Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-05-16

StruRplc, IakS luo HtW DlaCc vi
merary in her sisters household.
To ask her father for the money she had
needed for her expenses had seemed easy
and natural, but to ask it of her brothers
was simply intolerable. They were both
struggling to obtain independence, but as
yet, neither of them were rich, and each
had quite as much as he or she could well
do to support his own family without an
additional burden. Not one word of this
sort was spoken. She was treated with the
greatest kindness by both her brothers and
their wives, and she did her part toward
lessening the burden of her pecuniary sup
port by her diligent and skilful needle.
She sewed for the children, she made dress
es for her sisters, which fitted them ex-
quisitely; she made hats as dainty and
tasteful as ever entered the fame or left
the hands of French milliner; she tend
ed the babies, whom she idolized /; she took
her part in the light household duties in
which the ladies of every New England
family do not scorn TO busy themselves +;
she felt rather than knew, that her stay in
her brothers homes was considered by
them as merely temporal one. They nat
urally expected her TO marry and have a
home of her own. At intervals, eligible
suitors had presented themselves, but had
been refused. Each in turn she had tried
to like-she was really anxious TO love some
one Of them. She read and understood the
pleased smile of hope that frightened her
sister-in-laws' faces at each fresh appear
~ n nd hair L a
disappointed air at the disappearance of q
rejected lover. 1t stung her pride that they
should be so ready TO get rid of her, and
moro than once she had resolved TO accept
one of her wooers, but at the very moment
of his declaration of love 10 her. she had
been utterly unable to do so. Once or twice
her sisters reproached her with having en-
only to reject him.
"But 1 did mean to marry him. said
poor Eleanor.
"Then why didn't your" asked MIS-.
John Collins.
II really couldn't-I don't know why-I
Ii oped l could-till the last moment"
"a woman of your age ought to know
Mrs. John, severely.
Eleanor was now 25 years of a9e-"al-
most an old maid" Mrs. John said to Mrs.
Edward Collins when Judge Carter fell in
love with her.
"The very best chance Eleanor has had
yet," said Mrs. John TO her husband in the
quiet of their own room. "Somehow, these
Il Ia rl, ,,l, ,Io
81 shouldn't think of calling Eleanor an
old GIRL" said her brother.
"That's because you have always lived
with her and don't realize her age. She is
an old girl. She's 25 if she's a day, and
I'm sure she's very lucky. There's Judge
Carter, a man of the highest position, of a
first-rate family, just elevated to senator
and very well off, dead in love with her.
But don't believe she has any idea of it.
I haven't dared joke her, even, for fear
she'd turn cold shoulder on him. She's
the queerest girl ever saw in my life.
wonder if she will take him."
Take him! or course she will" said
J ohm scornfully, "that is, if she can get
him. 1 only hope that you are right in
81 wish l were as sure she would accept
h i'm as am sure he will ask her to-" re-
piled Mrs. John.
"Accept him she'll jump at the chance
said her husband.
am not so sure of that" retortcd Mrs.
John.
And Mrs. John was right. The senator
al fo bn tlx,
rejected him as she had so many others.
But John and his wife were wroth at this.
"Wbat did you expect in a ?" cried
Mrs. Collins.
81 expect him to make me love him
that's ALL
"And why can't you love Judge Carter?"
"Tm sure can't tell why"
''Then can," retorted her sister in law.
at all comes from your reading poetry
and novels. You are expecting to love as
people do in books. Let me tell you no.
body does that in real life. In the first
place the men who are so noble and hero
ic in books, are not to be found outside o
them; and. in the second, if they were
I'm not so sure that the women could be
found to love them as the ideal ones do.
But whether they could or would love in
this tremendous way isn't the question
They don't, and that's all there is to be
said about it. The only romantic love.
match / ever knew was a runaway one
and turned out miserably; before year
they hated each other as heartily as they
had loved each other at first. You are
sensible girl. Look around you, among
our acquaintances, and tell me where dc
you sec two people in love with each other
as they are in books. / loved John well
enough when / married him, but / had
none of those wild ecstasies, or any idea
that couldn't live without him, and all
that sort of nonsense. But we get along
well togetherI we are fond of each other
and then we have our children" Her
voice softened rs she spoke. eleanor"
she continued, "there is no truth in the
talk in books about the way women love
men; but there never has been, nor there
never will be put into words, the emotion
that mother feels for her baby. SO long
as God gives woman mother love, Eleanor
they needn't ask anything more. l tel
you, my dear, marriage is very disappoint-
ing to most women. l sometimes think
children are the only things that make
matrimony tolerable. But o, what happi
ness the children do bring TO woman Ell
eanor. Every woman ought to have home
of her own and children of her own"
"But, Mary, l cannot think that is tht
true ideal of marriage in which the chill
dren have the first place in the mothers
heart, and the husband the second"
GAS to the ideal state, have nothing t
say. / only speak of the real one, ant
nine-tenths of the women do love thei
children best, and they would tell you Sc