Ethel Freeman.
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��is constant, and as true as steel : you will see, mother."
"But if I am right, — as God for- bid that I should be, — if you should be wretched and miserable, what could, what should you do?" per- sisted Mrs. Reed.
"I should do the best 1 could. We marry for better or for worse, and if it should be for worse instead of for better, all my life long I would never break my promise," said Ethel solemnly.
"But you are so young, only eigh- teen, and you talk of suffering a life- time ! Child, you do not know what you are saying. Only wait a few years ; — women see very differently at twent^'-five from what the}' do at eighteen. Wait, Ethel."
"No, mother, darling mother, I must not !" and the firm lines con- tracted around the girl's mouth ; " but oh ! how sorry I am you do not like it. And we have always been such friends, too."
"My darling, you have my consent and my blessing, and may God help you !" said Mrs. Reed tremulously ; and so ended the sad and unsatisfac- tory interview.
III.
Mr. Reed was very well pleased with his prospective son-in-law, and he made a grand wedding. Hundreds of guests thronged the house. The ceremony was performed by several very High Churchmen, under the con- ventional marriage bell of snowy, sweet-smelling flowers. The presents were numerous and expensive, the bridal dress costly and becoming. The society papers said, — " The beau- tiful bride was charmingly attired in a magnificent white satin robe, with
��very long train, and superb point lace veil held in place with a splendid bandeau of diamonds," etc., etc. Could a young couj)le have set out for the matrimonial Elysian fields with more pro[)itious wedding auguries?
The bridegroom was very much in love. He had lived the life of a man of the world and of fashion, and was weary of vanities. He was also a man of letters, a dilettante in a mild way, and he fondly fancied that Ethel's home-like ways and domestic likings would combine with his poeti- cal predilections to make an ideal home. In furtherance of his idyllic
project they went to reside at P ,
there being a suggestiveness of the country about it that was dear to George, while the ways were not enough unlike New York ways to cause discomfort from finding an unpleasant adaptation a necessity. Ethel's young friends were loudly indignant at her being taken away to an abode that they stigmatized as being "neither fish, flesh, nor fowl; not the country, and too large for a village, but too small for a city." But Ethel did not mind, and went happily to her new home.
P , though decidedly provin- cial, is intensely self-respecting and ambitious. Society was intellect- ual, cultured, and would have been aesthetic only that the aesthetic wave had not yet rolled in upon us when the Freemans went there to live.
Ethel found her brilliant beauty of much less avail than in New York, and her "manners debonair" and stylishness of not much account. Neither were the neatness, system, and comfort of her housekeeping highly appreciated, and she soon felt
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