M erry days those were in Richmond House, with the old halls resounding with music and laughter, and the hum of gay voices, from morning till night. Astonished and awed were the people of Burnfield by the glittering throng of city fashionables, who promenaded their streets and swept past them in the sweeping amplitude of flashing silks and rich velvets and furs. As for our city friends themselves, the ladies pronounced the place "horrid stupid;" but as the young gentlemen, with one or two exceptions, found the country girls exceedingly willing to be flirted with, they rather liked it than otherwise.
A proud man was the Reverend Mr. Barebones the first Sunday after their arrival, when the bewildering throng flashed into the meeting-house, and, with a great rustle of silks and satins, and an intoxicating odor of eau de Cologne, filled the two large front pews that from time immemorial had belonged to Richmond House. It was not religion altogether that brought them—at least, not all. Languid Miss Reid, for instance, went because the rest did, and it was less trouble to go than to form excuses for staying;[Pg 216] and that quintessence of exquisiteness, Mr. Adolphus Lester, who was tender on that young lady, went because she did. Miss Harper went because Captain Arlingford was going, and Miss Freddy Richmond went because she was a very discreet young lady and it was "proper" to attend divine worship, and Miss Richmond never shocked the proprieties. Georgia went because she had to, and Lieutenant Gleason and his father went to kill time, which always hung heavy on their hands, on Sunday. Of the whole party, only Master Henry Gleason and Mr. Curtis were absent; Master Henry, having pronounced the whole establishment of Christian churches on earth and their attendant Christian ministers "horrid old bores," declared his intention of staying at home and having a "jolly good snooze."
 
Every one seemed to have enjoyed themselves the last week at Richmond House but its young mistress. There were rides, and drives, and excursions during the day, and sailing parties on the river in Mr. Wildair's yacht; and there were dancing, and music, and acting charades, and all sorts of amusements for the evening, into which all the young people entered with eager zest—all but Georgia.
 
Those days, few as they were, had wrought a marked change in her. The flush of her health and happiness had faded from her cheeks, leaving only two dark purple spots, that burned there like tongues of flame; her eye had lost its sparkle, her brow was worn and haggard, and her step was slow and weary. She lived in daily martyrdom, such as none but a spirit so morbidly proud and keenly sensitive can comprehend. Slights, insults, insolence, and little galling acts of malice, "making up in number what they wanted in weight," were daily to be borne now from her super[Pg 217]cilious mother-in-law and her malicious, insolent shadow and echo, Miss Richmond. And these were offered openly, in the presence of all; not an opportunity was allowed to escape of mortifying her; until sometimes, wild and nearly maddened, she would fly up to her room, and, alone and frenzied, struggle with the storm raging in her heart.
 
Richmond, absorbed in attending to the comfort and amusement of his guests, knew nothing of all this. It was not their policy to let him suspect their dislike—yes, hatred of his bride; and, as they well knew, the rest, who saw it all, would not venture to speak on so delicate a subject to their proud host. It is true, he saw the change in Georgia's face, and the freezing coldness her manners were assuming to all, even to him; but from some artfully dropped hints of immaculate Miss Freddy's, he set it down to stubborn sullenness. And believing her to be incorrigible in her disagreeableness and insubordination, he grew markedly reserved and cold when alone in her society; and thus the misunderstanding between them daily widened.
 
Georgia was too proud to complain of what she herself suffered and endured—she was dumb; and indeed if she had been inclined, she would have found it hard to make out a list of her grievances and relate them, for Miss Freddy's insults were offered in such a way that, keenly as they struck home, they dwindled into nothing when related to a third party. Had he not been so absorbed in the duties of hospitality, and striving to atone for his wife's neglect, he might have seen for himself; but he was blind and deaf to all, and only saw her uncourteous treatment of his friends and her wifely disobedience. And before long—no one scarcely knew how—Georgia was pushed aside, and Mrs. Wildair and Freddy began to take the place of hostess, and[Pg 218] Richmond looked on and tacitly consented. All were consulted in their plans and amusements but Georgia; she was overlooked with the coolest and most insolent contempt; and if sometimes, as a matter of form, her opinion was asked by either of the ladies, it was worded in such a way or uttered in such a tone as made it even a more galling insult. And Georgia, with a swelling heart and with lips compressed in proud, bitter endurance, consented to bare her place usurped, without a word or attempt to regain it. With a heart that underneath all her calmness seemed ready to burst at such times, she would refuse to accompany them, pleading indisposition, or sometimes giving no reason at all; and Mrs. Wildair would turn away with an indifferent, "Oh, very well, just as you please," and Richmond would say nothing at the time, until he would find her alone, and then he would coldly begin:
 
"Mrs. Wildair, may I beg to know the reason you will not honor us with your company to-morrow?"
 
