Hotel affair, but I will swear, before tho 
 
 party went there with me, and then, occupied entirely 
 separate apartments, I took her to her house before eleven, 
 and found the doors locked against her. This I could prove 
 by our cabman ; and, in taking her away from the blackguard 
 who wrote you, I did so with no thought of wrong doing, but 
 merely to satisfy a whim a caprice. Young and beautiful she 
 was ; but, I no more cared for her, or spent more than a few 
 hours with her, than I ever did care for any woman since I 
 knew you. Admire them I might! Appeal they might t<my 
 worser self , but the rock my faith was grounded ;>n. was the 
 woman I supposed an angel ; and, had I known you objected, 
 had I thought you cared, you know 1 would //<"< l< /> fr>t>, nx 
 well as honest. The worst that can be said, you know I told 
 you. Stop, think and remember. 
 
 YOUR HU8UAND. 
 
 This letter I dispatched early the next morning. 
 It was returned by my messenger unopened. 
 
 About an hour later, Edith sent me by a special 
 
 messenger the following letter : 
 
 ZVacfojr. 
 
 Just received the enclosed from Sol. To do him justice, I 
 am compelled to write : Sol. never gave me any information of 
 wrong doing. I was advised by a letter, and found out many 
 
 evidences, not alone of the Hotel affair, but of a great many 
 
 others. I had decided on my course before I saw Sol. He 
 tried very hard to persuade me to alter my decision. Under 
 no circumstances, would, or could I have changed this decision. 
 It has been, and is unalterable. 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 The enclosed was a letter from Nathan to my 
 wife. It read ; 
 
210 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 Tuesday Morning. 
 DEAR EDITH, 
 
 I saw Robert last night, and lie accused me of giving you 
 first information about certain things at the Hotel. He 
 told me Mr. Charmer had said so. Since I have failed to bring 
 you together again, I have been accused of so many things, 
 since this wretched affair has been going on, that I ought not 
 to be surprised about anything. Still, out of justice to me, 
 you ought to write Robert, and tell him the truth, and how 
 you got your information, and everything necessary hereto. 
 Everybody seems to take advantage of the ten days of fury 
 and indignation I have been in, after hearing of certain things 
 that vile woman (your friend) has tried to make Robert believe. 
 While I might have said a great many hard words against him 
 at that time, and done things, which, otherwise, I would not 
 have done, and, though not remembering everything that 
 passed in that time, and the words I have spoken, I trust, for 
 old friendship s sake, not to appeal to you in vain, in asking 
 you to right my position. I wished I had never anything to do 
 with this very unfortunate matter, but I beg of you to tell 
 Robert the truth. Please kindly send your answer to Robert, 
 with the same boy I send you this with. 
 
 Truly yours, 
 
 SOL. 
 
 Two words struck me, "first information So 
 in appealing to my wife to " right him," he wanted 
 her to write he had not been ihe first to give infor 
 mation. Coward, scoundrel, informer, I ejaculated. 
 And yet the difference ! 
 
 My wife received letters from him. Mine she 
 returned unopened. 
 
 Why? 
 
A NK\V 1.N..1..VNU WOMAN. 
 
 I then bethought myself. 
 
 A few days before that, I had sent her a letter of 
 which the following is a copy. 
 
 So all is over! The appeal of a father lias been as futile 
 as thr heart c-rieM of a husband, an.l in the wife s BOnl she 
 
 kin. \\. her husband oared for n. woman but his wife, and 
 
 that when years ago he told her another woman loved him, 
 
 he added he i-ould only care for tin- woman \vh was then at 
 hi- side. Ami why ? 
 
 Hud my wife died bef,,re September Hth, my In-art 
 would have been broken. Never conl.l 1 ha\- look.-.l upon 
 .th.-r women a^ain, ami in my soul a tablet would hav 
 been erected to her memory that would imvu lift-d me ah<,v- 
 my fellowmeu. I would have looked upon her as up.n an 
 ttngel. I would have been crushed when the rarth was hud 
 o er her grave, ami my heart would have been buried with 
 her. Why? Because of the love she show* -d nu- ? ! 
 of the affection she had b-*t. \\.-d upn me? Tliiid; in all 
 our years of married life, I never even had a flower, x.-.-ptin^ 
 when si.-k, from my wife : No ! My hearl would have been 
 buried, because I looked upon her as my better self, the part 
 of myself I loved best, the one thing in the world that I knew 
 would be true, true till death, and in the henafi.r. How I 
 have been fooled! For five years I have hud no husband, 1 
 hear. How about the vife ? In all the yean of onr married 
 life, I cannot re-ail a \oluntary ki.-s. neith.-r fan I reeall a 
 smile of love, or an embrace that 1 had not lirst be^ed for. 
 Do you suppose I have tukeii this step without thinking . I "> 
 you suppose I don t know what I am about ? Yes indeed, yon 
 do and thank heaven I have learned what I have. Friends tell 
 me lam young. At thirty-foiirm->st men commence to think of 
 marriage, while a woman at thirty is pauee. Th.-y t.-li me ! 
 ou-ht to thank my Bl fonndyonontintime. Wehave 
 
 ppenl a thir.l of ,,ur life together. In fiift, if We except fluid- 
 
212 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 hood, over half our lives have been npent together, and in all 
 those years we had no differences, and I always thought 
 you dutiful, excepting in your chief duty. I did not know 
 you ! All of a sudden you turn ! Like a tigress you rend my 
 heart ! A criminal can be pardoned sooner than a woman who 
 turns as you did on me. I was dazed ! Instead of abusing 
 you, maltreating you, as perhaps I should have done, I became 
 the woman. I wept, I plead, I entreated. Before we were 
 married you read " Bayard Taylor s, Soldier and the Pard " to 
 me. The Pard loved ! Tiring of love, the man plunges full 
 home, a dagger down her neck, and the poor Pard, with a look 
 of agony, and silent reproach, gives a gasp and dies. Think of 
 the soldier s remorse, and think of the daggers you have driven 
 into me ! If I could die, I would. Death would have been 
 preferable a thousand times to the awful, awful heart-ache I 
 have. People tell me to call pride to the rescue, but when a 
 heart has loved as I have, there is no pride, no nothing to 
 appeal to. I would rather be an outcast, a wanderer on the 
 face of the earth, than live again with you as we have lived, 
 but in the watches of the night when your conscience troubles 
 you, as I know it will, think, think of the heart you have 
 thrust from you. I forgive, because you know not what 
 you do, I forgive because I know your baby s sickness 
 turned your head, and because of the unintentional wrong 
 done you. Had I lost my business, had my children all died, 
 had you died I could not have been as miserable as your doings 
 have made me. " God s will be done," would have been my 
 cry. I would have felt badly. I would have wept, but my 
 heart would not have been pierced as it is. In two months I 
 hear, I will be over it, and your lovely mother has said that 
 I am awake nights, because I am carousing with other women 1 
 I have been looking over some of the numerous letters she 
 sent me before I married you. In them she tells me you are 
 not worthy of me, tells me she told you so, tells me I am too 
 generous, too good, too forgiving ! She tells me of your 
 faults, and she tells me she respects me and regards me too 
 
A KK\V KN(JLANl) WOMAN. 213 
 
 highly to want me to put my trust iu a girl who does not know 
 her own mind. And then I have read yoiir letters, and a draft 
 of the letter I sent you before you said the little word "Come" 
 and you told me you hoped it would make me as happy as it 
 Hid you to say it. As I have not looked at these letters in 
 almost eleven years, I was amazed to find, according to them 
 you seemed to care very much for me indeed, and whereas you 
 did not think you could ever love me as I did you, you cared 
 more for me than for anybody else in the world. And then 
 in one of your early letters you write me you have not ch<tu<jt<l 
 your mind, nor trill you ever, just as in the one I received from 
 you, which you gave to niy Enid to give. But what s the 
 good ? The law will take its course, and wherein I have 
 wronged you without justification, my heart asks forgiveness. 
 Ask yourself, have I nothing to forgive ? 
 
 As there is a h&tren above us Edith, out of Hie deepest misery 
 I hate ever endured, I pity, I pity the woman I call* < I /rift . 
 
 You have a heart it may be dead to me I may be to bhimo 
 for it, but the day will come the night your torpor cannot 
 last forever, and when you awaken I pity the misery you 
 are bringing upon yourself. When that awakening comics, 
 when your heart is breaking, send for me, or come to me. I 
 will take you by the hand, I will look you in the face, and I 
 will forgive as I hope to be forgiven. 
 
 I commenced this letter, meaning to forward it after we were 
 divorced, but when I think of our children, of the stigma we 
 will be putting upon them, I cannot but make another appeal. 
 You may say it is too late ! It may be too late to undo what you 
 have done, but as yet you have not been guilty of signing a 
 document which your children will never forgive. They are 
 mine as much as yours. They have my nature more than 
 yours, and for their sake I am writing. You are their mother, 
 I their father. No grandfather, no grandmother can take my 
 place with them ! You used to tell me Roy loved me better 
 than he did you. Do you want our remaining children to care 
 more for me than they will for you f Do you want them to 
 
A NEW ENGLAND -WOMAN. 
 
 desert you, as you have deserted me ? But again, I am com 
 mencing to upbraid. I ask for pardon. I ask for forgiveness. 
 Live with you I could not, but do not let us be divorced. 
 Think again, hate me as much as you wish, but do not bring 
 misery on our children, as well as upon yourself. 
 
 YOUK HUSBAND. 
 
 This letter had perhaps failed of its purpose. It 
 had taken me hours to write it. I weighed well 
 what I said, but the very truths I brought home to 
 my wife, had probably incensed, and if anything, 
 the more decidedly hardened her heart. At any 
 rate Solomon Nathan s letters were accepted by her. 
 On his account she wrote. My letters were not 
 accepted. 
 
 To me she was dead. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Tis ever darkest just before day! No cloud but 
 has its silver lining. 
 
