Confession | Page 6

Edgerton and Julia Clifford.
With these friends, and these only, I grew up. As my years advanced, my intimacy with the former increased, and with the latter diminished. But this diminution of intimacy did not lessen the kindness of her feelings, or the ordinary devotedness of mine. She was still--when the perversity of heart made me not blind--the sweet creature to whom the task of ministering was a pleasure infinitely beyond any other which I knew. But, as she grew up to girlhood, other prospects opened upon her eyes, and other purposes upon those of her parents. At twelve she was carried by maternal vanity into company--sent to the dancing school--provided with teachers in music and painting, and made to understand--so far as the actions, looks, and words of all around could teach--that she was the cynosure of all eyes, to whom the whole world was bound in deference.
Fortunately, in the case of Julia, the usual effects of maternal folly and indiscretion did not ensue. Nature interposed to protect her, and saved her in spite of them all. She was still the meek, modest child, solicitous of the happiness of all around her--unobtrusive, unassuming--kind to her inferiors, respectful to superiors, and courteous to, and considerate of all other persons. Her advancing years, which rendered these new acquisitions and accomplishments desirable, if not necessary, at the same time prompted her foolish mother to another step which betrayed the humiliating regard which she entertained for me. When I was seventeen, Julia was twelve, and when neither she nor myself had a solitary thought of love, the over considerate mother began to think, on this subject, for us both. The result of her cogitations determined her that it was no longer fitting that Julia should be my companion. Our rambles in the woods together were forbidden; and Julia was gravely informed that I was a poor youth, though her cousin--an orphan whom her father's charity supported, and whom the public charity schooled. The poor child artlessly told me all this, in a vain effort to procure from me an explanation of the mystery (which her mother had either failed or neglected to explain) by which such circumstances were made to account for the new commands which had been given her. Well might she, in her simplicity of heart, wonder why it was, that because I was poor, she should be familiar with me no longer.
The circumstance opened my eyes to the fact that Julia was a tall girl, growing fast, already in her teens, and likely, under the rapidly-maturing influence of our summer sun, to be soon a woman. But just then--just when she first tasked me to solve the mystery of her mother's strange requisitions, I did not think of this. I was too much filled with indignation--the mortified self-esteem was too actively working in my bosom to suffer me to think of anything but the indignity with which I was treated. A brief portion of the dialogue between the child and my self, will give some glimpses of the blind heart by which I was afflicted.
"Oh, you do not understand it, Julia. You do not know, then, that you are the daughter of a rich merchant--the only daughter--that you have servants to wait on you, and a carriage at command--that you can wear fine silks, and have all things that money can buy, and a rich man's daughter desire. You don't know these things, Julia, eh?"
"Yes, Edward, I hear you say so now, and I hear mamma often say the same things; but still I don't see--"
"You don't see why that should make a difference between yourself and your poor cousin, eh? Well, but it does; and though you don't see it now, yet it will not be very long before you will see, and understand it, and act upon it, too, as promptly as the wisest among them. Don't you know that I am the object of your father's charity--that his bounty feeds me--and that it would not be seemly that the world should behold me on a familiar footing of equality or intimacy with the daughter of my benefactor--my patron--without whom I should probably starve, or be a common beggar upon the highway?"
"But father would not suffer that, Edward."
"Oh, no! no!--he would not suffer it, Julia, simply because his own pride and name would feel the shame and disgrace of such a thing. But though he would keep me from beggary and the highway, Julia, neither he nor your mother would spend a sixpence or make an effort to save my feelings from pain and misery. They protect me from the scorn of others, but they use me for their own."
The girl hung her head in silence.
"And you, too," I added--"the time will come when you. too, Julia, will shrink