Lessons in Life, for All Who Will Read Them Part 17

"No. I suppose she will go home and cry her eyes half out, and then conclude that, whatever Fisher may have been, he's perfection now. It's a first-rate joke, isn't it?"

Clara Grant had not only left the parlours, but soon after quietly left the house, and alone returned to her home. When her lover, shortly afterwards, searched through the rooms for her, she was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is Clara?" he asked of one and another. The answer was--

"I saw her here a moment since."

But it was soon very apparent that she was nowhere in the rooms now.

Fisher moved about uneasy for half an hour. Still, not seeing her, he became anxious lest a sudden illness had caused her to retire from the company. More particular inquiries were made of the lady who had given the entertainment. She immediately ascertained for him that Clara was not in the house. One of the servants reported that a lady had gone away alone half an hour before. Fisher did not remain a single moment after receiving this intelligence, but went direct to the house of Clara's aunt, with whom she lived, and there ascertained that she had come home and retired to her room without seeing any of the family.

His inquiry whether she were ill, the servant could not answer.

"Have you seen anything of Clara yet?" asked the friend of Mears, with a smile, as they met about an hour after they had disturbed the peace of a trusting, innocent-minded girl, "just for the fun of it."

"I have not," replied Mears.

"Where's Fisher?"

"He is gone also."

"Ah, indeed! I'm sorry the matter was taken so seriously by the young lady. It was only a joke."

"Yes. That was all; and she ought to have known it."

On the next day, Fisher, who had spent a restless night, called to ask for Clara as early as he could do so with propriety.

"She wishes you to excuse her," said the servant, who had taken up his name to the young lady.

"Is she not well?" asked Fisher.

"She has not been out of her room this morning. I don't think she is very well."

The young man retired with a troubled feeling at his heart. In the evening he called again; but Clara sent him word, as she had done in the morning, that she wished to be excused.

In the mean time, the young lady was a prey to the most distressing doubts. What she had heard, vague as it was, fell like ice upon her heart. She had no reason to question what had been said, for it was, as far as appeared to her, the mere expression of a fact made in confidence by friend to friend without there being an object in view.

If any one had come to her and talked to her after that manner, she would have rejected the allegations indignantly, and confidently p.r.o.nounced them false. But they had met her in a shape so unexpected, and with so much seeming truth, that she was left no alternative but to believe.

Fisher called a third time; but still Clara declined seeing him. On the day after this last attempt, he received a note from her in these, to him, strange words:--

"DEAR SIR:--Since I last met you, I have become satisfied that a marriage between us cannot prove a happy one. This conclusion is far more painful to me than it can possibly be to you. You, I trust, will soon be able to feel coldly towards her whose fickleness, as you will call it, so soon led her to change her mind; but a life-shadow is upon my heart. If you can forget me, do so, in justice to yourself. As for me, I feel that--but why should say this? Charles, do not seek to change the resolution I have taken, for you cannot; do not ask for explanations, for I can give none. May you be happier than I can ever be! Farewell.

"CLARA."

"Madness!" exclaimed Charles Fisher, as he crumpled this letter in his hand. "Is there no faith in woman?"

He sought no explanation; he made no effort to change her resolution; he merely returned this brief answer--

"Clara, you are free."

It was quickly known among the circle of their friends that the engagement between Fisher and Clara had been broken off. Mears and his friend, it may be supposed, did not feel very comfortable when they heard this.

"I didn't think the silly girl would take it so seriously," remarked one to the other.

"No; it was a mere joke."

"But has turned out a very serious one."

"I guess they'll make it up again before long."

"I hope so. Who would have believed it was in her to take the matter so much at heart, or to act with so much decision and firmness? I really think better of the girl than I did before, although I pity her from my heart."

"Hadn't we better make an effort to undo the wrong we have done?"

"And expose ourselves? Oh, no! We must be as still as death on the subject. It is too serious an affair. We might get ourselves into trouble."

"True. But I cannot bear to think that others are suffering from an act of mine."

"It is not a pleasant consciousness, certainly. But still, to confess what we have done would place us in a very awkward position. In fact, not for the world would I have an exposure of this little act of folly take place. It would affect me in a certain quarter--where, I need not mention to you--in a way that might be exceedingly disagreeable."

"I didn't think of that. Yes, I agree with you that we had best keep quiet about it. I'm sorry; but it can't be helped now."

And so the matter was dismissed.

No one saw Clara Grant in company for the s.p.a.ce of twelve months. When she did appear, all her old friends were struck with the great change in her appearance. As for Fisher, he had left the city some months before, and gone off to a Southern town, where, it was said, he was in good business.

The cause of estrangement between the lovers remained a mystery to every one. To all questions on the subject, Clara was silent. But that she was a sufferer every one could see.

"I wish that girl would fall in love with somebody and get married,"

Mears remarked to his friend, about two years after they had pa.s.sed off upon Clara their good joke. "Her pale, quiet, suffering face haunts me wherever I go."

"So do I. Who could have believed that a mere joke would turn out so seriously?"

"I wonder if he is married yet?"

"It's doubtful. He appeared to take the matter quite as hard as she does."

"Well, it's a lesson to me."

"And to me, also."

And, with this not very satisfactory conclusion, the two friends dropped the subject. Both, since destroying, by a few words spoken in jest, the happiness of a loving couple, had wooed and won the maidens of their choice, and were now married. Both, up to this time, had carefully concealed from their wives the act of which they had been guilty.

After returning home from a pleasant company, one evening, at which Clara was present, the wife of Mears said to him--

"You did not seem to enjoy yourself to-night. Are you not well?"

"Oh, yes; I feel quite well," returned Mears.

"Why, then, did you look so sober?"