Bessies Fortune | Page 5

aunt's injunction to marry one of the Greys. Lacy was the prettier and gentler of the two, the one whom everybody loved, and who would make him the better wife. Probably, too, she would be more easily won than the haughty Geraldine, who had not many friends. And so, before he reached his house on Beacon street, he had planned a matrimonial campaign and carried it to a successful issue, and made sweet Lucy Grey the mistress of his home.
It is not our purpose to enter into the details of Burton's wooing. Suffice it to say, that it was unsuccessful, for Lucy said "No," very promptly, and then he tried the proud Geraldine, who listened to his suit, and, after a little, accepted him, quite as much to his surprise as to that of her acquaintances, who knew her ambitious nature.
"Anything to get away from stupid Allington," she said to her sister Lucy, who she never suspected had been Burton's first choice. "I hate the country, and I like Boston, and like Mr. Jerrold well enough. He is good-looking, and well-mannered, and has a house and twenty thousand dollars, a good position in the bank, and no bad habits. Of course, I would rather that his father and sister were not such oddities: but I am not marrying them, and shall take good care to keep them in their places, which places are not in Boston."
And so the two were married, Burton Jerrold and Geraldine Grey, and there was a grand wedding, at Grey's Park, and the supper was served on the lawn, where there was a dance, and music, and fireworks in the evening; and Sam Lawton, a half-witted fellow, went up in a balloon, and came down on a pile of rocks on the Jerrold farm, and broke his leg; and people were there from Boston, and Worcester, and Springfield, and New York, but very few from Allington, for the reason that very few were bidden. Could Lucy have had her way, the whole town would have been invited; but Geraldine overruled her, and made herself life-long enemies of the people who had known her from childhood. Peter Jerrold staid at home, just as Burton hoped he would, but Hannah was present, in a new gray silk, with some old lace, and a bit of scarlet ribbon at her throat, and her hair arranged somewhat after the fashion of the times. This was the suggestion of Lucy Grey, who had more influence over Hannah Jerrold than any one else in the world, and when she advised the new silk, and the old lace, and the scarlet ribbon, Hannah assented readily, and looked so youthful and pretty, in spite of her thirty years, that the Rev. Mr. Sanford, who was a bachelor, and had preached in Allington for several years, paid her marked attention, helping her to ices, and walking with her for half an hour on the long terrace in a corner of the park.
There was a trip to Saratoga, and Newport, and the Catskills, and then, early in September, Burton brought his bride to the house on Beacon street, which Geraldine at once remodeled and fitted up in a style worthy of her means, and of the position she meant her husband to occupy. He was a growing man, and from being clerk in a bank, soon came to be cashier, and then president, and money and friends poured in upon him, and Geraldine's drawing-rooms were filled with the elite of the city. The fashionables, the scholars, the artists, and musicians, and whoever was in any degree famous, met with favor from Mrs. Geraldine, who liked nothing better than to fill her house with such people, and fancy herself a second Madame De Stael, in her character as hostess. All this was very pleasing to Burton, who, having recovered from any sentimental feeling he might have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right, and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part when she married him, and she never let him forget it; while he, too, mentally acknowledged it, and felt that, for it, he owed her perfect allegiance, from which he never swerved.

CHAPTER II.
GREY JERROLD.
Just a year after the grand wedding at Grey's Park, there was born to Burton and Geraldine a little boy, so small and frail and puny, that much solicitude would have been felt for him had there not been a greater anxiety for the