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Page 45
"I feel already," replied John, "as if a great weight were removed
from my heart; and were it not for the debt which I have contracted
to you--Ah, Charles, I little dreamt, when I looked down from the
hill over Repton, and thought my store inexhaustible, that I should
be obliged to you thus late in life. And yet I protest I hardly know
where I could have drawn in; one expense grows so out of another.
These boys have been so very extravagant; but I shall soon have the
two eldest off; they cannot keep them much longer waiting."
"Work is better than waiting; but let the lads fight their way;
they have had, I suppose, a good education; they ought to have
had professions. There is something to me awfully lazy in your
'appointments;' a young man of spirit will appoint himself; but it is
the females of a family, brought up, as yours have been, who are to
be considered. Women's position in society is changed from what it
was some years ago; it was expected that they must marry; and so they
were left, before their marriage, dependent upon fathers and brothers,
as creatures that could do nothing for themselves. Now, poor things,
I really don't know why, but girls do not marry off as they used.
They become old, and frequently--owing to the expectation of their
settling--without the provision necessary for a comfortable old age.
This is the parent of those despicable tricks and arts which women
resort to to get married, as they have no acknowledged position
independent of matrimony. Something ought to be done to prevent this.
And when the country steadies a little from the great revolution
of past years, I suppose something may be thought of by improved
teaching--and systems to enable women to assist themselves, and be
recompensed for the assistance they yield others. Now, imagine your
dear girls, those younger ones particularly, deprived of you"--
"Here is the patient upon whom I must call, _en route_" interrupted
the doctor.
The carriage drew up.
"I wish," said Charles, "you had called here on your return. I wanted
the insurance to have been your first business to-day."
"I shall not be five minutes," was the reply. The servant let down
the step, and the doctor bounded up towards the open door. In his
progress, he trod upon a bit, a mere shred, of orange-peel; it was the
mischief of a moment; he slipped, and his temple struck against the
sharp column of an iron-scraper. Within one hour, Dr. John Adams had
ceased to exist. What the mental and bodily agony of that one hour
was, you can better understand than I can describe. He was fully
conscious that he was dying--and he knew all the misery that was to
follow.
CHAPTER IV.
"Mary my dear niece," said Charles Adams, as he seated himself by her
side; "my dear, dear niece, can you fix your thoughts, and give me
your attention for half an hour, now that all is over, and the demands
of the world press upon us. I want to speak about the future. Your
mother bursts into such fits of despair that I can do nothing with
her; and your brother is so ungovernable--talks as if he could command
the bank of England, and is so full of his mother's connexions and
their influence, that I have left him to himself. Can you, my dear
Mary, restrain your feelings, and give me your attention?"
Mary Adams looked firmly in her uncle's face, and said, "I will try.
I have been thinking and planning all the morning, but I do not know
how to begin being useful. If I once began, I could go on. The sooner
we are out of this huge expensive house the better; if I could get
my mother to go with the little girls to the sea-side. Take her away
altogether from this home--take her"--
"Where?" inquired Mr. Adams; "she will not accept shelter in my
house."
"I do not know," answered his niece, relapsing into all
the helplessness of first grief; "indeed I do not know; her
brother-in-law, Sir James Ashbroke, invited her to the Pleasaunce,
but my brother objects to her going there, his uncle has behaved so
neglectfully about his appointment."
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