 Six weeks had gone by. My misery had been 
 continual, continuous. No matter what I did, my 
 thoughts were always with tho woman who had 
 deserted me. I was in the depths ! And what made 
 me the more miserable was the continual conscious- 
 - of " having sinned " 
 
 K-lith had been slandered! Some people there 
 were, who thought she was in the wrong. All 
 thought she was in love with Nathan. Some even 
 doubted her honor. I knew her. I knew she was 
 the soul of honor itself ! I knew ehe was honest ! 
 I kne~A* she did not care for me ! I knew she hated 
 me, but I felt sure she did not love Nathan. I was 
 fully convinced he loved her, but I knew her 
 disposition too well not to be sure, she could not 
 really care for him. 
 
216 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 But what made my condition the more pitiable 
 was the impossibility of doing other than blame 
 myself. Had I been a better man, she never would 
 have left me, I thought. If I am so constituted 
 that a pure, a good, a noble woman like Edith can 
 not live with me, what a contemptible man I must 
 be ! How I have over-rated, and over-estimated 
 myself ! How unlovable a man, I am ! 
 
 Thus I ever went on communing with myself. My 
 pride should have asserted itself, my self-love should 
 have come to the rescue, but because I was so deeply 
 wounded in my pride, I walked with my head bowed, 
 in very shame, being almost afraid to look my fellow 
 men in the face. 
 
 It was while in this mental state, that her father one 
 day surprised me by calling on me at my office. His 
 first words were : 
 
 " Eobert, I would like to talk to you." 
 
 " I am glad to see you, sir," I replied, "excuse me 
 for a minute, and I will be with you," and with that, 
 giving some orders to my cashier, I closed my office 
 door, and invited Mr. B. to a seat. 
 
 " Robert, do you still care for my daughter ? " was 
 his first question. 
 
 "Care for her ? " I replied. " Have I not always 
 cared for her, have I not always shown it ? " 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 217 
 
 " Give me your baud Robert, you are a prince 
 among men, I only regret not having come to you 
 before. I want to talk to you. Can we not go 
 somewhere where we can be away from your business? 
 I have a good deal to say." 
 
 " We can go to my hotel, which is only a step from 
 here," I replied, and closing my desk, I accompanied 
 him to the street. Hardly reaching the corner, his 
 first words were : 
 
 " Robert, I am an old man, I have always lived 
 right, my life is not worth much anyhow, but there 
 are some things flesh and blood cannot stand. If 
 this sort of thing continues, I may have murder on 
 my soul." 
 
 He then went on to tell me that nightly Nathan 
 had called on my wife. That when finally put out 
 at the front door, he would come in by the back door, 
 and that whereas he believed my wife was a true 
 woman 
 
 "True woman," I interrupted! "I know she is. 
 I even know she does not care for Nathan." 
 
 " "Well, if she does not care for him, why does she 
 persist in seeing him, in meeting him, and counseling 
 continually with him, and against you ? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose because he exerts some kind of 
 hypnotic influence over her." 
 
218 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Gad, that is it," he exclaimed. " That is it ! I have 
 lately been reading about hypnotism and magnetic 
 influences. That must be it! I never thought of it 
 in that way, but it must be so." 
 
 From that moment he became forever and ever there 
 after a firm believer in the power of one being to so in 
 fluence and control the mind of another, that ifposessed 
 of a certain amount of animal magnetism, one mind 
 could make captive another mind, so as to hold 
 absolute undisputed sway and power over it ! 
 
 He then asked me to devise some plan, whereby if 
 the man s visits were discontinued, she might be 
 brought to her senses. He told me that at first both 
 her mother and he had thought what they had heard 
 about Nathan were calumnies pure and simple, but 
 perceiving that he was over anxious to testify against 
 me, Mr. Charmer, when cross-examining him, had 
 called Edith s father aside and said it looked to him 
 as if it were a matter of conspiracy between Nathan 
 and my wife, and that in consequence he was afraid, 
 since Nathan was her only witness, his very anxiety to 
 testify would militate against her, and that unless 
 other proof could be brought forward, he would 
 certainly not be able to make out a case. He further 
 told me, Nathan had interrupted them by exclaiming: 
 1 Oh, he will submit to a divorce quick enough. Just 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. lil J 
 
 threaten to bring in certain married women, and he 
 will quickly enough then, furnish the evidence 
 himself. 
 
 Mr. B. ended by telling me. after that interview, 
 he had requested, demanded, and insisted Nathan 
 see less of my wife, he had even talked to her 
 about it, and finally a week before calling on me, 
 had told Edith he would come and see me, and open 
 my eyes, if she herself did not put a stop to it. 
 He finally said a couple of days before that, he had 
 received a letter from Nathan which that individual 
 had written after Mr. B. had positively closed his 
 doors to him. 
 
 " And how about Edith s mother? " I inquired. 
 
 " Edith s mother ! why, she told me only to-day, 
 she would rather see our daughter dead than divorced 
 from you, and married to that man. She hates the 
 very sight of him ! " 
 
 " And why did both she and you act as you did 
 when first she left me ? " 
 
 " Robert, if you had an only daughter, and she 
 came to you, after leaving her husband; would you 
 not stand by her ? " 
 
 " I suppose I would, but I certainly would see my 
 son-in-law, particularly if he was willing to let me 
 and my wife judge between him and my daughter." 
 
220 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 " Well ! so I intended ; but, what is the use of 
 talking of the past ? " 
 
 " No use, Mr. B.," I replied ; " but what, what did 
 I do ? What does Edith complain of ? Does she say 
 I was cruel to her ? Did I ever strike her ? Did I 
 ever abuse her ? Was I brutal? Does she complain 
 of my not gratifying every whim, every caprice she 
 had "? " 
 
 Not at all ! She complains of nothing, excepting 
 of having received some anonymous letter, which I 
 believe Nathan sent anyhow." 
 
 " And what did that say ? What did it contain ? " 
 
 " The truth is, neither Charmer or I believe 
 she ever received one, as she claims she destroyed it. 
 But whether she received one, or not 
 
 " She received one," I interrupted. "I believe I 
 know whom to trace it to, and it was not sent by 
 Nathan either." 
 
 I then went on to explain about the Casino affair, 
 and at length rehearsed a full and succinct history of 
 my life with Edith, told of her telling me so soon 
 after marriage, what she did. I even read some of 
 the letters I had so recently sent her, also the one 
 which she refused to receive, also another one which 
 contained a check ; and, whereas Edith s father 
 and I had always been good friends I had always 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN". 221 
 
 admired him for his sterling honesty, he me for my 
 manliness and frankness I never, until that hour, 
 knew the depth of feeling the man had within 
 him. I had always thought him cold, austere, 
 wrapped up in himself and his thoughts. I learned 
 otherwise. I positively saw a tear course down his 
 cheek, when I read extracts from my last two 
 appeals. When I had finished, he said ; 
 
 " Robert, you are a prince ! I was telling my wife 
 compared to Nathan, you were a king among men. 
 All I regret is, not coming to you before." 
 
 In this way he went on. What need to go into 
 further and more minute details ? Thanks to him, I 
 thought all was not lost ; and, as at the time I wrote 
 a letter to the manager of my San Francisco house, 
 who happened to know of some of my troubles, and 
 as that letter, at my request, was returned to me, I 
 submit it herewith, as in a measure it rehearses 
 briefly and succinctly the events therein described. 
 
 MY DEAR JONES : 
 
 The reason you have not heard from me personally is : 
 The life has been taken out of me, my heart was crushed, I 
 was in a semi-commatose state for the last five weeks, and have 
 only now in a measure regained my manhood, my strength, 
 and only because I havo been wronged, and more hashappened 
 than flesh and blood can stand. I think you went away 
 Sunday, September 27. Wednesday, September IHHh, I csuiw 
 home and found my wife gone. She sent me a telegram saying 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 she had gone to her mother s, who was in Worcester. She 
 left me without a word or a scene, merely took a hand-bag 
 with her, and left the children in the care of the nurses. I 
 had been expecting it, but when the blow came, I felt all life 
 had left me. I telegraphed her father to make her return at 
 once, with her mother if necessary, and him (her father) if 
 possible, and concluded : will let you two decide as to our 
 future. He wired me : Will see you to-morrow. He did 
 not do so. I sent to his office two days thereafter and found 
 he was in town, wrote him I expected him, and received 
 answer, "I cannot see you." I did not know what was brewing. 
 I was afraid my children might be taken away from me, the 
 baby was sick, her nurse was going to leave the following 
 Saturday, and I was in the deepest misery I had ever ex 
 perienced. I went to her father s house, found nobody home, 
 waited for two hours, and then left message: "Baby was 
 sick, needed its mother, to come up and take care of it. House 
 will be open till two o clock." No response came ! The 
 following day her mother called, and asked if she could take 
 some of Edith s things and the baby, in which I acquiesced. I 
 asked .the old lady to sit down and listen to me, and I would 
 tell her my side of the story. Among other things, I told her 
 a lady friend of Edith s, who called the day after Edith went 
 away, said that I was a fool, as blind as a bat, that for years I 
 had been hoodwinked, and that no woman would leave a 
 husband, her children, her home (such a one as she had) if no 
 man was at the bottom of it. In short, that Nathan for years 
 had been under-mining her love, her affection for me, and if 
 there was no wrong between them, there was pretty much the 
 next thing to it, that my wife had repeatedly called on him in 
 his rooms etc., and so if it comes to a divorce, I might have 
 rights as well as she. Her mother said, And you believe that 
 woman ? My reply was : Don t I know Edith ? 
 
 But what does her mother do but adds fuel to the flame by 
 repeating all but the last part of our conversation, and so 
 jncenses my wife that she goes with her father to his lawyers, 
 
,\ M \V r\,,I.\V|> 
 
 223 
 
 and although her father is oppos.d to it, <1 imandft nothing bill 
 an absolute divorce. Infer.- that Nathan had been sent t<>r : 
 He was told what I had h-urd. hi- g.-ows furious, lit- tells 
 absolutely everything he knows about me, and my dill eivnt 
 escapades, a good many of which he was party to, an* I as :i 
 result, he is telegraphed for, cross-examined by her lawyers, 
 (tells of the -- Hotel affair where In- railed expecting to jin.l 
 me) and the result is, her lawyers invit.- me to please call on 
 them. In the meantim. 1 had not left the house, I was out 
 of my head, in tears, in mis. TV siirh as 1 had never endured, 
 andfruitlessly I s.-nt, entreaty aft. r riitivjity t-> Edith, and her 
 mother, all of which were treated with contempt and indif 
 ference. 
 
