Clemence | Page 3

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.'"
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"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."
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"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 as we have got it, who's a better right to put themselves in the front ranks? If I've got a house in the most aristocratic portion of the city, plenty of well-trained servants, a stylish turnout, costly jewels, laces and brocades, I wonder if I ain't as good as my neighbor, especially if