the young people were contemplating having a picnic. Her mother remonstrated and thought. she ought not go with him, she should at least ask her father if he had any objections. 'Well, but mother, it is all arranged now and there is no getting out of it. I have promised him to go and I cannot disappoint him at this time.' So the first lesson he taught her was disregard for the wishes of her parents. And the next was deceit. "We had no idea how far matters had advanced between them till he called a second time, when, by the way, his manners had greatly improved. He was quite attentive to me and as considerate for my sister as if she had been a grand lady. But for all that I set him down in my mind as a rogue and nothing else. I will admit, however, that a young, inexperienced girl might easily be beguiled by so much assumed polish. But as I said, we knew nothing of their affair till that evening, when they appeared quite intimate. He had discarded the Miss and called her simply Clara, and at times when she forgot to be cautious, would say John to him. "That evening Clara's mother took her into her own room and tried to reason with her and it seemed not without avail. The girl who had all her life known no other will than her parents' could not remain insensible to her mother's pleadings and counseling. With tears and sobs she promised she would give him up and see "I will not speak of my sister's sorrow at hearing this. It must be, I think, a great shock to a fond mother's heart to hear her child declare that a man, who a month or two since was unknown to her, has become dearer to her than the mother who bore her with sorrow, and tenderly nursed her through her helpless and depending years. who would be willing to undergo tortures untold again, to secure that child's happiness. It must be a dreadful shock, I say; but when the future husband of her beloved child is a desirable addition to the family the pain is lessened by remembering that such is the decree of our heavenly Father and that she herself has forsaken father and mother and become one with her husband. "But when on the other hand, she knows that nothing but disappointment and dire misery awaits her child by marrying a man whom she considers in every way, unworthy of her, the sting must be terrible. Aunt Ruth paused and raked the fire with the tongs. "But aunty," said Isabel without raising her bowed head from her hands, in which position she had sat ever since Aunt Ruth had begun her story. "why is it that you are always depicting so much woe and missery to the girl of our faith who marries an outsider? Cannot these marriages end happily as well as others?" "Well I never heard of one that did; nor did I ever hear of a girl who would place sufficient confidence in the words of her parents to be warned in time. She must needs go contrary to the wise counsel of her elders and prove for herself the truth of her parents' disregarded words. And then, when she has brought upon herself the sorrow that resulted through her disobedience, she expects to be welcomed back to loving arms and tenderly nursed in her pain. Does it not strike you that her waywardness may have dampened the ardor of her long-suffering parents?" No one made any response. Lea heaved a sigh and Isabel moved uneasily. "Perhaps I am too severe in these matters," continued Aunt Ruth, "God forgive me if I am. But-well little ones I know it must be your bed time now.' She loosened the little arms that so fondly entwined her. Dora's little sleepy head fell heavily on her shoulder, while she drowsily demanded to know if the "'tory was all over." After having promised to continue the story the next night, Aunt Ruth went for the lamp and the little ones went to bed. Next evening when the Campbells (the parents of our young friends) had left home to pay a long-promised visit to a neighboring family, the girls flocked about Aunt Ruth and bore her into the sitting room let the precious time go to waste." Aunt Ruth roused herself and adjusting her cap (Aunt Ruth always wore a cap) began: "Well they were finally married, my girl, and-" but a loud protest was raised against this inhuman way of leaping over the most interesting part of the story: how the marriage came about. Aunt Ruth looked about her in a bewildered way and the girls explained, by crying: "No, no aunty, we hadn't got that far! When last we heard of her she had just promised her mother to forget the stranger. Don't you remember?" "Ah, yes; to be sure! Well she promised, and a few evenings later when the young man came for his answer he was received by Clara's father, who delivered her message. Mr. Brown, however, insisted on seeing Clara, and when she finally came she told him that it was her unalterable decision to obey her parents in this matter and not marry one outside our church. Mr. Brown then turned to her father and demanded if that was the only objection they had to him: not being of their faith. My brother-in-law was taken unawares and said yes, it was. "'Well if that is the case, we may when you have investigated our faith properly and been convinced of its truth, reconsider this matter.' "Poor Clara, who had been very dejected since her promise, was at once lifted into the greatest happiness and went about singing all day. But none of us had much faith in his sincerity, and I had none, whatever. One day I took my girl into my room and besought her to let the man entirely. alone. I told her that I felt sure that he was insincere; that he was not a good man; and that nothing but misery would result from this time on. But Clara felt very hurt; said she believed in him and was willing to take the consequences. "A few days later we heard that Mr. Brown had been baptized and then her father remonstrated with her and asked her to wait a year or so and let him show some fruits of his pretended belief. But while she was inclined to listen to her parents, while with them, in his presence all her good intentions vanished like air; and one morn ing at breakfast she announced that she and John intended to get married next month and would get married in the Endowment House if John could get a recommend. Mr. Brown's conduct the following month was exemplary, and at the end of the specified time he obtained a recommend, and the two went to Salt Lake City. "What I have told so far has come under my personal observation; for the remainder of my story I have Clara's own words," said Aunt Ruth, and after a few moments reflections she continued: "He had hired a small house in the outskirts of our little town and we had all helped make their little nest comfortable and pretty. had a constant foreboding of unhappiness for my girl. I tried hard to shake off this feeling, but 'twas vain. I "Scarcely had the young couple left the Endowment House before his ill-concealed ridicule of the sacred proceedings he had gone through, and which had made. Clara feel so near heaven that a desire was born in her to stay there forever, broke out in a mocking laugh, that almost made Clara's heart stand still with pain and apprehension. When he saw her frightened face he tried to undo the effect of his words by picturing very eloquently the future which lay before them. But that very same evening he took off the sacred garment which had been given him in the house of God and declared his intentions of never putting it on again. What this must have meant to Clara, my dear girls, you can best imagine, when I tell you that she had all her life been a firm believer in the holy ordinances of our Church, and had ever shown the greatest reverence for them. we an adornment in our community. My brother-in-law scrupled somewhat over this reception, as he considered it imitating the ways. of the world too much. He thought could have welcomed them home without so much display of flowers and furbelows, to a good old fashioned feast in her old home, where everything was more in keeping with our tastes generally; where we could all have turned in and cleared the tables in no time and then had a jolly dance afterwards, which to his idea would have been more enjoyable than the stiff concern, as he called it, that we did have. "I presume he was right but somehow we were all in for a more state affair. It's no use denying it; we are all, even the best of us, fond of showing our neighbors what we can do in the way of display. And then we didn't want to be behind time either. We had "They stayed in Salt Lake a couple of days to see the place and enjoy themselves, and when they came home we had prepared a wedding party or reception as you call it, in their own little home. And everything was quite grand to our notion, I assure you. Your Uncle Somers is quite wealthy, and he spent not a little money on the affair. The young ladies of Clara's acquaintance turned out in their very best, of course; some of them had even got new toilets for the occasion and we had both silk and satin dresses, trimmed with lace and adorned with flowers and ribbons in great profusion. We had divested our own and some neighbors' gardensheard and read of how people did of evey flower to decorate the house. Yes, it was quite an affair. It reminded me greatly of the dinners and suppers I used to attend in old England when I was young. I don't mean to say it was anything like them, nor did we aim at such a thing, of course; but to most of those present it was a grand affair, and my girl looked lovely in her white cashmere and flowers, lovelier than many a noble born lady I have attended in my own country; for she was noble by nature and would, had it not been for the mistake she made in her marriage, have been in Salt Lake and Ogden on such occasions; and I think the only thing my sister, who is otherwise a very sensible woman, regretted was that unfortunately our town could boast no paper which might have given a notice of a grand and very enjoyable affair, etc. "Well, my girl set up housekeeping in a very comfortable way. We often wondered from what source Mr. Brown derived his income, for he never did anything, and yet had always money. He did do a good deal of writing; but we never learned what he wrote about, so we came to the conclusion that he must be an author and was too modest to openly acknowledge it. We used to question Clara about it too; but she seemed as much at a loss about his doings as we were. "The first Sunday after their return from Salt Lake, they went to meeting, Clara I regret to say, in her reception dress, wherefore some ill-natured people said she went solely to show her finery. But I know better, my girl was not vain; but you see she had no actual knowledge of what was proper to do under all circumstances. She had always been accustomed to wear her best dress to meeting and the idea that an evening toilet with its wealth of ribbons and frills should not be worn on the street, never occurred to her. "That was the first and last time the two went to meeting together. She often came home in the beginning and appeared happy and gay but an observer could easily detect the disappointed ring in her laughter, as well as the feigned gayety. But that her hero had shown the cloven foot on the very eve of their wedding day she never mentioned; nay, she concealed it scrupulously. Pretty soon her visit. to home grew scarcer and he came but on rare occasions, and then took no pains to conceal the contempt he felt for our adherence to the religion we had espoused. "Their days were spent in pleasure-seeking and Sundays made no exception to the rule. In the beginning it distressed Clara greatly and she who had asserted to me once before he had made his pretension of joining our Church, that even if he cared nothing for her religion, she could live it just as well as if she had stayed in her father's house, soon learned, that a young wife, be she ever so good. is apt to partake of the same spirit as her husband. She does not lead. He leads and she follows often blindly. "He took a number of eastern journals, story papers for the most part, and the more she read of them the more she wanted to read and at last she began to think that this was indeed a much better way of spending Sunday than by tiring one's self completely out with running to Sunday School and meetings. This excessive story reading also gave her a desire for exciting pleasures as she read of them, and she tried to imitate on a smaller scale the dinner parties and soires that grand people in the world excelled in. And she only succeeded in two things: setting a bad example and making herself ridiculous, poor girl. For of course, her companions, who were married and got married one after another, must do as she did. If she gave a dinner and invited all her friends and had a great display of fancy dishes and fine table linen, the other young matrons must do the same in turn. And as her companions were nearly all married to honest young men who strove to make a position for themselves in life the consequences of imitating her were often fraught |