cloth stood in the centre of the room; a few shelves filled with controversial books had been fixed against the walls, and three obelisks of grey marble decorated the mantel-piece. Milly’s housekeeping keys lay in a basket on the table: they were the sole symbols of feminine occupation visible. How was it possible for the room to look otherwise than hard and bare? It was here that Milly, pale and saddened, was receiving a visit from her mother-in-law. Mrs. Lane had been dead a fortnight, and Mrs. Leslie, who had never liked her, found it difficult to express sympathy with the daughter’s grief. Mrs. Lane, from the beginning of Robert Leslie’s acquaintance with Milly, had been obnoxious in her eyes. She was not a member of Mr. Leslie’s congregation. She was undeniably poor; and there was aggravation of injuries in the fact that there was nothing tangible in her manner, either to Mr. Leslie or the rest of the small Trowchester world, to which she could reasonably object. No one had accused her of match-making for her daughter, and yet half-a-dozen mothers hated her as if she had entrapped Mr. Leslie into the marriage. But all women judge each other harshly; and if the softest and gentlest amongst them cannot be exempted from the accusation, how much the more heavily must it fall upon the hard and exacting! Mrs. Leslie had had many struggles with adverse circumstances before she had seen her son safely placed in his present position. She was the widow of a dissenting preacher of some eminence in his day. He had died soon after the birth of her son, who was the youngest of her children. She had lost three others in their infancy, and the interest that each had individually inspired in her heart was now centred in him. By the most pinching economy in her own expenses his education had been carried on satisfactorily. Often, as she sat through the winter days in a dreary lodging, denying herself a fire, and making a cup of tea at least twice a week do duty for dinner, she would dream of a future when his talents should be matured, and he should enter the ministry as his father had done before him. And that future was realised, though not in the way she intended; for Robert Leslie entered the Established Church, and left behind him many prejudices which had clung to his parents. She had kept her son’s house for five years when his acquaintance began with Milly Lane. She did not oppose his wishes with regard to his marriage; that course she felt would have been a futile one; but she withdrew from his home when it was finally arranged, and settled herself down once more in solitude. Who could deny that Milly was pretty? She had large, soft brown eyes, a sweet smile, and a flitting blush that came and went on small provocations, making her face look brighter than it was in reality.
“And for this,” Mrs. Leslie thought, as she turned the matter over in her mind during many a long day and longer night, “my son has married her! She can’t take a class in the school: she would not know Obadiah from Hezekiah: she could not cut out a pinafore if she tried for hours: Robert might preach new-fangled doctrine for a month and she would never find it out. What could have induced him to fall in love with a woman whose character is so utterly dissimilar to his own?”
Mrs. Leslie was sitting with her daughter-in-law: a little sterner and colder than usual, from being uncertain whether Milly was sufficiently mistress of herself to receive her observations with calmness. It had been a source of bitterness to Mrs. Leslie to find that “Milly” was not merely some pet diminutive, but a name that had been actually given in baptism; and at the commencement of their acquaintance she had suggested that she might address her daughter-in-law by a more conventional one. Somehow Mr. Leslie had fallen into the same habit, and Milly had become “Emilia” in her new home.
“Your constant attendance on your mother, Emilia—though I do not say you could have acted otherwise—has greatly interfered with your duties. You have scarcely ever been to evening chapel for the last three months; and on no less than four separate occasions I have observed that Robert’s tea has not been ready on his return from the Sunday school.”
All this was true, and Milly making no reply, Mrs. Leslie continued:
“You have neglected several people, too, who have every claim upon your attention. Mrs. Bowle’s Jemima has had measles: you have never once sent to inquire after her. Mrs. Crawley’s cook and housemaid left her without notice: you should have offered her the services of one of the upper girls in the school. These little civilities are expected from a person in your position. Mr. Wareham tells me he has called twice when he knew you were at home, but that he has not seen you. Why is this? He is by far the most important and the most liberal member of your husband’s congregation: he ought not to be slighted. He will most probably come in with your husband from the savings bank this morning, and I beg you will not go up to your own room when they are discussing business matters. For my own part, I always found it better to take an interest in them when I lived with my son.”
Well! sooner or later Milly knew she must meet Mr. Wareham again, and there might possibly be a sense of relief in the knowledge that their first interview would not be without witnesses. Not even her mother had ever known that before her engagement to Mr. Leslie was declared, Mr. Wareham had suddenly and passionately told her that he loved her—loved her in the face of all the coldness and reserve with which she treated him, and that, let her answer be what it might, he should love her so long as they both lived. She remembered that she had turned from him with something like disgust—that his eye had glared for a moment with fury, and that a vague dread of Mr. Wareham had taken possession of her mind from that period. To share her mother’s secret with him, of all persons in the world! She felt there was but one line of conduct to pursue. She must endeavour to keep him in ignorance of the fact that her mother had confided to her the whole wretched history. All this, and much more in detail,—not one amongst us can put on paper the
