The New Magdalen

"Let me do strict justice to every one. The ladies who _were_ present

showed the needful respect for their hostess. They did their duty--no,

overdid it, is perhaps the better phrase.

"I really had no adequate idea of the coarseness and rudeness which have

filtered their way through society in these later times until I saw the

reception accorded to my wife. The days of prudery and prejudice are

days gone by. Excessive amiability and excessive liberality are the

two favorite assumptions of the modern generation. To see the women

expressing their liberal forgetfulness of my wifely misfortunes, and the

men their amiable anxiety to encourage her husband; to hear the same set

phrases repeated in every room--'So charmed to make your acquaintance,

Mrs. Gray; so _much_ obliged to dear Lady Janet for giving us this

opportunity!--Julian, old man, what a beautiful creature! I envy you;

upon my honor, I envy you!'--to receive this sort of welcome, emphasized

by obtrusive hand-shakings, sometimes actually by downright kissings of

my wife, and then to look round and see that not one in thirty of these

very people had brought their unmarried daughters to the ball, was,

I honestly believe, to see civilized human nature in its basest

conceivable aspect. The New World may have its disappointments in store

for us, but it cannot possibly show us any spectacle so abject as the

spectacle which we witnessed last night at my aunt's ball.

"Lady Janet marked her sense of the proceeding adopted by her guests

by leaving them to themselves. Her guests remained and supped heartily

notwithstanding. They all knew by experience that there were no stale

dishes and no cheap wines at Mablethorpe House. They drank to the end of

the bottle, and they ate to the last truffle in the dish.

"Mercy and I had an interview with my aunt upstairs before we left. I

felt it necessary to state plainly my resolution to leave England. The

scene that followed was so painful that I cannot prevail on myself to

return to it in these pages. My wife is reconciled to our departure; and

Lady Janet accompanies us as far as Plymouth--these are the results. No

words can express my sense of relief, now that it is all settled. The

one sorrow I shall carry away with me from the shores of England will be

the sorrow of parting with dear, warm-hearted Lady Janet. At her age it

is a parting for life.

"So closes my connection with my own country. While I have Mercy by my

side I face the unknown future, certain of carrying my happiness

with me, go where I may. We shall find five hundred adventurers like

ourselves when we join the emigrant ship, for whom their native land has

no occupation and no home. Gentlemen of the Statistical Department, add

two more to the number of social failures produced by England in the

year of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-one--Julian Gray and Mercy

Merrick."