A True Picture of Domestic Danger.
'SOME one is coming,' said I, as the clack of the shutting gate fell on my ears, and I looked at Maggy's soiled, untidy dress, and tumbled hair. Maggy started, and glanced hastily from the window; then sat down again in a careless way, remarking as she did so:— A few moments afterwards John Fairburn came into the room where we were sitting, and gave me one of his frank, cordial greetings. I had known him for many years, and long before his marriage. I noticed that he gave an annoyed glance at his wife, but did not speak to her. The meaning of this annoyance and indifference was plain to me, for John had come from a neat and tidy family. His mother's housekeeping had always been notable. She was poor, but always managed to have things clean and orderly. Maggy Lee had a pretty face, bright eyes, and charming little ways that were very taking with young men, and so was quite a belle before she got out of her teens. She had a knack of fixing ribbons, or tying her scarf, or arranging her hair, shawl, or dress in a way to give grace and charm to her person. None but her most intimate friends knew of the untidiness that pervaded her room and person when at home and away from common observation. Poor John Fairburn was taken in when he married Maggy Lee. He thought that he was getting the tidiest, sweetest, and most orderly girl in town, but discovered too soon and too late, also, that he was united to a slattern. She could dress for other people's eyes because she had a natural love for admiration; but at home, and for her husband, she often went looking very slovenly. On this particular occasion of which I am speaking—it was after she and John had been married over a year—her appearance was almost disgusting. She did not have on even a morning-dress; only a faded and tumbled chintz sack above a soiled skirt, no collar, and slippers down at the heels. Her hair looked like a hurrah's nest, if any one knows what that is—I don't, but I suppose it is the perfection of disorder. No one could love such a looking creature. That was simply impossible. 'Nobody but John!' He came and ate his dinner almost in silence, and then went back to his work. I had never seen him so moody. 'What's come over John?' I asked as he went out. 'Oh, I don't know,' his wife answered. 'Something's wrong at the shop, I suppose. He's had trouble with one of the men. He's foreman, you know.' 'Are you sure it's only that?' I asked, looking serious. 'That or something else about his work. There's nothing else to worry him.' I was silent for a while, debating with myself whether good or harm would come of a little plain talk with John's wife. She was rather quick tempered, I knew, and easy to take offense. At last I ventured the remark: 'May be things are not just to his liking at home.' 'At home!' Maggy turned on me with a flash of surprise in her face. 'What do you mean?' 'Men like beauty, and taste, and neatness in their wives as well as in their sweethearts,' I said. The crimson mounted to her hair. At the same moment I saw her glance at a looking glass that hung opposite her on the wall. She sat very still, yet with a startled look in her eyes, until the flush faded and her face became almost pale. 'Maggy,' said I, rising and drawing my arm around her, 'come up stairs. I have something very serious to say to you.' We walked from the little dining-room up to her room in silence. I then said: 'Maggy, I want to tell you about a dear friend of mine who made a shipwreck of happiness and life. It is a sad story; but I am sure it will interest you deeply. She was my cousin.' 'What, she whose husband deserted her?' 'I never knew why he went away as he did,' said Maggy. 'Some blamed him; others said she was at fault. How was it?' 'Both were to blame; but she the most,' I replied. 'John Harding was, like your husband, one of the neatest and most orderly of men. Anything untidy in his house or in the person of his wife, annoyed and often put him out of humor; but he did not, as he should have done, speak plainly to his wife, and let her see exactly how he felt, and in what he would like a change. If he had done so, Helen would have tried—as every good wife should—to conform herself more to his tastes and wishes. But he was a silent, moody sort of a man when things did not go just to suit him, and instead of speaking out plainly, brooded over Helen's faults, and worried himself into fits of ill-humor. And what was worse than all, grew at length indifferent to his home and wife, and sought pleasanter surroundings, and more attractive company abroad. 'Shortly after they were married I called to spend the day with Helen, and found her in her usual condition of personal untidiness and disorder. When her husband came at dinner-time, I noticed with painful concern that he was in an ill-humor. Helen had not dressed for dinner, but presented herself at the table without even a clean collar, and an old faded shawl drawn about her shoulders. She looked anything but attractive. 'I saw her husband's eyes glance toward her across the table with an expression that chilled me. He was scarcely civil to me, and snapped his wife sharply two or three times during the meal. At its close, he left the table without a word and went up stairs.' 'What's the matter with John?' I asked. 'Dear above knows!' replied Helen. 'He's been acting queer for a good while. I can't imagine what's come over him.' 