"Because I do not wish to," she would flash, with all her old defiance flaming up in her dusky eyes.
 
"Because you do not wish to! Insolent! Madam, I insist upon your accompanying us to-morrow!"
 
"You find my society so brilliant and agreeable, no doubt, that my absence will destroy your pleasure," she would say, with a bitter laugh that jarred painfully on the ear.
 
"No, madam, I regret to say that your fixed determination to disobey me, and be uncourteous and disagreeable, is carried out in the very letter and spirit. Still, I cannot allow my guests to be treated with marked discourtesy. I have some regard for the laws of hospitality, if you have[Pg 219] not. Therefore, Mrs. Wildair, you will prepare to join our party to-morrow."
 
"And if I refuse?"
 
His eye flashed, and his mouth grew stern.
 
"You will be sorry for it! Do not attempt such a thing! You may disobey, but you shall not trifle with me."
 
She lifted her eyes, and he would see a face so haggard and utterly wretched that his heart would melt, and he would go over and put his arm around her, and say, gently:
 
"Come, Georgia, be reasonable. What evil spirit has got into you of late? Why will you persist in treating our friends in this way?"
 
"Our friends!—your friends, you mean."
 
"It is all the same; for my sake you ought to treat my friends differently."
 
Her heart swelled and her lip quivered. Yes, his friends might slight and insult her, but she was to put her head under their heels, and smile on those who crushed her.
 
"Well, Georgia, you do not speak," he would say, watching her closely.
 
"Mr. Wildair, I have nothing to say. Your mother and cousin are mistresses here; my part is to stand aside and obey them. If you command me to go to-morrow, I have no alternative. I am still capable of submitting to a great deal, sooner than willingly displease you."
 
"My mother and cousin undertook no authority here, Georgia, until you neglected all your duties as hostess, and they were obliged to do so. It is all your own fault, and you know it, Georgia."
 
She smiled bitterly.[Pg 220]
 
"We will not discuss the subject, if you please, Richmond. I make no complaint; they are welcome to do as they please, and all I ask for is the same privilege. I cannot have it, it appears, and—I will go to-morrow, since you insist; my absence or presence will make little difference to your friends."
 
"Georgia, why will you persist in this absurd nonsense?" he would exclaim, almost angrily. "Really you are enough to try the patience of a saint. I wish some of this foolish, morbid pride of yours had been kept where it came from, and a little plain, practical common sense put in its place. You have taken a most unaccountable prejudice to my mother and cousin, which, if you had that regard for me you profess, you certainly would not pain me by displaying; in fact, you resolved from the first to dislike all I invited, and you have kept that promise wonderfully well I must say, except as regards the two Arlingfords, toward whom you evince a partiality that makes your neglect of the rest all the more glaring. It is certainly a pity you did not receive the education of a lady, Georgia, and then common politeness would teach you to act differently."
 
In silence, and with a curling lip and an unutterable depth of scorn in her beautiful eyes, Georgia would listen to this conjugal tirade, but her lips would be sealed; and Richmond, indignant and deeply offended, would leave the room, and the next moment, all smiles and suavity, rejoin his guests. And Georgia, left alone, would press her hand to her breast with that feeling of suffocation rising again until the very air of the perfumed room would seem to stifle her. And such scenes as this were of frequent occurrence[Pg 221] now, and one and all sank deep in her heart, to rankle there in anguish and bitterness untold.
 
Perhaps it may seem strange that Mrs. Wildair and Miss Richmond should hate Georgia; but so it was. Mrs. Wildair was the haughtiest, the most overbearing, and the most ambitious of women. Her sons were her pride and her boast, in public as well as in private, and she had often been heard to declare that they should marry among the highest in the land, and perpetuate the ancient glory of the Richmonds. When Charley had disappointed all this expectation, and had become an alien from her heart and home, the shock, given more to her ambition than to her affections, was terrible, and when she recovered from it, all her hopes centered in her first-born, Richmond.
 
