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  WIVES AND WIDOWS;

  OR,

  THE BROKEN LIFE.

  BY

  MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

AUTHOR OF "RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY," "FASHION AND FAMINE," "THE CURSE OF
GOLD," "THE REJECTED WIFE," "THE OLD HOMESTEAD," "THE WIFE'S SECRET,"
"MABEL'S MISTAKE," "THE GOLD BRICK," "SILENT STRUGGLES," "MARY DERWENT,"
"DOUBLY FALSE," "THE HEIRESS," "THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS," ETC., ETC.


  When falsehood genders in a human soul,
    Blossoms may hide the reptile in his creeping,
  But every pulse will stir at his control,
    Or feel the burden of his poisonous sleeping,
  Until the tight'ning circle of his coils
  Binds down the heart, which God alone assoils.

  In honest hearts the gentle truth reposes;
    As nightingales, with rapturous music filled,
  Nestle down, softly, in the clust'ring roses,
    While the sweet night and moonlit air is thrilled
  With perfect harmonies,--truth will arise
  And send its voice, upringing, to the skies.


PHILADELPHIA:
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
306 CHESTNUT STREET.




  TO

  MISS ELIZA S. ORMSBEE,

  OF

  PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND,

  THIS BOOK IS

  MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

  ANN S. STEPHENS.

  ST. CLOUD HOTEL, NEW YORK,
  NOVEMBER, 1869.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                         PAGE

      I. LEAVING MY HOME                                            25

     II. MY NEW HOME                                                31

    III. A NEW LIFE                                                 35

     IV. THREATENED WITH SEPARATION                                 40

      V. AFTER THE WEDDING                                          48

     VI. TELLING HOW LOTTIE INTRODUCED HERSELF                      53

    VII. OUT IN THE WORLD                                           59

   VIII. OUR GUEST                                                  63

     IX. FANCIES AND PREMONITIONS                                   70

      X. NEW VISITORS                                               76

     XI. THE BASKET OF FRUIT                                        81

    XII. BREAKFAST WITH OUR GUEST                                   86

   XIII. JESSIE LEE AND HER MOTHER                                  88

    XIV. INTRUSIVE KINDNESS                                         92

     XV. THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT                                   97

    XVI. AFTER DREAMING                                            101

   XVII. LOTTIE EXPRESSES HER OPINION OF THE
           WIDOW                                                   106

  XVIII. THE UNWELCOME PROPOSAL                                    109

    XIX. OUT UPON THE RIDGE                                        112

     XX. ADROIT CROSS-QUESTIONING                                  118

    XXI. THE EVENING AFTER BOSWORTH'S PROPOSAL                     121

   XXII. SOWING SEED FOR ANOTHER DAY                               125

  XXIII. AN OUTBREAK OF JEALOUSY                                   130

   XXIV. THE OLD PENNSYLVANIA MANSION                              135

    XXV. THE MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER                                139

   XXVI. SICK-BED FANCIES                                          143

  XXVII. THE FIRST SOUND SLEEP                                     147

 XXVIII. THE INTERVIEW IN THE WOODS                                150

   XXIX. TROUBLES GATHER ABOUT OUR JESSIE                          155

    XXX. MRS. DENNISON GATHERS WILD FLOWERS                        159

   XXXI. LOTTIE'S ADVICE                                           165

  XXXII. MRS. LEE DREAMS OF PASSION-FLOWERS                        169

 XXXIII. COMPANY FROM TOWN                                         173

  XXXIV. OUR VISIT TO THE OLD MANSION                              177

   XXXV. YOUNG BOSWORTH'S SICK-ROOM                                181

  XXXVI. LOTTIE'S REPORT                                           184

 XXXVII. MY FIRST QUARREL WITH MR. LEE                             188

XXXVIII. MR. LAWRENCE MAKES A CALL                                 192

  XXXIX. LOTTIE AS A LETTER-WRITER                                 197

     XL. YOUNG BOSWORTH RECEIVES A LETTER                          200

    XLI. OUT IN THE STORM                                          206

   XLII. JESSIE GETS TIRED OF HER GUEST                            208

  XLIII. A CONSULTATION WITH LOTTIE                                211

   XLIV. THE MIDNIGHT DISCOVERY                                    216

    XLV. BAFFLED AND DEFEATED                                      221

   XLVI. LOTTIE OWNS HERSELF BEATEN                                225

  XLVII. MR. LEE SENDS IN THE ACCOUNT OF HIS GUARDIANSHIP          227

 XLVIII. COMING OUT OF A DANGEROUS ILLNESS                         231

   XLIX. LOTTIE SEEMS TREACHEROUS                                  237

      L. CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION BETWEEN THE WIDOW AND
           MRS. LEE                                                240

     LI. THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER                                   247

    LII. THE FATAL LETTER                                          252

   LIII. DEATH IN THE TOWER-CHAMBER                                257

    LIV. MRS. LEE'S FUNERAL                                        261

     LV. OLD MRS. BOSWORTH'S VISIT                                 265

    LVI. LOTTIE'S REVELATIONS                                      268

   LVII. MRS. DENNISON URGES LAWRENCE TO PROPOSE                   272

  LVIII. AFTER THE PROPOSAL                                        277

    LIX. A HEART-STORM ABATING                                     282

     LX. THE TWO LETTERS                                           286

    LXI. THE DEPARTING GUEST                                       290

   LXII. WHOLLY DESERTED                                           297

  LXIII. OLD-FASHIONED POLITENESS                                  302

   LXIV. NEWS FROM ABROAD                                          306

    LXV. LOTTIE LEAVES A LETTER AND A BOOK                         313

   LXVI. MRS. DENNISON'S JOURNAL                                   316

  LXVII. OUR FIRST VISITOR                                         323

 LXVIII. THE WATERFALL                                             329

   LXIX. THE THREATENED DEPARTURE                                  338

    LXX. THE MIDNIGHT WALK                                         348

   LXXI. AWAY FROM HOME                                            355

  LXXII. OUT IN THE WORLD AGAIN                                    358

 LXXIII. FIRST WIDOWHOOD                                           362

  LXXIV. LOTTIE'S LETTER                                           385

   LXXV. LOTTIE IN PARIS                                           392

  LXXVI. THE CASKET OF DIAMONDS                                    395

 LXXVII. ALL TOGETHER AGAIN                                        404




WIVES AND WIDOWS.




