Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/93

like beauty, just seventeen, with fair hair, dreamy blue eyes, and no very striking traits of character, The gallant Southerner beheld his beau ideal of womanhood, and fell madly in love with her. Angelica's heart was soon melted by his ardent wooing. She bestowed upon her large circle of admirers the most graceful bow of dismissal, and her hand upon the chivalrous Southerner.

In the autumn, he carried his bride to his luxurious home in Charleston, surrounded her with all the appliances of wealth, and gratified her caprices, until she found it a positive effort to think of anything more which she could desire.

During the five years of her married life, first a little son, and then a daughter had taught her ears the holy music of the word "Mother!"

Was she happy? Perhaps she did not ask herself the question precisely in that form. She was conscious that she was weary, lonely, constantly ennuyée, and she soon pronounced herself to be in feeble health. How many of the lovely valetudinarians who daily excite our pity are simply lovely idlers! How often is supposed ill health a pastime that ends in the retribution of a frightful reality!

Angelica had no apparent need for exertion, and she made none. Her children were tenderly cared for by devoted colored domestics, old family servants. Each little one had a "mammy" appropriated to its service as soon as it was born, and these