Clemence | Page 3

ovations, the substantial dinners, the
moonlight serenades, the waiting crowd shouting my name impatiently:
'Crane! Crane! let us have a speech from the gallant General P.
Crandall!'--yes, even though the aristocratic brown-stone mansion,
which was to have been a testimonial of esteem from admiring friends;
though all these fade before me like the beautiful mirage that proves
only an illusion of the senses, yet I am equal to this act of self-denial,
and submit to pass my life in obscurity, unknown and unappreciated.'"
* * * * *
"Overcome by such magnanimity, I fainted upon his bosom. After that
my dreams were haunted by gory battle-fields, in which P. Crandall
figured in every imaginable scene of suffering and danger. My delicate

nerves had received a severe shock, and yet I did not mean to be weak,
in the hour of trial, for it is the duty of a faithful wife, such as I sought
to be, to sustain her partner in the hour of adversity."
* * * * *
"My companion, meanwhile, was not inactive. He sought out the
obscure retreat of a distant branch of our family, a poor widow, who
lived with her only son, an active and industrious mechanic. He
renewed the acquaintance which we had allowed to drop some years
before, and set before her in glowing colors the chance that opened for
the young man to achieve a high and glorious destiny. Fired with
patriotic zeal, he even went so far as to promise to take the support of
the mother upon himself, while her son was absent working for the
cause of liberty, and making for himself an honorable name, and
succeeded so well, that he was thus enabled to send a substitute in his
place to represent the family, so to speak. Nor did he stop here. Not
contented with these efforts, he set about finding some other way in
which he could show his zeal for the cause. At length a bright thought
struck him. He became an Army Contractor."
"Of the service he has done the Government from that auspicious
moment," concluded the lady, craning her long neck with an air of
pardonable pride, and fingering the massive chain that depended from it
with a caressing fondness, "I need not speak. Indeed, it speaks for itself.
But I may say that the country which he served has not proved
ungrateful, but has shown its ability to reward true merit in a
substantial manner. I will, however, add that when the intelligence
arrived that the man he had sent forth to represent his honor had
perished in the first battle, he generously took the surviving relative
into his own house, provided her with every comfort, and pays her
weekly the sum of one dollar fifty, for what little errands she does for
me and the children. What I wished to elucidate," added the speaker,
energetically, "is this--that no one can't put me down, knowin' as I do
my own rights. In fact, I may say, knowin' that I'm a sharer in the
success that P. Crandall has achieved in a modest way, and that I
heartily dispise aristocrats, who want to walk over everybody that is

what they call self-made, and that make such a fuss about herredittery
rights, and all that."
It was a noticeable fact with the lady, that when she got excited, as she
was at present, her natural deficiency in grammar and kindred sciences
showed more plainly than in her cooler moments. Indeed, more than
one censorious person, who no doubt envied their success, attributed
this to the innate vulgarity that showed itself when the contractor's lady
was off her guard.
"People will talk," you know.
"Them's my sentiments exactly, Mis' Crane," spoke up a little, dark,
nervous woman, from the depths of a velvet easy chair, whose stiff
brocades and diamonds flashing on nearly every finger of the coarse,
rough hands, showed unmistakable signs of a sudden and unexpected
promotion from the kitchen to the drawing-room.
"Just my sentiments, exactly," she reiterated, emphatically. "If there
were more ladies of your opinion, the reform, that has been so long
talked about and desired, would not be so slow in coming. We must
revolutionize society as it exists at the present day, before we can
expect to exert the due amount of influence that our wealth entitles us
to. And I tell you," (and the mean, little sallow face spoke in every
lineament of the petty spirit of jealous hate which animated it, and
looked out from the small eyes of reddish hazel,) "I tell you," (this lady
had a habit of repeating over the same sentences two or three times
when greatly wrought upon by her sensibilities,) "money is the lever
that moves the world now-a-days. And as long