The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-07-12
One WOmaRn'S Life.
A STORY OF TO-DAY.

family belonged to the genuine New
England aristocracy; that : is, they
boosted that they could trace their
pedigree in direct line from one of the
passengers who crossed the Atlantic in
the Mayf1ower ON her first trip to
much difficulty for the present genera
tion of Co1linses to produce document
ary evidence to support this assertion,
but they could, at least, lay just claim
to quite q goodly array of grandfathers,
great grandfathers, and great-great
grandfathers. Not only the faded
pages of the family record, in several
old Bibles, proved this genealogical
point, but sundry ancient family heir
looms, to-wit. dozen or two of battered
! old teaspoons, a bruised and ongsuffer-
ing teapot, an ugly shaped little sugar
bowl, and a queer old tankard, all of
silver, though rather thin and quite de-
crepit from age, still existed as tangible
proofs that the Collinses of the past had
been respectable, that is, we'll do
folks in their time.
But the Collins family did not need
to look back altogether to prove their
claims to consideration. If they could
boast of having among their fore
fathers and near relatives, doctors of
divinity, professors in Yale College,
attorney generals, one senator, and one
! governor, the old judge was every whit
as good q man, in his own and towns
mems esteem, as the best of the race,
and of his three sons, the eldest was a
lawyer and rising politician, who babe
fair to be senator himself in time; the
second was a doctor i'll good practice,
and the third had recently graduated at
West Point, and was stationed on the
western frontier.
It was tradition of the family that
the girls had always done their part by
IjudiCiOus marriages to build up the for
tunes of the COllinses, and there was no
reason why Eleanor the Judges youngest
child, should not marry as we'll as the
daughters of the house were wont to
do. She was slender New England
girl, whose forehead was too high, whose
nose was too large, and whose mouth
was too wide for the strict canOns of
beauty; but she had transparent and
blooming complexion, large, soft, gray
eyes, such a wealth of bright, auburn
hair, and, above all, so viracious and
changing an expression, which illumed
spoke, that if her claim to real beauty
might be justly disputed, that she was
attractive and charming was indisput-
| able. She was intelligent and tOlerably
well educated; she could read a little
Virgil; she had been through algebra,
| though she never exactly knew how
she did it; she had parsed MiltOn's Para
| disc Lost, she had studied chemistry
and natural philosophy, and "knew
enough about them for all practical
purposes" as her father was wont to
say, and did not dispute the statement,
since she could not, by the widest
stretch of Imagination conceive of any
emergency in her everyday life, where
she should be forced to apply these
sciences to natural use. She played the
songs her father loved to please him,
and q few Of the new to please herself,
in a sweet though unframed voice
She was skilled in all matters pertain
ing to the household. She could bake
cake, sweep, dust, iron and as for sew
| ing, with her that was q fine art.
Needlework was her delight, and her
deft fingers were equally at home in the
shaping of the commonest of garments
or the daintiest arrangement of fine
laces and ribbons. She was a CHEEKY,
sunny tempered girl, the idol of the
household, and favOrite with all who
knew her. Everybody predicted great
match for her, and, in fact, wOoers were
not lacking, Before'she was eighteen,
she had refused two of her brothers
twenty, the list of her rejected sUlitOrs
was increased by a clergyman, a doctor,
and two merchants. In true New En-
gland fashion, her father and mother
had looked ON quietly at this procession
of aspirants for the post Of their son-in-
law, neither interfering with the wooing
as it went on, nor with the summary re-
iectiOns of each suitOr in his turn.
| There was time enough for Eleanor by
and by, was their unspoken thought,
and surely they were in no haste to lose
her presence from her childhOOd's home.
At twenty-three Eleanor was still I'M
married, but that year brought a great
change into her life. Her father and
mother died within three months of
each other, and at the same time she
lost parents and home.
The Judge had lived generously
though not extravagantly. His income
had never been large, and the education
and establishment Of his sons had ab-
sorbed the greater part of his economies.
When the estate was settled and diYi-
ded between the children, EleanOr's
portion was a mere pittance. The
change was bitter to her. Her brothers,
who were both married, offered her a
home in their families, but although
she liked her sisters-in-law very well,
she who had been used to the indepen-
dence of daughter in her fathers
house, could not, without an internal
struggle, take the place of a supernu-
merary in her brothers household.
i To ask her father for the money she
had needed for her expenses had seemed
easy and natural, but to ask from her
brothers was simply intolerable. They
were both struggling to achieve indie
pendenee, but as yet neither Of them
was rich, and each had quite as much
as he could well do to support his own
family without an additional burden.
IShe was treated with the greatest kind
ness by both her brothers and their
wives, and she did her part toward
lessening the burden of her pecuniary
support, by her diKgent and skillful
needles She seWed for the children,
and made dresses for her sisters. which
fitted them exquisitely, she made hats
as dainty and tasteful as ever entered
the fancy or left the hands of French
milliner she tended the babies, whom
light household duties, in which the
4 ladies of every New England family
do not seorn to busy themselves, and
i yet she felt, rather than knew, that her
stay in her brothers homes was con
sidered by them as merely a temporary
1 one They naturally expected her to
| marry and have a home of her own.
/ AT intervals, eligible sIIitors had pre-
sented themselves, but had been re-
Il fused. Each in turn she had tried to
/ like-=she was really anxious to love
4 some one of them. She read and under
stood the pleased smile of, hope that
frightened her sisters laws faces, al