almost crushed by these latter calamities. She could not but be deeply
grieved to see her lover passing from her by piecemeal, feeling, as she
did, that he could not last forever under this disastrous process of
reduction, yet knowing of no way to stop its dreadful career, and in her
tearful despair she almost regretted, like brokers who hold on and lose,
that she had not taken him at first, before he had suffered such an
alarming depreciation. Still, her brave soul bore her up, and she
resolved to bear with her friend’s unnatural disposition yet a little
longer.
Again the wedding-day approached, and again disappointment overshadowed
it; Caruthers fell ill with the erysipelas, and lost the use of one of
his eyes entirely. The friends and relatives of the bride, considering
that she had already put up with more than could reasonably be expected
of her, now came forward and insisted that the match should be broken
off; but after wavering awhile, Aurelia, with a generous spirit which did
her credit, said she had reflected calmly upon the matter, and could not
discover that Breckinridge was to blame.
So she extended the time once more, and he broke his other leg.
It was a sad day for the poor girl when, she saw the surgeons reverently
bearing away the sack whose uses she had learned by previous experience,
and her heart told her the bitter truth that some more of her lover was
gone. She felt that the field of her affections was growing more and
more circumscribed every day, but once more she frowned down her
relatives and renewed her betrothal.
Shortly before the time set for the nuptials another disaster occurred.
There was but one man scalped by the Owens River Indians last year. That
man was Williamson Breckinridge Caruthers of New Jersey. He was hurrying
home with happiness in his heart, when he lost his hair forever, and in
that hour of bitterness he almost cursed the mistaken mercy that had
spared his head.
At last Aurelia is in serious perplexity as to what she ought to do. She
still loves her Breckinridge, she writes, with truly womanly feeling–she
still loves what is left of him but her parents are bitterly opposed to
the match, because he has no property and is disabled from working, and
she has not sufficient means to support both comfortably. “Now, what
should she do?” she asked with painful and anxious solicitude.
It is a delicate question; it is one which involves the lifelong
happiness of a woman, and that of nearly two-thirds of a man, and I feel
that it would be assuming too great a responsibility to do more than make
a mere suggestion in the case. How would it do to build to him? If
Aurelia can afford the expense, let her furnish her mutilated lover with
wooden arms and wooden legs, and a glass eye and a wig, and give him
another show; give him ninety days, without grace, and if he does not
break his neck in the mean time, marry him and take the chances. It does
not seem to me that there is much risk, anyway, Aurelia, because if he
sticks to his singular propensity for damaging himself every time he sees
a good opportunity, his next experiment is bound to finish him, and then
you are safe, married or single. If married, the wooden legs and such
other valuables as he may possess revert to the widow, and you see you
sustain no actual loss save the cherished fragment of a noble but most
unfortunate husband, who honestly strove to do right, but whose
extraordinary instincts were against him. Try it, Maria. I have thought
the matter over carefully and well, and it is the only chance I see for
you. It would have been a happy conceit on the part of Caruthers if he
had started with his neck and broken that first; but since he has seen
fit to choose a different policy and string himself out as long as
possible, I do not think we ought to upbraid him for it if he has enjoyed
it. We must do the best we can under the circumstances, and try not to