The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-06-23

after nightfall.
Many sad misgivings had Mrs. Mervin
as she contrasted the perfect mutual in
terchange between the husband and wife
whose guest she was, and her life with
her husband; and as she reviewed the
years, little by little light dawned upon
her mind. She saw how gradually she
had allowed unnecessary industries to
encroach on time that might so much
better have been devoted to intellectual
culture. What availed it now that Mollie
and Henry and Willie had been so elab-
Orately dressed in their babyhood? If
they had worn plain attire instead of
that on which she had spent so much
time and thought, how many hours she
might have given to read and keep up
with her husband.
To be sure, her parlors were exquis-
itely ornamented with variety of fancy
work wrought by her hands; but when
she listened to the utterances of her
friends, rich as they were with the varied
aCcumulations of those intellectual treas
ures, the law of whose existence is in
crement, she felt poor indeed in all the
resources most earnestly to be desired.
Was it not possible that Frank and she
might be all to each other that these
two friends were? At any rate she would
talk with Mrs. Banks and find out, if she
could, just how she had so perfectly
won and kept her husbands heart, and
how, with all the cares of growing
family she had managed to keep her
mind bright and full.
So, one day as they sat together she
introduced the subject cautiously, lest
Mrs. Banks might suspect that she and
Frank were not SO near to each other
as they might be.
" don't see where you get so much
time to read and find out everything"
said Mrs. Mervin; "you seem to be as
fresh as if you had just left school, while
have forgotten almost everything |
ever knew, and yet don't see but that
you have as many cares as | have"
81 neglect good many things" said
Mrs. Banks; "my tides are all bought,
while dare say you knit yours yourself;
my children's clothes are perfectly plain,
and so are my own. I've often wanted
to ask you where you got so much time
to make all the pretty clothes Minnie
wears"
ooh, make them at night, after the
children are quiet; Frank is away at the
club and L have all the evening to sew"
Mr.. Banks doesn't like to have me
sew or knit when he is at home; he says
it doesn't seem as though | was enter
tanning him when | was intent on the
needle, and so I've never done it except
when compelled to by stress of circum-
stances"
And you always devote yourself to
him, as you have done since l have been
| here?"
Yes, always; talk to him or pet him
till he's rested, and then ne talks to me,
tells me all the news, and everything
that has happened during the day; some
times talks over his cases with me
often find on the envelopes of his letters
a memorandum of items to tell her;
and half feel as though l have been
wherever he has been during the day
If he sees new picture he describes it
so wildly to me that it's really better
than seeing it with my own eyes; if he
reads a new book he goes over the
points of it with me, and it has been this
way ever since we were married, so that
do feel that my mind has grown almost
as much as his, though l have been so
full of household and family cares"
Mrs Mervin sighed audibly, and there
came up in memory many day when
Frank had come home weary, and evil
IDENTIFY longing for just this interchange
of sympathy with his wife. How had it
been met? Was there not something
better than this laborious superfluity of
ornamentation? Could not the tongue
and the eye have knitted finer and more
valuable fabrics than the busy fingers
had done? 1t was not too late to hope
that even now she could win him back
again and enjoy the pure content that
had made her friends life so blessed.
Now was, indeed, the golden opportuni-
ty, and how diligently she improved it.
Laying aside the embroideries on which
she had intended to spend so much time,
she spent all her leisure time in reading
the choice volumes which were discussed
in the evening conversations, in renew
ing her acquaintance with the classics
she and Frank had read together, and
in>writing him long letters, full of wife
ly sympathy in his labors and successes,
| and of anticipations of the happy asso-
Citations they would have when she got
home again.
To Mr. Mervin the occasional Sab.
baths he spent with Mary in Vermont
seemed like GASES in the desert. To-
gether, as in the days of their courtship
and early marriage, with little to inter-
rupt, they slipped back into the old easy
interchange of thought and feeling which
clothed those bright days with sunshine
and joy. Mary could not rest until she
had told her husband all her heart, and
how she longed to be to him all that a
wife could be, keeping step with him in
his intellectual growth as well as shar-
ing in the honors which it brought him.
d" Do you remember" she said, " the
letter in which you asked me to be your
wife? | committed it to memory at the
| time, and since have been here it has
come back to me, especially the passage;
You would be companion for me.
We could surely spend our evenings in
beautiful readings, in mutual commun-
ings with the master spirits of the world
We will spend them so when we get
home, won't WEI"
And they did Whatever annoyance