CHAPTER I.

LEAVING MY HOME.


At ten years of age I was the unconscious mistress of a heavy stone
farm-house and extensive lands in the interior of Pennsylvania, with
railroad-bonds and bank-stock enough to secure me a moderate
independence. I shall never, never forget the loneliness of that old
house the day my mother was carried out of it and laid down by her
husband in the churchyard behind the village. The most intense suffering
of life often comes in childhood. My mother was dead; I could almost
feel her last cold kisses on my lip as I sat down in that desolate
parlor, waiting for the guardian who was expected to take me from my
dear old home to his. The window opened into a field of white clover,
where some cows and lambs were pasturing drowsily, as I had seen them a
hundred times; but now their very tranquillity grieved me. It seemed
strange that they would stand there so content, with the white clover
dropping from their mouths, and I going away forever. My mother's
canary-bird, which hung in the window, began to sing joyously over my
head, as if no funeral had passed from that room, leaving its shadows
behind, and, more grievous still, as if it did not care that I might
never sit and listen to it again.

One of the neighbors had kindly volunteered to take charge of the gloomy
old house till my guardian came, but her presence disturbed me more than
funereal stillness would have done. I had a family of dolls up stairs,
and any amount of tiny household furniture, which I would have given the
world to take with me; but this thrifty neighbor protested against it.
She said that I was almost a young lady and must forget such childish
things, now that I was going into the world to be properly educated.

To a shy, sensitive child, this was enough. So, with a double sense of
bereavement, I saw my pretty dolls and delicate toys swept into a basket
and carried off to the woman's house, between two stout Irish girls, who
seemed to be taking my heart off with them.

In less than half an hour one of this woman's children came down the
road with my prettiest doll under her arm. Its flaxen curls were all
disordered, and its tiny feet, with their slippers of rose- kid,
had evidently been in the mud, where she had probably insisted on making
the doll walk. While I sat by the window, waiting and watching, this
bare-headed little girl sat down by a fragment of stone that had fallen
from the wall close by, and began pounding the head of my doll upon it
with all her might. A cry broke from me that made the little wretch
start and run away, leaving my poor mutilated doll by the stone.

I ran out, seized upon my ruined doll, and came back to the house,
crying over it in bitter grief. With trembling hands I unlocked my
trunk, which was ready packed for travelling, and laid my broken
treasure down among the most precious of my belongings. Just then Mrs.
Pierce, our neighbor, came in, and in a half jeering, half kind way,
expostulated with me for being such a little goose as to cry over a
doll. This woman did not mean to be hard with me; far from it. Persons
exist who are really kind-hearted, and seem cruel only because they
cannot comprehend feelings utterly unknown to themselves. To me that
doll was a type of my wrecked home; to her it was a combination of wax,
sawdust, and leather, which a few dollars could at any time replace;
besides that, she was put a little on the defensive by the fault of her
child.

While she reasoned with me in her coarse kindness, which only wounded me
deeper, a carriage had driven up, and two persons entered through the
outer door, which had been left open by the little girl when she ran
into the house to claim her mother's protection. I was sitting on the
floor by my trunk, with both hands pressed to my face, sobbing
piteously, when a sweet, strange voice checked the force of that woman's
harangue; some one sank down to the floor by me, and I was all at once
drawn into a close embrace.

"Don't cry, dear; it is all very sad, no doubt, but you are going with
us, and to-morrow will be brighter."

I looked through a mist of tears that half blinded me, and saw the
kindest, sweetest face that my eyes ever dwelt upon. It was that of a
young woman, perhaps twenty or twenty-two years of age. "You must not
feel yourself alone, dear child," she said, smoothing my hair with one
hand, from which she had drawn off the glove.

"Oh," said Mrs. Pierce, pushing her daughter behind her, "you will never
believe, marm, what she is crying about,--leaving home, you think it is?
Oh, no; Miss is just taking on about a snip of a doll which my little
girl here smashed a trifle, not meaning any harm, for children will be
children, you know."

Here Mrs. Pierce patted her child's head, who cast sidelong glances at
me and attempted to hide herself behind her mother's dress.

I looked up at the young lady, blushing red, and begging her in my heart
not to think me so very ridiculous.

She smiled encouragingly, and turning upon Mrs. Pierce, said, very
gravely,--

"I am surprised, madam, that you should think this a slight cause of
grief. The smallest thing connected with the child's home must be dear
to her."

Mrs. Pierce gave her head a fling, and muttered that she meant no harm.
Miss was welcome to all her things back again; her children did not want
them, not they.

"You are right," said the young lady, quite seriously; "have everything
she has owned or loved packed up at once."

Mrs. Pierce went out muttering; the child followed her with a finger in
her mouth.

"Now," said the young lady, "is there anything else you would like to
take away,--a bird, a little dog, or the cat you have loved; we can find
room for them?"

My heart leaped. I had the dear old canary-bird; and lying upon the
crimson cushions of my mother's easy-chair