 I called on Dollars, told him what, when here I rounded to 
 you, and he thought perhaps I had better insist in casa a 
 separation was wanted, on a divorce, as he argued in \. 
 come you may want to re-marry, then she may not In- willing, 
 now she probably is, etc. 
 
 I called on her attorneys. An absolute divorce was 
 demanded. As to the children, she wanted all, but I flatly 
 said if I did not have Enid, 1 would agree to nothing. 
 Well, after a good of deal of dilly-dallying, further 
 demands as to silver, linen, furniture, piano, furs, etc., 
 I agreed to absolutely everything, (I was too heart-weary) 
 excepting as to furniture. 
 
 I positively refused to furnish a flat for her, not 
 wishing to run the chance of her taking one, and 
 having Nathan for a boarder, against whom absolut. ,\ 
 every friend \\arned me, and in some cases positively asserted 
 he was at the bottom of all my trouble. 
 
 I could not believe it, I thought I had really turned 
 my wife s heart, that I was to blame, that I was 
 suffering the penalty of my sins and mudeeda, and 
 I felt crushed, bo ved down to the dust, wounded 
 and humiliated. I have been an egoist all my life ! I was 
 proud of my success, proud of my business, proud of the head 
 
224 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 I had on my shoulders, but I was proudest of my home, my 
 family, my wife ! Had I lost my business, my children, had 
 my wife died, I could not have been as miserable as I was at 
 her treatment. I am peculiar, I have set ideas, I have 
 meannesses, cranky ways, as we all have, but I do not remem 
 ber in my life to have done a fellow creature a wrong, or 
 intentionally to have sinned. As a result, considering the god 
 I had made of my wife, I was hurt, hurt so deeply that even 
 now I have to take opiates to put me to sleep. 
 
 Pending negotiations, my house had grown hateful to 
 me. I closed it, tried to rent it, and came to this hotel with 
 Enid and a governess, and sent my boy to my sister Alice. ][ 
 then announced a sale of my furniture, and that was the first 
 blow I struck. It brought a demand for the privilege of 
 taking what belonged to her (which I had expected) and it 
 brought her to me ! 
 
 I pleaded with her as I did before she left me, I asked her 
 to reconsider a divorce, to agree on a separation, promised to 
 furnish a flat, and even give her five thousand dollars per year. 
 All of no avail ! She was, as nhe had been adamant ice ! 
 For three hours she remained at the house. Once or twice she 
 seemed about to yield, but some influence kept her back. I 
 will never go back on what I do ! I will never change ! 
 Nobody has advised me ! I do this of my own free will ; my 
 mother is the only one who has advised me, and I want you to 
 so understand it I She left me, and I gave up all hope. Until 
 then, I did not know how much she had been part of my being, 
 part of my existence. I was bowed down, miserable and heart 
 broken ; and, if Heaven itself had not turned against her, I do 
 not know what I would have done. Last Monday I was 
 undeceived. Her father came to me. He asked if I would 
 talk to him. He grasped my hand. He asked me if I still 
 cared for her, and when my heart inquired if I had not shown 
 that I did, he said : Robert, you are a king among men. He 
 then said : I am a pretty old man, but there are some things 
 flesh and blood will not stand. My life is not worth much, but 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 225 
 
 if things go on as they have, if that coward, that miserable 
 
 Nathan, further continues to call on my daughter, I may 
 commit murder. Ho thru told mo Nathan had her under his 
 complete control. He did not believe she cared for him, but 
 if that fellow did not discontinue his visits, notwithstanding 
 his warnings, he would shoot him. He then said : At first I 
 did not believe it, but now I know ! If you have not been a 
 saint, I have not been one either, but I do know you are a man. 
 My one consolation in life was, to know you had provided for 
 my daughter like a prince. Had that man not come between 
 you, you would still be living together. That Nathan was her 
 only witness, her only informer. Artful as he has been, he has 
 for years undermined her love for you, and when she got an 
 anonymous letter which everybody thought Nathan had sent, 
 (but I know it came from a Mr. B)., she would still be your 
 wife, and love you as ever. 
 
 To make a long story short, he told me if, for my children s 
 sake, I did not fight a divorce, (and if I showed I meant to, 
 she would weaken), he would rid the earth of that black 
 guard ! That Nathan, notwithstanding his wishes to the 
 contrary, and repeated warnings not to do so, called nightly, 
 advised lier continwdly, and if he were out of the way, she 
 would soon repent, and come back to me as she ought to have 
 done long ago. Well ! it was all I needed ! I now saw 
 everything! Up to three years ago, my wife was an angel. 
 In the last three years, Nathan s influence had, in the dark 
 been working against me. Whereas, at first I l>l:im<-d myself, 
 I am now awakened. To-morrow she is to see her lawyers. 
 Then she will hear I absolutely refuse to submit to a divorce, 
 other than in open court ; will agree to no alimony to 
 nothing ; no separation, or anything; and then, if from what 
 her father, her mother and her lawyers say, she wants to force 
 the issue, the case of Fennimorc vs. Fennimore, will become 
 a feature of New York newspapers. I know she has not \>^\ 
 her honor, nor her heart. She is incensed, and she has been 
 worked upon until her mind is affected. I have been the 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAtf. 
 
 suppliant, but now I am once again myself ; and, whereas it 
 may be years before we are together again, I can only have her 
 as wife, when, on her knees, she comes to me. Return this 
 letter, read it to both of my brothers, who will sympathise with 
 me, and 
 
 Believe me, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMORE. 
 
 The following letters are fair specimens of such 
 as I received at the time. Both speak for themselves. 
 The first needs no comment. It breathes the heart 
 felt sympathy of a dearly-loved brother : 
 DEAR ROBERT, 
 
 Your letter of inst. received. What a terrible revelation 1 
 I can hardly believe it ; and yet, when you first wrote, 
 involuntarily that thought came to me, yet I did not want to 
 entertain it ; but, alas ! it seems too true. My dear brother, 
 you have my heart-felt sympathy ! I don t know what to say 
 to you, only I know my very heart bleeds for you. How awful 
 to think, after all these married years, it should come about 
 thus. I know you, as I have often told you, better than any 
 one else, and I know how you must feel. With all the faults 
 you have, as light-hearted as you may seemingly appear, on 
 certain matters that I would deem very sacred, at heart you 
 have always been true ; and, that she, who, for ten years, has 
 been your companion, and has borne you children, should 
 leave you in such a manner, seems inexplicable. If she had a 
 grievance, why didn t she try your better self rather than take 
 such off-hand proceedings ? I simply can t understand it ; but, 
 in spite of myself, it looks to me very much as if Nathan is at 
 the bottom of all your troubles ; and, if this is true, shooting 
 wouldn t be any too good for him. I only hope, Robert, that 
 Edith will reconsider the terrible step she wants to take, and 
 that a speedy reconciliation may take place. 
 Your loving brother, 
 
 ALECK. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 2 27 
 
 The other oue was as follows : 
 
 MY DEAR ROBEKT. 
 
 I was very much paiued to read your letter to Aleck, nnd 
 do hopo that the worst will iiot happen, and that you ami 
 Kdith will get reconciled. Use every effort to bring this about, 
 if only for the sake of your dear children. I cannot under 
 stand how Edith could leave the little ones. That your home 
 life never suited Mary and un-. you know. Is it possible that. 
 Nathan, whom you considered your best and truest friend, is a. 
 villain? I cannot believe that Edith should f -r-o.ke \ ..11 for 
 him, at the same time I cannot understand if you loved Edith 
 as you say you did, you could often, c \. n if in only u jocular 
 way, have talked as you sometimes did to us, about the marriage 
 relation. Robert, iny brother, is all the blame on one side 
 only ? Have you been as true and faithful, as a good husband 
 should be? If not, acknowledge to Kd;th that you have done 
 wrong, and try and make up with her, and then turnover quite 
 a different leaf , and (Jod s blessing may re.->t upon you, your 
 wife and children, and give you a happy homo yet. Oh, 
 Robert, when I look back some twenty years, see you as a boy, 
 and think what a change has become of you as a man, it pains 
 me more than you have any idea of. May this trial be a 
 turning point in your life. I hope and pray you nnd K.iith 
 will be speedily brought together again, that you will forgive 
 one another, and henceforth devote, youisel\.-s to doing all in 
 your power to increase each others pure happiness, set up a 
 model household, and not be so worldy minded as \ oil have 
 been hitherto. I would like to point you to CliriM. u> the 
 Church, to Religion, but perhaps it is best not to say much. I 
 pray for you and your dear ones. 
 
 Your affect, brother. 
 
 JOHN. 
 
 This letter, although expressing regret and full of 
 sympathy, and written by a brother who firmly 
 
228 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 believes in Christ and Christianity, imagined I 
 needed the admonition to confess to Edith that I 
 had done wrong ? Ah Jack, in your calm, placid, 
 ordinary every day life, you had never been troubled 
 by storms and winds, such as time and again 
 menaced my vessel. Your life had been one of peace 
 and content ! Your bark had sailed in the quiet 
 placid waters of an inland lagoon. You had never 
 been buffeted by a " sou-easter," or a " nor-wester," 
 such as your brother Rob continually had to contend 
 with, and whereas his vessel had come from the same 
 builders, and it was originally launched under the 
 same auspices, at the time of christening yours was 
 named " Content," his Unrest." Later on, people 
 likened your ship unto your brother Robert s famous 
 battle ship, which by that time had been re-christened 
 " Onward," and when yours required over-hauling, 
 and repainting, it was re-christened "Inward." A 
 difference of the " i " only. But oh what a difference! 
 You were satisfied to have yours plough for six 
 months in the year on an inland lake, the other six 
 it remained stationery, calm and quiet, securely 
 moored to its dock. If the waters around it grew 
 muddy, if in consequence of inaction its very 
 hulk grew mouldy and rotten, what mattered it ? 
 You always had your boat in sight, there never was 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 any danger of your losing it ! You took no chances ! 
 
 But I? 
 
