CHAPTER XXI.

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UNHAPPY MARRIAGES.

NOTHER instance occurs to me of the wretchedness consequent upon marriages without love, in the case of a very young girl sacrificed to the sordid calculations of a weak and ambitious mother. Too young to comprehend what she was about, she was led as a lamb to the slaughter.

A worldly-minded mother, with seven grownup daughters, must, in England, have her head full of schemes, and her heart full of anxiety, as to how to dispose of them in marriage. Men in that country are more careful than in this, how they enter into matrimony before they have ample means to support a wife, and those who have sufficient incomes are slower in making a choice. Mrs. B- — was therefore much pleased when a wealthy merchant proposed for her fourth daughter; but he was not fully accepted when her youngest girl, Olivia, came home from school for the last time, and was to begin her career as a young lady. She was the prettiest one of the family, and the greatest favorite of her mother,

who felt a pang of jealousy for her, that any of her sisters should be married before her.

Mrs. B remembered that the gentleman now paying his addresses to her daughter, had a brother older than himself, who was also a bachelor, and she determined to do all in her power to secure him for her darling child. Disparity. of years was of no consequence in her view, compared with the fact that, as the oldest son he had inherited the largest portion of a wealthy father's property, and she thought with much satisfaction that, as his wife, Olivia would take precedence of her elder sister. Mrs. B gave the younger brother to understand that if he wished his own suit to prosper, he must find a match for Olivia. On this he proposed to his brother to pay his addresses to that pretty girl, and he readily consented, for he had always followed in the footsteps of his father, and as he married at forty years of age, the son would do the same. So Mrs. B had the satisfaction of marrying two daughters on the same day, and seeing the younger one take precedence of her elder sister. So much for the feelings of the mother; but what were those of the favorite child, who was thus disposed of? As she was in after life an intimate friend of mine, I have heard from her own lips, all the circumstances of her union with that rich old bachelor, who never knew an emotion

of love, was perfectly indifferent to her when he married her, and continued so throughout his life. She told me that as soon as she left her boarding-school, she began to read romances, and was so absorbed by them that she took little notice of what was passing around her, until her mother told her she had a suitor, and would probably be married as soon as her sister. When introduced to her future husband she thought him very unlike the lovers she had been reading about, but her mother told her that real husbands were always very different from the heroes of romance. She thought she ought to be in love with Mr. N- before she married him, but was told that that would come afterwards; and so, knowing nothing of life, a mere child of seventeen, and young of her years, she was hurried into the bonds of matrimony, and most irksome did she find them!

As the wife of the oldest son, she was made mistress of a sombre old mansion, in the midst of the busiest part of the city of London, and had for her companions two very stiff and formal maiden sisters of her husband. A sad change this from her father's cheerful villa a few miles from London, and the large family party she had left. She complained of having nothing to do, and her sisters-in-law immediately bought a piece of linen, cut it up into shirts for their brother, and

told her that making them would be a pleasant occupation for her, and a proper thing for a wife to do. She has laughed since at the docility with which she set to work on those shirts, stitching away all the morning, from after breakfast till luncheon time, at one. At two she and the two old ladies took an airing in her new coach, and returned the few visits she received from her husband's city friends. After a six o'clock dinner, she was expected to play whist all the evening till bedtime.

This dreadfully dull life went on through the winter and spring; but when summer came, Mr. N― remembered that his honored parents always spent a few weeks every year at some watering-place; so he would take his wife and sisters to Weymouth.

There, for the first time, this pretty young wife saw something of the gay world. She was in a large hotel, full of company, and dined every day at the public table. Her youth and beauty and simple manners attracted much admiration and attention, and she began to feel that she was of some importance in that society. A new life opened before her; she became a general favorite with persons of refinement and of fashion, such as she had never known before. This social sunshine developed in her new powers of observation and reflection, and gave her courage to express

her thoughts and feelings as she had never before done.

Every one invited her to ride, or walk, or drive with them; and instead of playing whist with her husband every evening, she was dancing and playing round games with the gayest young people. Mr. N and his sisters found plenty of elderly persons ready to play whist with them, and were so well amused that they cared not what Olivia was doing. They little thought that she was imbibing ideas and feelings and tastes which would make the monotony of her home intolerable, would change her whole character, and revolutionize her life.

It was not long before some of her fashionable admirers began to hint at her being a neglected wife, and to wonder how it was possible for one so young and so charming to be treated with so much indifference. This shocked her, as an indelicate observation for any one to make to a wife, and she resented it accordingly; but it opened her eyes to a painful truth of which she had hardly been conscious before, but which now became more apparent to her every day.

The striking contrast between her husband's behavior to her, both before and after marriage, and that lover-like attention she was now receiving from the most elegant and fascinating men in the hotel, convinced her that she had made a