'Does he come home in this way often?' I asked. 'Yes, he's moody and disagreeable as he can be most of the time; I'm getting dreadful worried about it.' 'Presently John came down and stood for a little while in the hall at the foot of the stairs, as if in hesitation. Then he went to the street door, passed out, and shut it hard after him. 'Helen caught her breath with a start, and turned a little pale. 'What's the matter?' I asked, seeing the strangeness of her look. 'I don't know,' she replied in a choking voice, laying her hand, at the same time, on her breast, but I feel as if something dreadful was going to happen.' 'I then took upon myself the office of a friend and talked seriously to my cousin about her neglect of personal neatness, hinting that the cause of her husband's estrangement from his home, and altered manner towards herself, might all spring from this cause. She was a little angry with me at first; but I pressed the subject home with a tender seriousness that did the work of conviction, and, as the evening drew on, she dressed herself with care and neatness. With a fresh ribbon tied in her hair, and color a little raised from mental excitement, she looked charming and lovable. I waited with interest to see the impression she would make on her husband. We waited for him an hour, but he did not come home to tea. 'I went home soon after. All night I was restless; in the morning, soon after breakfast, I ran over to see Helen. I found her in her room, sitting in her night-dress, a picture of despair.' 'What is it?' I asked eagerly. 'What has happened?' She looked at me heavily, like one not yet recovered from the shock of a stunning blow. 'I quickly saw, by a motion of her hand, that it held, tightly clutched, a piece of paper. She reached it to me. It was a letter, and read: 'We cannot live happily together, Helen. You are not what I believed myself getting, when we were married—not the sweet, lovely, lovable girl that charmed my fancy, and won me from all others. Alas for both that it is so! There has been a shipwreck of two lives. Farewell! I shall never return.' 'And this was all; but it broke the heart of my poor cousin. To this day, although nearly three years have passed, she has never heard from her husband. 'I saw her last week in the country home to which she has been taken by her friends, a wreck both in mind and body. She was neatly attired, and a locket containing her husband's picture hung at her throat. When I entered her room, she raised herself from a sort of reverie with an involuntary start. I saw a momentary, eager flash in her face, dying out quickly, and leaving it inexpressibly sad.' I had to stop here, for Maggy broke out suddenly into a wild fit of sobbing and crying, which lasted for nearly a minute. 'What ails you, dear?' I asked, as she began to be a little composed. 'Oh! you frightened me. If John should—' She cut short the sentence; but her frightened face left me in no doubt as to what was in her thoughts. She arose and walked about the room in an uncertain way for some moments, and then sat down again, drawing in her breath heavily. After a plain, earnest talk with Maggy, I went home. I give her own words as to what happened afterwards. 'I was wretched all the afternoon. John had acted worse than usual at dinner-time; and what you told me about poor Helen set my tears in motion, and worried me half to death. Long before the time he usually came home, I had dressed myself with care, selecting the very things which he admired. 'Supper-time came. I had something that I knew John liked, and waited for him with a nervous eagerness it was impossible to repress.77But the hour passed, and his well-known tread along the little garden walk did not reach my anxious ears. Five, ten, twenty minutes beyond his hour for returning, and still I was alone. Oh! I shiver as I recall the wild fears that began to crowd upon me. I stood at the window, behind the curtain, watching and waiting. All at once I saw him a little distance from the house, but not in the direction from which he usually came. He was walking slowly, and with his eyes upon the ground. His whole manner was of one depressed and suffering. I dropped the curtain, and went back into our little breakfast room to see that supper was put quickly on the table. John came in and went up stairs, as he usually did, to change his coat before tea. In a few minutes I rang the tea bell, and then seated myself at the table to wait for him. He was longer than usual in making himself ready, and then I heard him coming down slowly and heavily, as if there was no spirit in him. "My heart beat strongly. But I tried to look bright and smiling. There was, oh! so dreary a look on John's face as I first saw it in the door. He stood still just a moment with his eyes fixed on me; then the dreary look faded out; a flash of light passed over it, as he stepped forward quickly, and coming where I sat, stooped down and kissed me. Never before was his kiss so sweet to my lips. "'I have found my little wife once more,' he said, softly and tenderly, and with a quiver in his voice. "I laid my head back upon his bosom, and, looking up into his face, answered: 'And you shall never lose her again.'" And I think he will not. The sweetness of that hour, and the lesson it taught, can never be forgotten by my friend. Are not our homes just what we make them?