 What vessel was ever launched that passed through 
 so many viscissitudes, climes and changes as mine ? 
 When it was built, admiring yours, I requested the 
 builders to model and fashion it as near like unto 
 yours as possible, and when it was launched, and I 
 set sail and left your placid lake, in name only were 
 we or our boats dis-siinilar. But the first wind that 
 came along, wafted my vessel out into the open lakes, 
 through the newly built canals, down the mighty 
 Hudson, into the great Atlantic. And then there 
 arose a storm and another storm, until finally, 
 buffeted by one wave after another, I was driven 
 from shore to shore, from clime to clime, and when 
 finally the elements desisted and rested, and their 
 attempts to wreck me proved futile, my boat had to 
 be manned by experienced gunners and fighters to 
 keep away the pirates that continually were be-setting, 
 annoying, and harrassing me And finally when my 
 boat had withstood all storms, had conquered all 
 enemies, and was safe in port, what wonder the love 
 of danger, the "spirit of unrest" seized upon me, 
 and from that time " onward," and forever after 
 ward, 1 could not rest calm, nor content, even in the 
 harbors of the very busiest of marts, but no sooner 
 
230 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 had I reached one port, I would leave for another, 
 all the time eager and anxious for new worlds to 
 conquer, new sights to see. 
 
 And although in recent years you have added 
 improvements to your boat, imitated and aped mine 
 in every particular possible, nevertheless an inland 
 lagoon is not the ocean, a canal boat not a battle ship, 
 and even so, such is the difference twixt you and me. 
 
 Confess to Edith ! Why, Jack ! I confessed too 
 much ! 
 
 When Edith s father called on me, he informed me 
 the reason that eventually prompted him to do so, 
 was a scene which he had with Mr. Nathan, which 
 culminated in his telling Nathan if his calls were 
 persisted in, Edith would go to the very devil, that 
 he had furthermore on that occasion told Edith if 
 she secured a divorce, and was firm in her purpose, 
 he for one would interpose no objection to her 
 marrying Nathan, provided the proprieties were in 
 a measure observed, but that he did not propose to 
 stand by and permit me to do the fiddling, and have 
 Nathan reap the benefit not at any rate while I 
 was her husband. 
 
 His scene resulted in Nathan s sending him a 
 letter which it required but little discernment to 
 read " twixt the lines. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WoMAN. 231 
 
 This letter he promised to bring me on his next 
 visit. It was as follows ; 
 
 DEAR SIB. 
 
 I have thought about what you ud to-iaight. In many 
 things you are right. I appreciate your frankness. I think wo 
 all are very much excited and nervous through all the Wffks. 
 I know I am, it is cans, -d from lack of sleep, thinking of things 
 which are nearest my In-art. You know I am the last one to 
 want to make Edith feel badly, her happiness and future is as 
 dear to me as anybody. Do not have any wrong ideas about 
 her, she would never go where you said in the excitement to 
 night, but I am sure her lift- from now on will be full of happi 
 ness, content and peace. There is still a happy life before her, 
 and while one man did not appreciate the sweetness and kind 
 ness of her character, the future will be different to her, and 
 full of huppin. ss. You will pardon me if I suggest that it 
 would be good for her perhaps if she should go in Lakewood 
 fora week or two with the children, it will certainly benefit 
 her health, and quiet her nerves. If this suggestion com.* 
 from you, it will have more effect on her, because if I should 
 say it, she would think I did not want to call any more. It 
 would stop all slanderous tongues, and she herself needs a 
 change of air. Believe me, I speak out of my heart when I say 
 her welfare is dearest to me, the end will come out all right, 
 and it will be anew and better life, a life full of happiness and 
 
 peace. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 SOLOMON NATHAN. 
 
 When Mr. B. handed me this letter, my blood was 
 up. It w;is positive proof. It showed too plainly 
 the coward s motives, 
 
 Mr. B calmed me somewhat. He begged me not 
 to act illegally, but that on consulting with a friend 
 
232 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAtf. 
 
 of his, he found there was a law against conspiracy. 
 His friend had suggested that Nathan and his 
 governess had been conspiring ever since the sum 
 mer, and whereas the man only called at night time, 
 the woman invariably called in the day time, and in 
 consequence it was a clear case of conspiracy twixt 
 the two of them. 
 
 I took counsel, and was about securing warrants of 
 arrest, when I thought it would be better to scare and 
 intimidate a coward, rather than make a martyr out of 
 a villain. I bethought me of this, as I knew my wife s 
 nature well enough to know if matters became public, 
 if Nathan were arrested, nothing in the world would 
 ever bring her back to me. 
 
 I accordingly called on the accomplice, the tool, 
 I pitied the measures I was forced to pretend I would 
 adopt, but I succeeded in scaring the " rat." I told 
 the governess both she and he would be arrested if 
 she persisted in carrying further messages to my 
 wife, (I wanted to break off all relations between 
 them), and I succeeded. The woman went into tears. 
 
 " Mein Himmel," she exclaimed. "Vat could I do? 
 Mister Natan tells me your vife vars lonesome, und 
 needed a companion in her troubles." 
 
 " My wife needs no servant as a companion," I 
 ventured, and in short, X so badly scared the tool, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 233 
 
 that " Mephistofele " himself took fright, he drew in 
 his horns, and whereas the following letter the better 
 than ought else bespeaks the fright my visit 
 occasioned, he nevertheless therein attempts to 
 picture himself as the one abused. 
 The letter read : 
 
 DEAR ROBEBT, 
 
 I don t understand your actions. When I canie home, 
 Frauleiu told me what you told her. You say you love Edith, 
 and still you are hound to mix her up with me. I don t care 
 what Maurice or anybody else told you. I tell you, you are 
 hounding me for an imagination, and that your awful position 
 makes you listen to the lowest kind of people. The letter you 
 showed Fraulein was written after Edith s father said that you 
 would bring an action against Edith, with the idea to mix me 
 up in it He said it would be ruin to her, and I told him I was 
 the last one to bring ruin upon her ; that I preferred not to see 
 her again. I don t understand what you want ? Since I saw 
 you last, I have refused to see Edith, and will do so further. 
 You accuse me more than ever of wrong-doing. I probably 
 did not act right in the week you made me furious, but ever 
 since then I have again, particularly the last week, and more 
 yet last night, tried to influence Edith in your favor. Do you 
 think she will yield if you continue to accuse her of wrong 
 doing, which you know, in your inner heart, are not true ? I 
 am not afraid of arrest, or anything else, but I am quietly 
 preparing to meet any emergency. All that I want is, as I t< -Id 
 Dollars, to be left alone. If I am dragged in this affair, there 
 won t be any sparing done. I think you are aware that I know 
 how to handle newspaper reporters. Now take any step you 
 choose, but the consequences be on your own head. Maurice 
 told me a man in your position to get his wife back is 
 excusable for many things. I agree with him, but everything 
 
234. A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 has its culmination, and the hunting down of me has worried 
 my patience to the utmost, and if it does not stop, I will take 
 steps to stop it. I repeat, don t continue on this talk. Edith 
 would not be half as hard, if you did not accuse her, and it is 
 only natural that she would want to communicate with me if I 
 am the one who is accused too. Again, don t listen to bad 
 advice. You have hurt Edith terribly with all your accusations 
 still, I believe yet there is a chance for you to restore your 
 home, but it can only be dono by kindness, and not by 
 persecution. 
 
 I will not visit her any more, except I must see her father. 
 If he will not come to me, I will go to him, but I trust he will 
 see me at my house. 
 
 If the papers take hold of this affair, I will fight to my last 
 breath, and I shan t be on the defence neither. I may have 
 more friends, allies, etc. than people think. Now you can 
 take your choice. If it is war, let it be then. Where the good 
 comes out for any of us, I can t see, but the inevitable can t be 
 avoided. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 SOLOMON NATHAN. 
 
 Once before he had promised, he would not visit 
 her. Then it was a matter of honor. He broke his 
 promise. Now he promised not to visit her, and it 
 was a matter of avoiding the penalty. I knew he 
 would keep his word. 
 
 I had gained my point. 
 
 * * * # 
 
 With Mr. B.,I called on Mr. Charmer, paid him his 
 fee, told him her father was with me, her mother 
 even against her, and that gentleman assured us, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 235 
 
 whereas he was her attorney, and had to act for her, 
 he would do his best to avoid bringing an action, 
 and although he could promise nothing, he thought 
 nothing would be lost by delaying, and letting the 
 matter sleep. 
 
 Thus I was on the point of settling down to an 
 enforced separation, feeling assured of the wonders 
 time accomplishes in healing all wounds, when I was 
 iiwaki-ncd out of my sense of peace and security by 
 the following letter : 
 
 OFFICE OF 
 DOLLARS, BRANDY & SODA, 
 
 BROADWAY. 
 
 MB. KOBEBT FENNIMOBE. 
 My Dnir Sir : 
 
 Mrs. Fennimore has secured another attorney, who 
 called ou thr jul^- \ rstt-rday. 
 
 You had better come dowii and see us at once. 
 Respectfully, etc., 
 
 DOLLARS, BRANDY & SODA. 
 
CHAPTKR XXVII. 
 
 In my life, I had received many wounds- The 
 deepest had been those my wife had given me. Until 
 her father came to me, my misery had been such that 
 I had, in a measure, grown impervious to her thrusts. 
 Here I was, just about convalescing mentally, 
 regaining my strength physically, when once again a 
 blow was struck, which cut me to the very core. I 
 bowed my head, but this time, it was not in tears. 
 
 " How long, oh God ?" I cried. 
 
 I was hurt, I was offended, I was outraged ; but, 
 unlike the time when the first blow was struck, I now 
 had the consciousness of trying to do right. With 
 my attorney s letter, I went to her father. 
 
 " What does this mean, Mr. B.? " I inquired. 
 
 " Don t ask me, Rob," he replied. "I am afraid she 
 is still in the hands of that fiend; and, whereas he 
 no longer calls at the house, her mother thinks she 
 sees him of an afternoon, and, at any rate, things 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 237 
 
 have gone on to such an extent, that I have left our 
 flat, and her mother is going to do likewise. We 
 thought, perhaps, doing RO might bring her to her 
 senses. If it does not, I do not know what will." 
 
 * You should not do that," I replied, " but more of 
 that anon. I would like you now to accompany me 
 to my lawyers, and learn what has happened." 
 
