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with her book lying in her lap, she sat lost in reverie. She felt astonished at the pleasure she experienced when called to the parlour, as formerly it had been with regret that she quitted the retirement of her own apartment. But the fact was so--and a startling fact it was. She became conscious that her most agreeable hours were those passed with their interesting inmate. She felt bewildered for a while by the opposition of her duties--the newness of her sensations--the change in her mind, which no longer found any satisfaction in solitary study--she was alarmed by her growing indifference for those things that had once constituted her whole of happiness.
This anxious, disturbing consciousness haunted her solitary hours--yet why or wherefore she could not define. She tried to explain herself to her husband, who she looked on as her best and truest, as well as dearest friend; and accused herself to him of finding more pleasure in the company of his friend, Charles Lovel, than she found in that of her children. Her husband smiled at what he called her scrupulosity, and asked her what could be more natural than for a mind cultivated like her's, to find more enjoyment in an intercourse with a congenial mind, than in the prattle of children. Was not Charles the same as a brother, and had she ever reproached herself with the preference she had given to her brother Henry's society when he visited them.
Had Mr. Murray known more of the world, or of human nature--had his own experience taught him the dangerous force of the passions--the deceitfulness of the human heart, he would not have argued thus, nor would he have introduced such an inmate into his family. Virtuous and dispassionate himself--calm and constant in his affections, he never conceived of the possibility, nay, of the existence of a sentiment in the bosom of his wife, inimical to the sacred tie by which they were united. Would that this possibility did not exist--would that the affections were as unalienable, as unchangeable as the marriagae bond. But as the common experience of mankind--the annals of human life--the records of courts of justice abound in fatal examples of the inconstancy of the affections, let religion and reason, let prudence and vigilance, guard this sacred fountain of domestic happiness and virtue. Neither ignorance or innocence afford sufficient protection against this insidious foe, which must be known in order to be guarded against. Temptation must be avoided--exposure to danger prevented. But is this done? On the contrary, have we not daily examples in the most virtuous and prudent families, of inmates being admitted, sometimes of one, sometimes the other sex, whose domestication has proved fatal to the peace, and too often the virtue of the husband or the wife. Miss Edgeworth, in her story of Leonora, has given a powerful and affecting exposition of the fatal consequences resulting from the admission of an artful woman into a happy family. Doubtless her experience might have furnished many examples, where young and undesigning female friends have unintentionally wrought the same mischief--that of alienating the affections of a husband from his wife. My observation of human life, though far more restricted, would afford many sad instances of the fallibility and inconstancy of the human heart, and it is a warning to those who are not aware of the danger of domesticating young and attractive guests in the bosoms of their families, that I have been induced to write this narrative and disclose facts made known to me by one now released from suffering and sorrow.
But to return from this long digression.
As we have said, though a good and kind husband, Mr. Murray was no fit counsellor for a tender and inexperienced creature like his Mary. Left then solely to her own guidance, what would have been the consequence of the perilous situation in which she was now placed, if her native purity had not guarded her simplicity, if she had not habitually regulated her thoughts and feelings by the highest of all standards, that of the gospel! Educated by her pious parents in the strictest principles of our holy religion, constantly had her mother from her earliest childhood impressed on her mind the omnipotence of God, from which there was no escape; his omniscience from which there could be no concealment. That the darkness and solitude of midnight could not veil any action--nor the deepest recesses of the heart conceal any feeling. Often had she emphatically pointed out to her the difference between the human and divind tribunal to which men are amenable. The first can take cognizance only of actions. And as action may be concealed, its laws may be evaded--its punishment escaped. But not so with that divine tribunal, before which thought is action. Thus "the felt presence of Deity" had always exercised a controlling and purifying influence--guarding her in the hour of temptation--supporting her in the hour of affliction.
Oh, ye wise men of the world--ye Legislators and Philosophers, compared with this divine aegis, what are all your laws, your prison walls, bars and bolts, your theories, your maxims and restrictions? The sternest and most sanguinary decrees ever passed by Constantine and other sovereigns, were less effective in the preservation of conjugal fidelity and virgini purity than this sublime sentiment--"The felt presence of Deity." Actual, personal guilt, was an idea that never entered the mind of Mary--to her the violation of the seventh commandment seemed as impossible as that of the sixth, and there is no virtuous woman, to whom, I presume, the commission of murder does not feel like an impossibility.
No, the preference she felt for the society of Charles over that of her children--the growing indifference to her duties and former occupations, were the only causes of the alarm and uneasiness she suffered.
But now since she had disclosed the state of her mind to her husband, and he had dissipated her scruples, she felt relieved.
"No longer," thought she, "shall his good mother reproach me with unkindness to her son."
As instinctive sense of propriety had induced the virtuous Mary to seclude herself from the too pleasing society of Charles Lovel. A sense of duty now made her resolve to resume her late intimate intercourse. Ah, her instinct was the safest guide! She had not only pained, but if