There was an English lady of rank, the daughter of an earl, at that time visiting an acquaintance of Mrs. Wildair in New York, and to this high-born girl did she lift her eyes and determine upon as her future daughter-in-law. But before she had time to write to Richmond, and desire him to return home for that purpose, his letter came, and there she read the quiet announcement that, in a week or two, he was to be married in Burnfield to a young, penniless girl, "rich alone in beauty," he wrote.
 
Mrs. Wildair sat nearly stunned by the shock. Down came her gilded coroneted chateau d'Espagne with a crash, to rise no more. Her son was his own master; she knew his strong, determined, unconquerable will of old, to combat which was like beating the air. Nothing remained for her but to consent, which she did with a bitter hatred against the unconscious object that had thwarted her burning in her heart, and a determination to make her pay dearly for what she had done, which resolution she pro[Pg 222]ceeded to carry into effect the moment she arrived in Richmond House.
 
"To think that she—a thing like that—sprang from the dregs of the city, for she is not even an honest farmer's daughter—should have dared to become my son's wife," she said, hissing the words through her clenched teeth; "a low wretch, picked up out of the slime and slough of the city filth, to come between me and my son. Oh! was Charley's act not degradation enough, that this must fall upon us too?"
 
"Let us hope, my dear aunt, that the place she has had the effrontery to usurp will not long be hers," murmured the dulcet voice of her niece, to whom she had spoken. "We have built up already a wall of brass between them, and I have a plan in my head that will transform it to one of fire. Recollect, aunt, divorces are easily obtained, and then your son will be free once more, and our queenly pauper will be ignominiously cast back into the slime she rose from."
 
Miss Freddy's hatred came from pretty much the same cause as Mrs. Wildair's. In any case, she would have considered it her duty to follow that lady's lead: but now she had her own private reasons for hating her with all the bitter intensity of a mean little mind.
 
Miss Freddy was to have married Charley, and was quite ready and willing to do so at a moment's notice, but in her secret heart she would have far preferred his elder brother. Differing from the rest of the world, Richmond, even "from boyhood's hours," had been her favorite; but when she saw his mother's hopes aspire to a coronet and a title, she was overawed, and made up her mind to be cast into the shade. To be rivaled by a lady like this could be[Pg 223] borne, but that a peasant girl—a nameless, unknown girl—should win the prize for which she had sought in vain—oh! it was a humiliation not to be endured. So she entered heart and soul into all her aunt's plans, and won that lady's approbation for her dutiful conduct, while she carefully concealed her own motives. And this, then, was the secret of Georgia's persecutions.
 
The "wall of fire" the amiable young lady had referred to was to make Richmond jealous. Now, jealousy was never a fault of his, but artful people can work wonders, and Miss Freddy went carefully, but surely, to work, with Mrs. Wildair for her stanch backer. And Georgia, all unconscious, walked headlong into the snare laid for her.
 
As her husband had said, the Arlingfords were the only ones in the house whom Georgia could at all endure. The frank, genial, honest straightforwardness of brother and sister pleased her; and, indignant at the treatment so openly offered her, they devoted themselves in every way to interest and amuse her. And Miss Freddy seeing this, her little keen eyes fairly snapped with gratification, and by a thousand little devices and pretenses she would manage to dispose of the sister, and leave Georgia altogether to be entertained by the brother. And then the attention of the company would be artfully directed to the twain who were so much together, and Richmond would hear from one and another:
 
"What friends Mrs. Georgia" (so she was called to distinguish her from the other) "and captain Arlingford are!"
 
"How very intimate they are!"[Pg 224]
 
"Yes, indeed; just see how she smiles upon him—don't you think her handsome when she smiles?"
 
"Very much so. Captain Arlingford seems to think so, too. What a pity he is the only one she will honor by one of them."
 
"Well, it is fortunate she has met some one who can please her—she seems so dull, poor thing!"
 
"A handsome man like Captain Arlingford does not find it very hard to be agreeable, I fancy; he is decidedly the best-looking young man here."
 
"Mrs. Georgia's opinion exactly," said Miss Harper, sending a spiteful glance at the unconscious objects of these remarks, who sat conversing on a sofa at some distance. "I asked her, yesterday, and she said, 'Yes, she thought he most decidedly was.'"
 
"Poor, dear Georgia!"............