 When we reached my attorneys, we were informed, in 
 some way or other, through negligence on the part of 
 Mr. Charmer, one of his clerks had told my wife her 
 father and I had visited their office in each others 
 company, and without further ado, she had then 
 secured another attorney, whom she had substituted 
 for Messrs. Charmer and Ketcham, and this attorney, 
 (Col. Doomuch), had called on Judge Dollars, with a 
 Mr. Isaac Isaacsen, who represented Mr. Nathan. 
 
 A Mr. Isaac Isaaceen, who represented Mr. 
 Nathan ! " I exclaimed." " What does he want to be 
 represented for ? " 
 
 " That is just what I asked my father, who told me 
 Mr. Isaacsen, only appeared for Mr. Nathan, to say 
 if that gentleman s name was left out of the case, 
 and he was not dragged into it any further, he would 
 undo what he had done by agreeing not to appear in 
 any way whatsoever for Mrs. F., while Col. Doomuch 
 called to see whether we could amicably arrange as 
 
238 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 to the proceedings, as originally intended twixt Mr. 
 Charmer and ourselves. 
 
 I was aghast ! I had come to the office prepared 
 to do some further fencing, some further legal 
 bribing, and possibly, grant even some further 
 concessions, if my wife were satisfied to remain my 
 wife ; but, to hear her new attorney had called on 
 mine accompanied by mine enemy s emissary, why 
 that was a too positive, a too plainly apparent 
 piece of treachery. 
 
 For a while I remained wrapped in thought. 
 
 Mr. Dollars," I then said : 
 
 " You tell Col. Doomuch I will grant my wife a 
 divorce. The quicker, the better it will suit me ! I 
 
 will make her an allowance of dollars every 
 
 year of her lif e ; but, in addition to Enid, I want my 
 boy Oliver." With that I turned around to Mr. B. 
 and inquired ; 
 
 " Do you think I am doing right ? " 
 
 " Doing right * " he replied. " Why Bob, I would 
 demand all the children. You will get them too, and 
 if after you are divorced, she marries that Nathan, I 
 will kill him as surely as my name is John B " 
 
 " Well, I do not care to demand all the children," 
 I answered. "I know it would break her heart to 
 lose Beatrice, as if ever she car 3d for any of my 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 children, she showed it when she brought that little 
 one back to life, but I demand Oliver, and would 
 even demand Beatrice if I were not afraid she is so 
 sickly anyhow in case anything happened to her, 
 I would blame myself for taking her from her 
 mother." 
 
 I then introduced Mr. B. to young Dollars, and on 
 that young gentleman then telling my father-in-law, 
 how I had almost moved the very heavens themselves 
 to get my wife back, how he and his father had 
 never seen such devotion Mr. B. interrupted with : 
 
 " I know all that ! I was was only talking with 
 her mother yesterday about it. I never knew of a 
 manlier course than Rob has taken right along. 
 There is only one thing I blame him for. lie <>n : /I,t 
 to have cow-hided Solomon Nathan, and perhaps have 
 cow-hided her too" 
 
 On Dollars smiling, and on my protesting, he 
 jumped up and said : 
 
 " I m only a telling you, I never knew such devo 
 tion myself, and as I told him, a bigger clown never 
 lived than Robert Fennimore when he permitted 
 that ere cur to come round a taking his wife away 
 from him, and a buzzing and a buzzing things into 
 her ears for years." 
 
 With that he left. Before parting he told me he 
 
240 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 was going out of town. 
 
 That night I wrote the following letter to my 
 wife s mother, but as she had left the city that very 
 day, the letter was returned to me. 
 
 It read as follows ; 
 
 MKS. B. 
 
 I only needed to hear your daughter had deceived both 
 you and her father to again become self-possessed and myself. 
 I would have lived for years as I am now doing if your daughter 
 had acted honorably, for my belief in her was everything My 
 faith in her is now gone, and with it, she has lost her one great 
 anchor. She has secured another attorney, who called on mine 
 with Mr. Nathan s lawyer. What further proof, irrespective of 
 the many others that have cropped up, do I or her father need 
 of her dishonesty ? To save her, I will provide for her as I 
 hava told Judge Dollars, granted I have my children, and she 
 take back her maiden name, in which case I will do all I can 
 to give her her heart s wish as expeditiously as possible. 
 Should she not acquiesce, let her face the issue. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 ROBERT FENNIMORE. 
 
 In the meantime, I could not thrust Edith from me. 
 I made one last and final effort. I called on her. At 
 first she refused to see me. Finally persistency won 
 the day ! She greeted me with a stony stare. 
 
 " Edith," I ventured, " all is now over between us, 
 and I am as anxious for a divorce as you. (I said 
 this as I knew pleading would be vain,) I thought 
 it but due you to say I do not want to humiliate 
 you to the dust, nor make your life miserable. I will 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 241 
 
 not ask for all the children. I will leave you the 
 baby." 
 
 " And why can you not leave me Oliver until he is 
 say fifteen ? " 
 
 * Because I want my boy, my son. But I will leave 
 him with you till he is seven," I added, thinking my 
 magnanimity would perhaps soften, touch or win her. 
 I then referred to other matters, and purposely spoke 
 slowly, measuredly, carefully, thinking perhaps if 
 again I saw a sign of relenting, I might take her at 
 the right moment. 
 
 As well might I have appealed to stone, to marble, 
 to a block of granite, as to the woman who there in 
 the flesh was my very own wife. 
 
 I left her, and but once again did we meet before 
 the law divorced us, but even after my interview, I 
 wrote her finally and for the last time a letter, of 
 which the following is a copy : 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 After talking with you I could not act as indifferently as I 
 meant to, and in telling you, you could keep Oliver until his 
 seventh year, I did more than I dreamed of or meant to do. 
 Your acts have in a measure crushed the la*t vestige of love 
 out of my heart, and it is only when I think of the misery you 
 bring on yourself and our children that I soften at all. You 
 have been cruel, vicked beyond what you know. I do not 
 blame you. I consider your mind unbalanced ! It hurt me 
 to see you to-day in circumstances other than those I accustomed 
 
242 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 you to, and yet what will your future be to your present if you 
 persist in your course? Edith, Avife think! You said you 
 only cared for yourself. I know it, and I have felt it for years, 
 selfishness, love of self, is your one trouble. That combined 
 with the poison that has been poured into your mind is con 
 trolling you, whereas, if you were in your senses, you would 
 look duty in the face, think of your own future, and be a 
 woman, a mother. You know I do not want you to live with 
 me, not at any rate until you can be a wife such as a man 
 should have, and if that time never comes, I will live apart 
 from you. But is it in your own interest for you to deprive 
 yourself of the truest love that woman can have from man, of 
 a love that has been yours since you were a child ? One man 
 in a, million, one man among ten millions might have made the 
 effort your husband has to regain you, his home, his children, 
 and for what ? For any reason other than that when he gave 
 you his hand, he gave you his heart, and that until now no 
 soul can lay claim to any part of his love but you ? Edith, 
 woman, child, wife, think. And what have I done ? You know 
 I have never lied to you ! What I have done, I have told you. 
 Whatever your evil genius has said, has been perverted, twisted 
 to suit his own wicked purposes. From me alone have you had 
 the truth, and when I am willing to overlook everything, when. 
 I am willing to take you back to my heart, even to my home, 
 (when you ask me), don t you think when death comes to you, 
 you will have less qualms of conscience, less misery, if for your 
 children s sake, if not for your own, you act like the woman, 
 the mother, (the mother of heroes ), which I hoped you. would 
 prove, and show yourself to the world the angel I believed 
 you. You. care nothing for the world, you care only for your 
 self ; you say. I don t believe you ! You are trying to deceive 
 me in this, as you tried to hide all emotion from me to-day. 
 Had I wanted justification, had I cared to retaliate on you, I 
 could not have dreamed, your own folly would so soon give me 
 the opportunity. But don t let me further wound you by 
 words or love-letters. For the last time, think ! Think before 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 243 
 
 your acts deprive you of what should be the prop, the main 
 stay, Vie glory of your life. I love self, but I love you better. 
 I love my children, but until now their mother c&meJirsL And 
 who, in all the avalanche of all our friends, ever made you 
 believe I did not care for you ? One eczema of a man only ! 
 One dirty beggar, who was not so much after you, excepting as 
 my widow, (for then, 1m knew, you would have wealth), but 
 who was more after the possibilities that might arise out of 
 your ftthi-r^s inventions. Oh! it makes my blood boil ; and, 
 whereas I think I understand you, I know your heart better 
 than you think for ; and, I feel your misery as deeply as if it 
 were my own. Come to your senses, or rather, awaken to \ our 
 wifehood, yonr motherhood. "When I saw my little ones 
 to-day, my heart felt for them. Must that little baby, (whom 
 you unintentionally wronged, by placing it in the hands of 
 ignorant nurses) must that little mite live with yon, away from 
 her brother and sister, deprived of the home that I am always 
 sure to furnish my loved ones with ? And, even if out of 
 recollections of the past, I give you double or treble -what I told 
 you I would do, will Beatrice s life be as happy away from her 
 father, as that of our Enid, and my boy ? Pray don t mis 
 understand me. I am not pleading, I have done too much of 
 that already. I am trying to reason with you. To reason \\ itli 
 you, as much for your oirn s>tke as for our children s sake. 
 For my sake, not at all. Make any demand you choose your 
 self] and, as far as lies within me, I ll comply with it. In 
 return, I ask nothing. You said you were sorry, I belicvnl in 
 you; sorry I had faith in you. Idoubtyouf Let my proving 
 it, recall you to a sense of the realities, tlie duties of both our 
 lives, and when years have rolled by, or death frees either one 
 or the other, we both will have the consciousness of having 
 done our duty. That s all I care to live for. That s all I 
 write for. Tou have ju>\\- gained the victory, not I! I have 
 once again finally conceded all ytm can in reason expect. Can 
 you, will you be magnanimous? Can you, will you forgive? 
 For your Bake, wife ; not mine. Send Oliver to me on Sunday; 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 and, in doing so, if mercy, wifehood, motherhood, are not 
 altogether dead, send me a line, which not alone I, but your 
 mother and father will bless you for sending. 
 
 Your, 
 
 ROBERT. 
 
