THE RICH WIFE.
A PRACTICAL TALE OF THE TIMES.
BY ELLEN ASHTON.
"I WISH Mary Elcott was richer," exclaimed Charles Masters, as if thinking aloud, breaking the silence which had now lasted for more than five minutes at his friend's dinner table.
"And I second your wish, Masters," answered his companion, coolly cracking an almond, and drawing the wine toward him, "since you seem so heartily in earnest —although I cannot see why you should desire it so much. Is there not something more than a mere interest there, eh! Masters?"
"To be candid with you there is, or rather would be if Mary was but rich. I have often been on the point of telling you my sentiments, but something has always intervened to prevent me. Now, however, I will put off my confession no longer. I admire; ardently admire Miss Elcott, and I am satisfied I could love her, provided she were only wealthy. You needn't smile. I am not, as you would suppose, a fortune—hunter—that is I do not consider a fortune the ne plus ultra in a wife—but as my means at present are just equal to my own wants, I cannot afford to get married unless I wed a bride who has some money at least."
"Stop—let me understand you. You say you cannot afford to get married because your income is only sufficient for your own wants. Now it is but the other day that you told me your profession yielded you two thousand dollars a year—surely it is not impossible to live, even when married, on such an income. I make but a bare fifteen hundred, and yet I should not be afraid to venture matrimony tomorrow, although it is true I should calculate on increasing my income in a year or two."
"Exactly; but you were always a saving fellow, even with your pocket money at school, when I have always liked to live a little more expensively. Now two thousand dollars will just allow me to live as I wish, but even then it must be as a bachelor. There is my horse, and then my private parlor, and there is my annual trip to the springs—all these I must have, and to have them, I must spend my two thousand. Now if I get married, without I wed an heiress, I should have to give up all these—in other words I must surrender my tilbury and walk on foot, while my wife must patronize the omnibus or stay at home. Egad! just think of it—the lady of Charles Masters, Esq. Attorney at Law, running after a Chesnut street omnibus whenever she is tired and wishes to return home."
"All very humorous, my dear fellow—join me in a glass—but still it has little to do with the question; and since you have consulted me I will," he continued smiling, " give you, as the old women say, a bit of my mind. I dislike, as much as you, to deprive a wife of the comforts of life, but with your income, or even mine, there is little danger of doing that. The very thing which you cling to so perversely are luxuries, mere luxuries, nothing else under the sun. Possessed of the love of some virtuous woman you would soon learn to do without them—aye! and enjoy ten-fold more happiness than you do now. Believe me, my dear fellow, you are misleading yourself on this important subject. It is not necessary that you should marry an heiress. You can live, and respectably too, for the first year or two, on your present income; and after that, with your talents, and the standing marriage will give you, you need fear nothing. I do not speak what I am not willing to practice. You are a lawyer and I am a physician. Your profession can be made available sooner than mine. You have two thousand a year and I have but fifteen hundred; and yet I am about to be married , and that to, I may as well tell you, Mary's younger sister. You have seen her, I believe, but once, for she returned only last week from New York, where, however, I met her last summer during my three months sojourn there. I have every reason to believe we shall be happy, even," and again he smiled, "on a bare fifteen hundred a year."
"You surprise me," said Masters, after a pause, "but still there is a difference betwixt your case and mine. Mary has high views of things, and as she could not, if married to me, live, at least for some years, in the style in which her father lives, she would—you may depend on it—grow discontented and peevish. You shake your head, but it would, I am certain, be so. Even if I could give up these comforts, which you call luxuries, she could not
"Stop, my dear fellow, you misrepresent Mary. I know her well. She is not the kind of girl you pretend she is. I will not enter into details, but of this I can assure you," and here he emphasised his words, "that if Mary could love a man she would cheerfully give up every thing but the bare necessaries of life, to follow his fortunes."
"Well—well, it may be. She is at any rate an angel. I have had hard work to keep myself from falling in love with her, although conscious of the folly of uniting my lot to hers in the present state of my finances. Confound this money—why had she not a few thousands, or why am I not richer? —I must stop thinking of her, or going there so often, for," and here he paused and added, " it cannot be. There is Charlotte Spencer, whom all my relatives wish me to marry— she is rich, pretty, accomplished—I suppose I shall have to propose to her, though, heaven knows! if Mary had but half her money I would prefer her. Well, after all
