After the Storm

We will not speak of the cause that led to this serious rupture

between Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. It was light as vanity--an airy

nothing in itself--a spark that would have gone out on a baby's

cheek without leaving a sign of its existence. On the day that Irene

left the home of her husband he had parted from her silent, moody

and with ill-concealed anger. Hard words, reproaches and accusations

had passed between them on the night previous; and both felt

unusually disturbed. The cause of all this, as we have said, was

light as vanity. During the day Mr. Emerson, who was always first to

come to his senses, saw the folly of what had occurred, and when he

turned his face homeward, after three o'clock, it was with the

purpose of ending the unhappy state by recalling a word to which he

had given thoughtless utterance.

The moment our young husband came to this sensible conclusion his

heart beat with a freer motion and his spirits rose again into a

region of tranquillity. He felt the old tenderness toward his wife

returning, dwelt on her beauty, accomplishments, virtues and high

mental endowments with a glow of pride, and called her defects of

character light in comparison.

"If I were more a man, and less a child of feeling and impulse," he

said to himself, "I would be more worthy to hold the place of

husband to a woman like Irene. She has strong peculiarities--who has

not peculiarities? Am I free from them? She is no ordinary woman,

and must not be trammeled by ordinary tame routine. She has quick

impulses; therefore, if I love her, should I not guard them, lest

they leap from her feebly restraining hand in the wrong direction?

She is sensitive to control; why, then, let her see the hand that

must lead her, sometimes, aside from the way she would walk through

the promptings of her own will? Do I not know that she loves me? And

is she not dear to me as my own life? What folly to strive with each

other! What madness to let angry feelings shadow for an instant our

lives!"

It was in this state of mind that Emerson returned home. There were

a few misgivings in his heart as he entered, for he was not sure as

to the kind of reception Irene would offer his overtures for peace;

but there was no failing of his purpose to sue for peace and obtain

it. With a quick step he passed through the hall, and, after

glancing into the parlors to see if his wife were there, went up

stairs with two or three light bounds. A hurried glance through the

chambers showed him that they had no occupant. He was turning to

leave them, when a letter, placed upright on a bureau, attracted his

attention. He caught it up. It was addressed to him in the

well-known hand of his wife. He opened it and read: "I leave for Ivy Cliff to-day. IRENE."