 In this letter I sent the following squib : 
 
 And for your own sake, yours father s sake, treat him a little 
 differently. You have broken up your husband s life, your 
 husband s home. You are doing the same thing for your 
 father. He is almost afraid to enter his own door. He is 
 older than I, and his age is telling on him. Honor thy father 
 and mother, child ; and thy days will be the happier, and the 
 better. What your father has done, and is trying to do, has 
 been in your interest, not his. If I am dead to. you. don t lose 
 your next best friend. 
 
 I mailed the letter late that night. The next day s 
 mail brought me a missive in her hand writing. 
 Impatiently I tore the wrapper. The envelope con 
 tained my letter, apparently unopened, merely enclosed 
 in an envelope she had directed to me. 
 
 Apparently it had not been opened, but on a closer 
 examination the original envelope proved it had been 
 tampered with, and as like a good many busines men 
 through force of habit I had a certain, never 
 varying way of folding enclosures when sent with 
 something else, I could easily see my wife had first 
 read the foregoing letter, and then in returning it, 
 and endeavoring to deceive me, had forgotten to 
 refold the enclosure as it originally had been sent. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 245 
 
 On what trifles our whole life revolves ! 
 
 It is only a few months since, that by touching a 
 little bit of an insignificant button, Grover Cleveland 
 set in motion the stupendous, awe-inspiring, wonder 
 ful conglomeration of machinery that was gathered 
 together at the Chicago World s Fair. 
 
 It was only a few days since, that the daily news 
 papers contained an account of a terrific rail road 
 accident. Over eighty lives were lost, over two 
 hundred passengers were maimed, injured or 
 crippled. Yet twas only a little thing ! The flag 
 man was tired, over- worked ! He should have been 
 relieved, but for some inexplicable reason his 
 substitute failed to materialize ! The flag man stood 
 to his post. But for two nights he had sat up till 
 duty called him, with a child sick of the measles. In 
 her fever, she needed her dad. Poor man that he 
 was, he loved his little girl. When she cried it was 
 his rough and grimy hand that gently patted her 
 cheek, and carefully wiped away the beads of sweat 
 that would gather on her brow. It was a little 
 thing, but the flag-man was human. He was tired. 
 
 His very eyes ached. The Express passed his 
 
 post, a misplaced switch, a dark night a crash, 
 a smash, and next day we all read the old story. 
 Tis a little thing, and yet on what little things the 
 
246 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 world and humanity depend ! Life, Death, Heaven 
 and Hell hinge on little things. In the days of early 
 Home, the cackling of a flock of geese saved her from 
 invasion. A necklace caused the French Revolution. 
 Watts poor sickly boy that he was in very conse 
 quence of his infirmities, would watch his mother s 
 kettle singing and steaming away at her kitchen fire. 
 Twas a little thing, and yet this little thing set the 
 poor boy thinking, and to-day the world thanks James 
 Watts for first utilizing steam. 
 
 In the time of the great Napoleon, when he was 
 master and conquerer of the world, it seemed a little 
 thing for him to degrade and oppress the insignifi 
 cant kingdom of Prussia, but the battle of Leipzig, 
 the battle of Waterloo never would have been fought 
 had the wonderful mind of this almost " all powerful 
 being "been able to forsee the consequence of the 
 harsh treatment, and the humiliation which he 
 visited upon this little kingdom. 
 
 A little spark set fire to some straw in an insignifi 
 cant shanty of a barn in Chicago. In less than an 
 hour the whole city was ablaze, and in less than six 
 hours one hundred million dollars worth of property 
 had been destroyed. 
 
 Less than a century ago a shot was fired which 
 was heard around the world. Twas a little thing, 
 
A XKW i: : N.il.XVD WOMAN. 
 
 247 
 
 but tis ever little things whereon depend, the 
 histories of nations. 
 
 Twas a little thing for my wife to fail to refold 
 the squib exactly a* I had folded it, but this 
 little thing was the, otie thing needful, the final 
 blow, the finishing touch, the last cut my heart 
 required. 
 
 Love, worship, adoration for her, and faith in her 
 had held me captive for years. In Hebrews xi.-vi., 
 Paul says : " Without love, it is impossible to please 
 God." Faith is the essence of things hoped for! 
 Without faith, there can be no love. My faith in my 
 wife was everyf/t ////// Deceit I never deemed her 
 capable of ! Twas a little thing, yet here was the 
 evidence. Against reason, against judgment, against 
 everybody my heart clung to her. My soul revolted 
 at my captivity, but flutter as it might, it would still 
 cling to the woman who had done me so much wrong. 
 My self love had been hurt, my heart had been 
 wounded, my spirit had been broken, but my faith 
 still clung to her. It was all that was left. When 
 my faith was shaken, when deceit by her acts 
 was palpably proven, my soul was freed. The 
 last link was broken, the fetters fell from off 
 me. 
 
248 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 TWAS A LITTLE THING, BUT HER OWN 
 ACTS DID JT. 
 
 When my faith died, even so perished my love, 
 and whereas to this day I cannot hate, from the 
 moment Edith made me lose my faith in her, from 
 that moment I as anxiously desired to be free, 
 as I believe at any time she wished to be 
 freed. 
 
 The stab she gave, in returning my letter was as 
 nothing compared to the contempt I felt, when I 
 knew the final appeal I had made had been useless. 
 My wrongs had righted me. From that moment I 
 once again obtained the mastery. From that 
 moment " from being the suppliant," I became the 
 master. 
 
 What need to go into the details ? 
 
 I directed Dollars to hasten the divorce as speedily 
 as possible. She needed witnesses. Without them 
 she had no case. Nathan had acted the part of a 
 Judas. To save his own hide, he had gone back on 
 his promise. He refused to testify. I was asked to 
 furnish evidence. 
 
 Staunch, true, good friend that he was, Al finally 
 agreed to testify against me. His soul revolted at 
 the thought. I finally persuaded him. But one 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 249 
 
 witness was not enough. I required at least two. 
 " The " onus " of the matter shall fall upon Judas," 
 I exclaimed ! " Nathan must testify/. " 
 
 The case was heard before a referee. Once again 
 Edith and I met. Anxious for a divorce as I was, 
 the thought of a possible wrong that I might be 
 guilty of, in a measure unnerved me. 
 
 When I arrived at her attorney s office, she was 
 sitting in one of his connecting rooms. He announced 
 me. I heard him ask her, as to whether she 
 wished to see me, or whether she had anything 
 to say. Through the partition I heard her 
 reply . 
 
 " No, I do not wish to see him ; but, I wish you 
 would speak to him about those Life Insurance 
 Policies which he promised to transfer to me." 
 
 Ah, Edith, I only needed this additional proof of 
 your thorough selfishness, callousness, and heartless- 
 ness, to bo the better able to face the oil<;d 
 forced upon me. I insisted on seeing you. I did see 
 you 1 
 
 What passed between us is, in my opinion, too 
 sacred for the pages of this volume, and when at the 
 reference you testified in your calm, low, famili.-ir 
 voice, and Mr. Nathan s lawyer told Al he could 
 hardly understand how a man could willingly permit 
 
250 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 a lovely woman like you to separate herself from him, 
 he only saw you as heaven made you, tall, erect, 
 calm, and stately; but, I saw you as you yourself had 
 shown yourself, cold, dispassionate, selfish, willful, 
 and heartless, and whereas, when my faith died, love 
 had also died, I needed but to look at you in the 
 position you had placed yourself, to thoroughly 
 understand, as I ne er had understood before. 
 
 Nathan, coward that he was, at first was inclined 
 to say nothing, and only when Dollars, at my sug 
 gestion, assured him I demanded he tell all he knew, 
 did he give his tongue license, and even then, were 
 we in a measure forced to urge him on. 
 
 After the testimony had all been taken, Col. 
 Doomuch apologized, and assured me he had 
 made every effort to reconcile my wife to me, but 
 that she had remained firm and obdurate. The 
 referee also spoke, and told me I had probably for 
 gotten him, but after he had been appointed, he had 
 remembered being present at our wedding, having 
 in years gone bye, been a friend of my wife s 
 father. 
 
 It was a few weeks thereafter the decree was 
 granted. 
 
 It read as follows : 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 21 
 
 At a special term of the Supreme Court, of the State 
 of New York, held at the Court House, in 
 
 the village of, , on the 13th 
 
 day of February, 189-. 
 
 Present, Hon. Johnson B. Goodman, Justice. 
 
 EDITH A. FENNIMORE, 
 
 PLAINTIFF, 
 
 vs. 
 
 ROBERT O. FENNIMORE, 
 
 DEFENDANT. 
 
 > ss. 
 
 The summons and complaint in this action, having 
 been personally served on the defendant herein, and 
 he having appeared by Dollars, Brandy & Soda, his 
 attorneys, to serve an answer to the complaint, and 
 an order having been duly made and entered herein, 
 on the 18th day of January 189-, whereby this action 
 and all the issues therein, were referred to Frederick 
 H. Wood, Esq., Counsellor at Law, as referee to 
 hear and determine, and said referee having made 
 his report, it was duly filed on the 13th day of 
 February 189-, whereby he finds that all the material 
 allegations in the complaint are true, and that the 
 
252 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 defendant was guilty of adultery, and directing 
 judgment of Divorce in favor of the plaintiff 
 accordingly. 
 
 Now on reading and filing notice of motion for 
 judgment on such report and proof of due service 
 thereof, on motion of Richard Gr. Doomuch, attorney 
 for the plaintiff, defendant not appearing, 
 
 IT IS ORDERED, Adjudged and Decreed, that 
 the marriage between the plaintiff, Edith A. 
 Fennimore, and the defendant, Robert O. Fennimore, 
 be dissolved accordingly, and the said parties are, 
 and each is freed from the obligations thereof. 
 
 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, Adjudged and 
 Decreed, that it shall be lawful for Edith A. 
 Fennimore, the plaintiff, to marry again in the same 
 manner as if the said Robert O. Fennimore, the 
 defendant, WAS ACTUALLY DEAD. 
 
 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, Adjudged and 
 Decreed, that the plaintiff be at liberty, and she is 
 hereby authorized to resume her maiden name 
 Edith A. Budd. 
 
