Sage in most matters, the widow was perhaps
the more amiable for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. Being
childless, she could not remain beautiful by proxy, in the person of a
daughter; she therefore refused to grow old and ugly, on any
consideration; she struggled with Time, and held fast her roses in
spite of him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relinquished
the spoil, as not worth the trouble of acquiring it.
The approaching marriage of this woman of the world with such an
unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs.
Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and
deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have
borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were
considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to
appreciate than Mr. Ellenwood; and there was just the specious phantom
of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early lovers
which sometimes makes a fool of a woman who has lost her true feelings
among the accidents of life. All the wonder was, how the gentleman,
with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing consciousness of
ridicule, could have been induced to take a measure at once so prudent
and so laughable.
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