American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1874-07-18
MRS. ROTHELY'S EMERALDS.

Bt HARRIET PRESCoTT SlDfFOItD-
Ii cannot be denied that Mrs Rothely
loved splendOr: and it cannot .be denied
that Mr.. Rothely knew she did, nor that
many Il time and oft he had been visited
by "a suspicion that it was just possible he
had, some time since, been prospered in
his suit for the lady's hand by the fact
that he was able to surround her with
this splcndor that she loved
She was indeed beautiful woman,
quite worthy, one would think. of any
bodys affection, and eminently fit to be
surrounded with this splendOr that so
pleased her fancy. Knowing that she
was beautiful, she had an innocent
sort of pleasure in enhancing her beauty
by the appliances of luxury. But aside
from that she derived from them
different and more exquisite pleasure
the pleasure which objects of beauty
ahQQa the wOrshipers of beauty; she loved
stro9g lusters and colors, with passion
ate delight in them, as she loved music
indeed, and liked to have them within
sfeach; TO cast her eye on soft curves and
pure outlines was to have a sensation of
delicious rest; to move in spacious and
lofty rooms seemed to leave her spirit
free to spread its wings unhampered by
remembrance of cramping wants and
cares; to roll in her cushioned carriage
10 the clatter of the hoofs of swift thor
ough-brcds was the next thing to float
ing on the clouds, And all this her
husband knew. If her splendid silks
gave first satisfaction to her woman's
vanity they gave next a satisfaction to
AL her sense of the beautiful in tint and
texture; and if she was pleased that her
Wels Nfe more magnificent than Mrs.
EWer's &c, she was also pleased to have
II ipE1hGE power to contemplate at any
MOI the wealth of luster that from
creations day had been shut into those
drops of concrete light.
Mr.. Rothely was only too happy that,
soaong as Mrs. ROthely loved splendor,
the kind fates allowed him to give 1t to
her. She became it well, he used to say,
and when, one night, he dreamed of see
ing the angels descending and ascending
.Jacobs ladder into heaven, they every
one wore the array in which he had seen
his wife going out to Mrs. Ewer's ball
and, ridiculously as the angels would
have looked to any one else, to him they
looked half divine. 1t did make him
} laugh, indeed, when he awoke, to think
he had clad the angels in an endless re-
duplication of his wife's ball dress; but l
am not sure that he did not in his Utmost
heart think it was quite good enough for
them; and indeed he would not have
thought them angels at all if every one
had not had that same enchanting smile,
that same heavenly grace, that he found
SO precious In Mrs. hOthely.
Mr.. Rothely would have been shocked
at himself if he had known what made
him dream of Jacobs ladder, let alone
the extraordinary and seraphic recurrence
of his wife's apparition there; but as he
did not worry himself much with psy-
Geological science he did not seek for
any reason, and never suspected that his
dream was due only to the remembrance
of a stormy scene in the gold-roOm.
Why the remembrance of such a scene
should have associated itself with a lad
der into heaven rather than into the
other place nobody knows; nor why all
that silent, shifting thrOng that in the
pafriarchs sleep trOd the slant sunbeams
up and down between the earth and sky
should have been summoned to his fancy
by the throng of rsyening wolves, except
through the law Of Contrasts. But Mr..
Rothely, walking home very late that
day, had been fea.fully detected; he had
felt, in fact, as If he were in the wilder
ness and alone, for his reverses had been
tremendous, and he dared not speak of
them to his wife; and he was thinking it
would be too much bliss on earth if man
could go home and tell his wife every
thing and have sympathy and comfort
from her; and then he was confounding
himself for sentimental fool to be han
kering after sympathy when he wanted
credit. And thereat he had met his wife
coming lightly down the hall stairs,
vision of rosy beauty, dark eyes and
dimpling smiles, and the peach blow dress
and the jewels; and he had felt himself
to he presuming simpletOn to think of
sympathy and comfort from such radi-
ant creature as that, and had lOnged to
take her in his arms, and had feared to
crush her dress, and so had smiled back
as she had smiled, and had gone down
and put her in the carriage and returned
to his lonely house and the endless fig
ures with which he was always ciphering
on his endless papers and which he now
began to look over again with a groan.
Mr.. Rothely heard the wheels on the
pavement when his wife came back, and
he was just putting up his papers as she
entered.
Il saw your light" she said. What!
always those papers-those hateful pa
persi Do you want to kill YOURSELF"
And she came and laid one arm lightly
over his shoulder.
why should it kill me to sit here and
study my calculations till this hour"
he said, any more than kill you to go
out in the cruel weather and dance till
the same hour"
.Oh, that's different" sheTsaid, with
laugh. "That's pleasure. And this"
Isn't pleasure, said he, rising. - No,
it isn't pieasure.'
we'll, what Is It, them" she asked,
coaxingly, twining her arm in his.
Its pain he exclaimed, vexed by
her light way, when his trouble was so
great it's pain and perplexity, and a
sword hanging over my headr' And he
turned about and left the room hurriedly,
sure that the next moment she would be
saying . | do believe Mr.. Rothely is los
ing his mindr' and the moment after be
singing the last tune to which she had
waltzed, yawning and going off gayly to
bed.
But what Mrs. Rothely was really say
ing was: Il wonder what il means Did
i do anything to tease him. | wonder if
he is displeased that / 90 out without
him I'm sure | had world rather he
went too l don't. know He hardly
ever comes to talk with me now; he
never tells me anything he couldn't tell
somebody else's wife. / wonder Oh,
it couldn't be, it couldn't possibly be that
he is tired of me, Pshaw, what "a fool
am to be incoming this way over a busy
man."
But when Mr. Rothely went to bed
just before daybreak, after taking an
other turn with his papers, his wife was
sleeping the sleep of the just, rosy,
dewy, lovely sleep, over which he hung
"a moment idolatrously before he turned
away, half-indignantly for all, to think
she could take SO easily what was tor
ment to him; and then, laughing little
grimly to himself, he compared himself
to the peasant who one moment prays to
his little wooden image and the next mo-