 Signed, 
 
 HON. JOHNSON B. GOODMAN, 
 
 Judge Supreme Court. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 My wife had gained her point. She was free. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII, 
 
 This is the woman who was made for mo, 
 To love and to cherish. 
 
 As related in preceding chapters, repeatedly had 
 I been guilty of sin, but only once during all the 
 years of my married life, do I remember for a second 
 to have ivronged my wife even in thought. 
 
 The occasion I refer to, was, when spending one 
 summer at the sea-side, and sitting on the piazza of 
 the West End Hotel, at Long Branch, my eyes 
 unconsciously were attracted to a girl a young 
 woman of eighteen or nineteen, who skipping from 
 one part of the piazza to the other, seemed full of 
 animation, life, and animal spirits. 
 
 Her figure was lithe, winsome, and perfect. Her 
 face full of mischief, diablesserie, and life. 
 
 The next day, when in bathing, she and another 
 girl were disporting themselves in the water, at the 
 very time Mr. Nathan and I were doing likewise. 
 
 Tis said misery makes strange bed fellows ; also, 
 that one touch of nature makes the whole world 
 
254 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 kin. In my experience, an ocean bath brings about 
 strange results. 
 
 When the young lady a lovely, lithe, and grace 
 ful swimmer was disporting herself, with her com 
 panion, among the breakers, both Nathan and I 
 simultaneously espied them. I had never seen a 
 prettier sight ! Many years before, I had felt rather 
 seriously inclined toward a young woman, who made 
 the mistake of inviting me to her sea-side home. 
 Whatever admiration I ever felt for her vanished, 
 when Father Neptune had deprived her of such 
 charms as her Fifth Avenue tailor was able to endow 
 her with. 
 
 On another occasion, a most beautiful woman, as 
 far as features and figure were concerned, completely 
 disenchanted me, when she donned her bathing 
 costume. 
 
 My wife had an inborn repuganance to sea bathing, 
 and when once or twice I persuaded her to try the 
 effect of an ocean bath, she cut a very sorry picture 
 indeed. In consequence summer literature to the 
 contrary not-withstanding, I had a very poor 
 opinion of the human form divine, as evidenced by 
 womankind, when enveloped in a bathing suit. 
 
 The picture before me was ravishing ! I had nevei 
 in my life seen anything so lovely. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 255 
 
 The young woman was of French extraction. Half 
 French, half Irish, with enough of America in her 
 to make her more than ordinarily piquant. Her hair a 
 jet black ; her eyes like unto those of Persian houri ; 
 her teeth even and white, seemed like very pearls. 
 A little bit of an ear ; a button hole of a mouth ; 
 complexion clear and perfect ; what wonder that 
 both Nathan and I gaped at the apparition before 
 us? 
 
 Her companion was almost equally as attractive, 
 and twas hardly to be wondered that Nathan, in his 
 usual self-opioniated way, imagined the circumstance 
 warranted making new acquaintances. 
 
 He proposed the young ladies join us in a swim 
 ming match. Needless to say, they declined. 
 Particularly the black eyed houri. Her very eyes 
 seemed turned into livid balls of fire, when she 
 emphatically told him her mother was on the bluff 
 watching them, and would get very nervous if she 
 saw them talking with anybody. 
 
 I speak of this so lengthily, as involuntarily this 
 young womans personal charms so attracted and 
 enchanted me, that if ever during all the years of my 
 married life I was untrue to my wife, then icas the 
 time. I thought here was a girl who was prettier 
 than my wife- The thought no sooner entered my 
 
256 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 inind than it was dismissed, but involuntarily 
 perhaps, I thought I had married too young. 
 
 The young lady happened to be the daughter of 
 an old acquaintance. Her mother was one of the 
 most beautiful women I had ever seen. Her aristo- 
 crate bearing, her patrician air was such, that on one 
 occasion Edith noticing her when we happened to be 
 in one and the same car, called my attention to her. 
 
 How large a world we live in, and yet how small ! 
 
 Fate would, that during the very summer preced 
 ing my wife s desertion, I should be introduced to 
 the young lady. 
 
 When my wife deserted me, I almost turned woman 
 hater. 
 
 Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman, was con 
 tinually and ever before my mind. Hating woman, 
 I avoided her. But; "It is not good for man to be 
 alone. 
 
 I met Eugenie Lecordier by chance ! During the 
 summer, I had asked her to meet my wife. Cir 
 cumstances always prevented. Loving Edith, as I 
 did, I was always anxious to have all that knew me, 
 know her. I had set her on a pedestal ! I imagined 
 a sort of halo encircled her ! Although arbitrary, 
 self-willed, egoistical and domineering, I never had 
 much of an opinion about either my personal abilities, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 or physical endowments. Albeit success had been 
 productive of an ample allowance of conceit, I never 
 had any vanity. A man travels on his brains, not on 
 his looks." 
 
 What I lacked, my wife possessed. Unconsciously 
 my pride in my wife made me think the world 
 thought the more of me, for being her husband. 
 
 I would talk to Miss Lecordier about my wife by 
 the hour. I would laud her to the skies. I have 
 since learned I really tired the young woman with 
 my continual eulogies and laudations. She never 
 theless respected and honored me for my sentiments. 
 Mentally she wished, when she married, her husband 
 would care as much for her, as I did for my wife. 
 
 When Miss Lecordier learned of my domestic 
 affliction, she was amazed. Knowing how I had 
 loved my wife, she pitied me. Never thinking what 
 the future had in store, she exerted herself to the 
 best of her ability to console and comfort me. 
 
 All my life I had loved something. 
 
 Intuitively she felt, I could not long continue the 
 miserable, heart broken, mental wreck that I was. 
 Everything that a good woman could do, she did for 
 me. She thought nothing of appearances nothing 
 of what the world might say she merely acted under 
 impulse, and as her heart was one of gold, and she 
 
A NEW ENGLAND -WOMAN". 
 
 knew I needed somebody s care and companionship, 
 that my little Enid needed a mother, she did her 
 best to bring about a reconciliation. 
 
 When all was useless when she knew I had to 
 contend against a heart of stone she comforted me 
 as only a true woman can ever comfort man. 
 
 Once not thinking how soon I might put her to 
 the test I asked her if circumstances were different 
 and she loved a man, would she marry him if he 
 were divorced? 
 
 " If I loved a man I would go to the end of the 
 world with him, divorce or no divorce!" was her 
 reply. 
 
 " Then, if you were me, since it seems inevitable, 
 you would give my wife a divorce ? " 
 
 " If nothing else would do, I would ! Never fight 
 a woman Mr. Fennimore." 
 
 Imperceptibly, but surely, this young woman 
 gradually drew me closer to her. She felt truly sorry 
 for me, and yet she had the rare tact, the wonderful 
 sagacity, which but few women posess, of never 
 intruding on my sorrow. 
 
 She would accompany me to the theatre; she would 
 call at my hotel, take out my little Enid ; she would 
 make this, that, or the other suggestion ; but what 
 ever she did, was done in the most womanly and 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 259 
 
 natural way possible. 
 
 And above all, she was an excellent listener ! I 
 needed sympathy. I am afraid I tired her time and 
 again, with my continual troubles. But she never 
 was other than always the same. A woman with 
 womanly feelings. 
 
 What wonder I grew to making comparisons? 
 What wonder T pictured to myself what my past life 
 might have been, if fortune had given me a wife such 
 as this? 
 
 She had four sisters. Two were married. The 
 others all lived with their father. Their mother had 
 died three years before I met Miss Lecordier. Every 
 one of the sisters were pretty. Eugenie was beauti 
 ful. Owing to her mother s sickness having been a 
 prolonged one, Eugenie had been at the head of the 
 household for years, and after her mother died, she 
 in a measure usurped her functions. 
 
 It used to amuse me to hear her talk of her younger 
 sisters (there was hardly a years difference twixt the 
 five of them) as the children. 
 
 Their home life seemed so happy. Their father 
 (of whom more in another volume) was one of 
 the best natured men in the world. At the same 
 time he exacted obedience, and required attention. 
 The first thing that struck me on entering the house- 
 
260 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 hold, was the evideDt desire of each and every one of 
 the girls to make themselves agreeable to him, in ways 
 such as helping him off with his shoes, fetch him his 
 slippers, and make him comfortable generally. One 
 night it might be Clare, the next Helene, the next 
 Eugenie, but no matter how they were occupied, 
 they seemed to lock upon helping their dad as upon 
 a special privilege. 
 
 This was in great part attributable to their French 
 blood, and its predilictions. Then they would never 
 allow him to leave the house without an embrace or 
 a kiss. 
 
 So different from what I had been accustomed to. 
 I had never seen Edith kiss either her father or 
 mother. I knew her mother missed this seeming 
 lack of affection, but having educated her daughter, 
 upon herself she bravely took the consequences. 
 
 And after all, what is a kiss ? What does it mean, 
 what does it signify? 
 
 Webster defines a kiss : "To salute with the lips 
 to smack to buss." 
 
 To salute with the lips the kiss of friendship. 
 To smack the impulsive greeting so generally 
 noticable in children. To buss the young man s, 
 the young girl s usually prolonged kiss. 
 
 But there are different kinds, different degrees of 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 261 
 
 kisses. In this volume, I referred to my kissing my 
 Spanish acquaintance. 
 
 Twas on the cheek. The kiss of friendship ! 
 
 In the very next chapter, I speak of my George 
 Sand being the first woman, other than my mother, 
 to press her lips to mine. 
 
 Twas the kiss of passion ! 
 
 After being re-called by Edith, I speak of her 
 asking me to kiss her. Her soul seemed to meet 
 mine. 
 
 Twas the kiss of love ? 
 
 One day after all had been arranged twixt Edith 
 and myself when in very misery my soul asked for 
 help for sympathy Eugenie once stooped over me 
 and unconsciously pressed her lips to mine. 
 
 That kiss, unasked, given involuntarily as it was, 
 sealed Eugenie Lecordier to Robert Fennimore, even 
 as the load-stone attracts the magnet. It sealed our 
 lives. 
 
 From that moment I knew 
 
 This was the woman who was made for me, 
 To love and to cherish. 
 
