After the Storm

No wonder, if this be true, that we have so many women of taste,

cultivation, and often brilliant intellectual powers, blazing about

like comets or shooting stars in our social firmament. They attract

admiring attention, excite our wonder, give us themes for

conversation and criticism; but as guides and indicators while we

sail over the dangerous sea of life, what are they in comparison

with some humble star of the sixth magnitude that ever keeps its

true place in the heavens, shining on with its small but steady ray,

a perpetual blessing? And so the patient, thoughtful, loving wife

and mother, doing her daily work for human souls and bodies, though

her intellectual powers be humble, and her taste but poorly

cultivated, fills more honorably her sphere than any of her more

brilliant sisters, who cast off what they consider the shackles by

which custom and tyranny have bound them down to mere home duties

and the drudgery of household care. If down into these they would

bring their superior powers, their cultivated tastes, their larger

knowledge, how quickly would some desert homes in our land put on

refreshing greenness, and desolate gardens blossom like the rose! We

should have, instead of vast imaginary Utopias in the future, model

homes in the present, the light and beauty of which, shining abroad,

would give higher types of social life for common emulation.

Ah, if the Genius of Social Reform would only take her stand

centrally! If she would make the regeneration of homes the great

achievement of our day, then would she indeed come with promise and

blessing. But, alas! she is so far vagrant in her habits--a

fortune-telling gipsy, not a true, loving, useful woman.

Unhappily for Mrs. Emerson, it was the weird-eyed, fortune-telling

gipsy whose Delphic utterances had bewildered her mind.

The reconciliation which followed the Christmas-time troubles of

Irene and her husband had given both more prudent self-control. They

guarded themselves with a care that threw around the manner of each

a certain reserve which was often felt by the other as coldness. To

both this was, in a degree, painful. There was tender love in their

hearts, but it was overshadowed by self-will and false ideas of

independence on the one side, and by a brooding spirit of accusation

and unaccustomed restraint on the other. Many times, each day of

their lives, did words and sentiments, just about to be uttered by

Hartley Emerson, die unspoken, lest in them something might appear

which would stir the quick feelings of Irene into antagonism.

There was no guarantee of happiness in such a state of things.

Mutual forbearance existed, not from self-discipline and tender

love, but from fear of consequences. They were burnt children, and

dreaded, as well they might, the fire.

With little change in their relations to each other, and few events

worthy of notice, a year went by. Mr. Delancy came down to New York

several times during this period, spending a few days at each visit,

while Irene went frequently to Ivy Cliff, and stayed there,

occasionally, as long as two or three weeks. Hartley always came up

from the city while Irene was at her father's, but never stayed

longer than a single day, business requiring him to be at his office

or in court. Mr. Delancy never saw them together without closely

observing their manner, tone of speaking and language. Both, he

could see, were maturing rapidly. Irene had changed most. There was

a style of thinking, a familiarity with popular themes and a womanly

confidence in her expression of opinions that at times surprised

him. With her views on some subjects his own mind was far from being

in agreement, and they often had warm arguments. Occasionally, when

her husband was at Ivy Cliff a difference of sentiment would arise

between them. Mr. Delancy noticed, when this was the case, that

Irene always pressed her view with ardor, and that her husband,

after a brief but pleasant combat, retired from the field. He also

noticed that in most cases, after this giving up of the contest by

Hartley, he was more than usually quiet and seemed to be pondering

things not wholly agreeable.