 I remembered how, e en though married, I had 
 almost lost my heart to the young girl who was then 
 just budding into womanhood, for years I had 
 carried within me the recollection of how beautiful 
 
262 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 she looked when I chanced across her in the waves 
 at Long Branch, and here she was before me in very 
 life, her womanly heart brimful of sympathy, love, 
 and commiseration for me. 
 
 What wonder her little attentions, her many 
 unasked for, but welcome services made me involun 
 tarily her debtor, and when as time grew apace, and 
 I found she was necessary to my peace and comfort, 
 and by chance I discovered she truly loved me, love 
 begot love, and before I was aware of it, I knew A 
 MAN COULD LOVE MOEE THAN ONCE, and 
 whereas, when Edith originally left me, I had no 
 thought that ever again could I care for woman, I 
 find myself happy only when in the society of her, 
 who cared not what the world would say, who cared 
 not what her sisters said or advised, aye, who cared 
 not for the fact that she ran danger of being excom 
 municated from her church, but who felt in her heart 
 she would be happiest, aye happy only, by making 
 
 me happy. 
 
 # * # # # 
 
 I avoid details, Eugenie Lecordier became Mrs. 
 Robert Fennimore. We were married quietly, 
 unostentatiously. She loved me. I verily believe 
 until I met her, I never knew what a woman s love 
 really was. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 263 
 
 After we were married, she devoted her life to me. 
 Never by word or look did she ever give me the least 
 cause to regret what havoc, one woman, had once upon 
 a time been able to reek upon my life. Eugenie 
 loved as only a woman with a soul and a heart ever 
 can love. 
 
 Many a time I contrasted her very forgetfulness 
 of her own wants and desires, her lack of selfishness, 
 with the cold indifference, the love of self that Edith 
 invariably evidenced. Eugenie lived only to make 
 me happy, and seldom a wish I expressed, that was 
 not gratified. 
 
 Unlike Edith, Eugenie passionately desired children. 
 All her life she had been fond of them. What wonder 
 when married to a man she loved, the wish for a 
 child should be her one absorbing passion * At first 
 it seemed as if, just because she wanted children, 
 fate deprived her of them. It was her one sorrow. 
 How little either of us knew "an all wise Providence" 
 knew better than she or I " what was best/ 
 
 When a young man, I remember once upon a time 
 engaging in an argument as to our mission in life. I 
 had my own ideas, but the young medical student 
 who was arguing with me, finally got the better of 
 me by quoting the biblical command : To increase 
 and multiply. He claimed it was man and woman s 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 one chief aim, their one and only mission to bring 
 into the world others, who would continue in such 
 good works as would glorify God ! 
 
 It took me years to acquiesce and agree with him, 
 but nevertheless, although the exception proves the 
 rule, there are exceptions to it. 
 
 Two of the exceptions were my two wives. 
 
 One of them disliked having children, she did not 
 want them they came to her without effort. 
 
 The other loved children, she wanted them she 
 seemed destined not to have them. 
 
 After a time her wish was granted. She seemed 
 so happy ! 
 
 For months previous to the event, she was con 
 tinually preparing or arranging for it. Nothing that 
 she did not think of ! 
 
 She had a terrible time. For thirty- six hours she 
 suffered. Finally, in endeavoring to save her life, 
 the child s life had to be sacrificed. Under the 
 influence of ether, on regaining consciousnes, her 
 first inquiry was after her child. When I saw her 
 weak, worn-out, and long suffering, her one rnoan 
 was : " They have killed my baby." 
 
 We gave her the best of care, the best of attention. 
 I did whatever I could do. All was useless. 
 
 In her conscious moments, she would whisper 
 
A KEW ENGLAND WOMAK. 2C5 
 
 to me not to miiul, she knew she would not 
 recover, she was going to her mother. She had 
 a premonition, e en such as that of my angel singer. 
 She was not long meant for this earth. She was too 
 good. She loved too deeply. 
 
 Everything that could be done was done. 
 
 In my arms she expired. Her last thought for 
 me. She went to rest quietly, peacefully. I could 
 hardly realize she was gone. 
 
 As I looked upon her lying on her couch, her eyes 
 closed, her hands folded on her breast, my grief 
 got the better of me. I became delirious. Before 
 leaving, she had bidden me "be of good cheer ; " had 
 told me we will meet above. 
 
 But my sorrow was too deep. For a while, my life 
 was despaired of. Then when strength gradually 
 
 came back, they feared for my reason. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Time passed. Once again I had resumed the 
 duties of life, once again I had strength to gird up 
 my loins, and engage in the every day conflict this 
 world exacts of us. 
 
 A famous cardinal once said " No man ever accom 
 plishes anything until woman has lost all charm to 
 him. 
 
 In the loss of Eugenie, I lost my last love. When 
 
266 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 she died, I felt all life had left me. Woman existed 
 no longer for me. I had grown prematurely old. 
 My hair had turned gray. People who had known 
 me, hardly recognized me. And yet, in my desola 
 tion, in my lonesomeness, in my misery, I ever had 
 her face before me. 
 
 Women charmed me no more. My one consolation 
 was work. From early morning till late into the 
 night I would keep on doing. Work consoled 
 me. It commenced telling. Whereas I had been an 
 easy-going, every day sort of plodder, always 
 ambitious, and in a measure successful, my troubles 
 until I lost Eugenie, had made me callous, indifferent, 
 and in a measure lazy. Her death awoke me. My 
 name and fame spread. 
 
 I gave up business. I practiced law. Loving 
 work, in the study of law I found consolation. My 
 first case gave me fame. Later ones extended my 
 reputation. 
 
 =* * * # # 
 
 One night, during the summer of 189-, I received 
 a telegram. It was from Edith s mother. Her 
 daughter was dying. She wished to see me. 
 
 Thousands of miles separated us. I hastened 
 where duty called. 
 
 Arrived in New York, I hurried to Edith s home. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 267 
 
 I was ushered into a darkened room. On a table 
 there lay a form. Twas all covered up The atten 
 dant lifted the shroud. Underneath was the face of 
 Edith. 
 
 "IT WAS MY DREAM. 1 
 
 * * * 
 
 She had been suddenly taken sick. In her delirium 
 she had called for me. She had begged me to forgive 
 her. Growing conscious, and aware of death s 
 approach, she had begged her mother to bring me to 
 her. 
 
 I arrived too late. 
 
 The day before her death, she had asked for pencil 
 and paper, and had written me the following 
 letter : 
 
 MY DEAR HUSBAND: 
 
 I am lying at the point of death. When you read these 
 lines, your wife that used to be, will be no more. 
 
 When I married you, I respected you. I km \v I <lid not love 
 you as you should be loved, but I fully felt the deep love you 
 had for me. We were married. 
 
 In all the years of our married life I did the best I could t<> 
 make you happy, until that man, whom you never liked, came 
 between tis. You know I never cared for him, but his con 
 tinual association with us, IB some way or other, put me under 
 his influence. He never out and out accused you of anything, 
 but gradually, imperceptibly, and before I understood his 
 object, he managed to instill a spirit of rebellion within me, 
 which finally bore fruit. He seemed to feel so sorry for me, 
 he appeared so considerate to me and whereas, had he ever 
 
268 A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 
 
 openly abused you, I would have resented his doing so, he 
 never in any way, until I left you, did other than hint at sins 
 other men were guilty of. 
 
 I never loved you. If I had, I never would have been so 
 easily influenced. But I married you, and God knows, while 
 your wife, I tried to do my duty. That man came between us. 
 His hypnotic influence, or whatever it was, engendered the spirit 
 of rebellion within me. With all your love, (and who could 
 know how deep it was better than I ? ) you were ever master. 
 
 He played upon my susceptibilities, he made me revolt. 
 Once only, and only once, you showed me, under certain cir 
 cumstances, I could be mistress That once was enough! From 
 that moment I became a tyrant, even before you knew or were 
 aware of it. 
 
 When I deserted you, I had no thought of the future. That 
 man entered my life. You heard of it, you objected ! That 
 settled our lives. I was too proud to give in. Pride and 
 contrariness ruled me. 
 
 Your re-marriage hurt me. It angered me, but as time 
 passed on, I saw myself as you saw me, and I was horrified. 
 Husband, I am dying. I know I have done wrong. I did 
 wrong when I married you, I did wrong when I left you, I 
 did wrong when I rejected the overtures you made to regain 
 me. I know it ; I feei it. By a life of devotion, by a life of 
 regret, I have tried to atone for my wrong doing. FORGIVE 
 ME! 
 
 Our little Beatrice and Oliver have ever loved you. In their 
 lives, and in their love for you, I hope to be redeemed. In 
 the bringing up, and the motherly love your Eugenie showed 
 Enid, I suffered the worst punishment this world ever 
 vouchsafes to a woman such as I. 
 
 Forgive me, be good to our children, and may Heaven be 
 
 with you forever. 
 
 Your 
 
 EDITH, 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WOMAN. 269 
 
 The heights, by great men reached and kept, 
 Were not attained by sudden flight, 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 Were toiling upward in the night. 
 
 ****** 
 
 I am a changed man to-day. 
 
 In the love of my children, and the respect of my 
 fellow men, I am rich above many. 
 
 My profession is my .wife, my work, my mistress. 
 
 As I sit here, thinking of the many changes I have 
 seen in life, of the many loves that have come acrosa 
 my path, I bid the slave who responds to the call of 
 my Aladin s lamp, bring me the face of her who was 
 my last love, of her who took pity on me when I was 
 deserted and in misery and opposed by the whole 
 world, gave her love, her heart, and finally her very 
 life to me. 
 
 And as in the spirit, my Eugenie places her 
 hand on my pillow and rests her head on my 
 shoulder, I am conscious of her very presence with 
 me, until at last we meet in the world above, where 
 there is no parting, and where she and I will be one 
 forever and forever. 
 
 THE END. 
 
ROBERT FENNIMORE S 
 
 vv 
 
 I3XT 
 
 MY SECOND WIFE. 
 MY WIFE S FATHER. 
 MY RELATIONS AND FRIENDS. 
 THE SIN OF LOVING. 
 THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS. 
 THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY 
 NEIGHBOR S WIFE. 
 
 Any of the above sent postpaid on receipt of 
 FIFTY CK1NTS 
 
 BY 
 
 THE SOCRATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 34: EAST 14th STREET, NEW YORK, 
 
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