Three millions! or, The way of the world
“I cannot really determine, Dick, whether to be serious or not.”
“I am so.”
“I will not laugh again--if I can help it. I don’t know what to say.”
“There is one thing you can say.”
“What is that?”
“Whether you love me or not.”
“I don’t know whether to say that or not.”
“You know whether you do love me or not.”
“Perhaps I don’t,” replied she, musing. “You have never given me an
opportunity to love you; or, at least, to find out whether I did or
not. Do you think, Dick, that ladies fall in love with gentlemen just
as they do with new bonnets, without any excuse for doing so?”
“Not often.”
“Sometimes they do, I grant; but I am not so impulsive.”
“Do you dislike me, Julia?”
“Very far from it; indeed, I like you very much.”
“Then will you be my wife?”
“I am not prepared to answer you now. You have been so distant that I
do not yet know my own heart.”
“If you will say that you do not love me----”
“You will be just as well satisfied,” interposed she.
“You are cruel, Julia.”
“Do you wish to persuade me to say now that I do not love you?”
“If it be true, say so.”
“And what then?”
“I will never annoy you again.”
“You do not annoy me.”
“I am afraid I do.”
“Well, if you will have it so.”
“I will leave you; I will leave Pine Hill, if you desire.”
“Now you are absurd!”
“I will not thrust myself into your presence.”
“You know I like you, Dick.”
“Like me; but you do not love me.”
“You say that, not I.”
“We are almost quarrelling, Julia.”
“You are; I am not.”
“Let us be very serious for a moment. If you do not love me, Julia, I
have no reproaches for you. I should be greatly grieved, but not angry.
If you do not love me, say so, I entreat you.”
“Dick, I’m afraid I do love you, just a very little.”
“Ah, Julia----”
“Only a very little.”
“I am satisfied, Julia.”
“I am not,” she added, apparently with a feeling that she had committed
herself too far. “I do not love you well enough to become your wife.
You must wait, Dick. I think I have said enough.”
“Not quite, Julia; you have not told me whether I may hope or not.”
“I can tell you that. I will not be the wife of any man unless I love
him with all my mind, heart, and soul; unless I can have perfect
confidence that he has not now, and never will have, any other god than
myself. I must be wholly his, and he must be wholly mine.”
“Then be wholly mine!”
“Not yet can I say that. Marriage on any other terms than those I state
would be absolutely loathsome to me.”
“It would to me; but I could have no other god but you.”
“Perhaps not; but we must wait.”
“May I hope?”
“On your own responsibility you may--not on mine.”
“But you said you did love me a little.”
“A very little.”
“Will that little increase?”
“It may--it may not. If it does not, I can never be your wife. You must
not ask me to unsay what I have said. I have been sincere. There is my
hand, Dick. We are the best of friends--let the future determine your
fate and mine.”
“You do not bid me cease to hope?” he said, taking the offered hand.
“No; we are both free.”
“You are; but I am not.”
“What more can I say, Dick? This I will add--that you----”
“Ahem!”
Both of them started. Dr. Lynch stood hardly a rod distant, looking at
them. His face was flushed, and he appeared to be angry.
“I beg your pardon,” said he, advancing towards them.
“You are out early, doctor,” said Julia, striving to hide her confusion.
“Excuse me for interrupting you,” he replied, significantly; “but the
nature of my business required me to do so.”
“What has happened, doctor?” asked Julia.
“Captain Kingman had a bad turn this morning, and I was called in at
five o’clock. I think he will not live through the day. Mrs. Hungerford
is going down to the island. Mr. Hungerford desired to see Mr. Birch
before he goes, and I volunteered to find him.”
Dick, leaving Julia with Dr. Lynch, hastened to the house.
“I am very sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Hungerford,” said the
doctor.
“You need not be at all disconcerted,” she replied, turning away to
hide her blushes.
“You seemed to be very pleasantly employed,” he added, with something
like a sneer.
“You are rather cynical in your manner this morning, Dr. Lynch.”
“Pardon me, Miss Hungerford, but may I yet know whether I am to be
banished from your presence?”
“I shall never banish you, doctor.”
“Mr. Birch seems to be on excellent terms with you.”
“As he should be,” she answered with dignity.
“Do I annoy you?”
“Only when you refer to Mr. Birch.”
“Pardon my rudeness, Julia. I love you, and it does not improve my
temper to see another so intimate with you. I have no right to feel so.”
“You have not, certainly.”
“Will you answer me only one question?”
“If it is a proper one.”
“Must I cease to hope?”
“You must hope or cease to hope with no aid from me. The circumstances
have not perceptibly changed since we last spoke on this subject.”
By this time they had reached the house. The doctor professed to be
satisfied; but he was not.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A HOMŒOPATHIC DOSE.
Captain Kingman died that day, as the doctor had predicted. Mary and
Eugene stood by his dying bed; and the daughter, forgetting all that
he had been, and all that he had done of evil, ministered unto him as
though he had been the best and truest of fathers. He was her parent,
and there was not a wrong he had done which was not forgiven.
Mary wore the mourner’s garb now; and no token of respect to a father’s
memory was omitted by her or by her devoted husband. Captain Kingman
had been a sufferer for a year, and during the last months of his life
he had been an imbecile. He had passed away now, and it was best that
it should be so. He was at rest after his stormy career.
Eugene’s balance in the Poppleton Bank began to disturb him again. In
spite of his best efforts to keep it within a reasonable limit, it
continued to get the upper hands of him. His own wants were few and
simple, measured by the means at his command. He was obliged to be very
extravagant in order to dispose of twenty thousand dollars a year. He
hoped to do better, however, the coming season; but there was still a
formidable balance in his favor, which, as the almoner of God’s bounty,
it would be idleness and neglect to permit any longer to remain unused.
“What shall I do, Mary?” said he to his wife, a week after the funeral.
“There is a large balance in the bank, and I feel as though I had not
half done my duty.”
“Nobody else thinks so, Eugene,” she replied, putting her arm around
his neck, and gazing with tender admiration into his face.
“Perhaps not; but I do not judge myself by what others think. Can’t you
help me, Mary?”
“I think I can.”
“Do.”
“I was thinking the other day that we might have a cemetery here like
Mount Auburn, Greenwood, or Laurel Hill.”
“I thank you, my dear, for the thought. It shall be commenced at once.
Do you think of any suitable locality?”
When they went to ride that forenoon, they visited half a dozen places
which might answer the purpose, and gave the preference to a tract of
land beyond Pine Hill, between the river and the Summerville Road. The
territory was purchased, and there was plenty of work for poor men in
Poppleton that summer.
The building for the Poppleton Library was in a forward state, and the
institution itself was in practical operation in temporary quarters.
The books were circulating through the town, and the bowling alleys and
billiard saloons afforded recreation without expense to all who chose
to use them. They were under the care of a good man; were closed at
ten o’clock; and no gambling, drinking, profanity, or other improper
speech, was tolerated.
The amusements of the people were full of interest to Eugene;
for innocent recreations were so many preventives of vice. When
a dozen young men would form a club, and adopt certain necessary
regulations--such as prohibiting intoxicating drinks, profanity,
Sabbath breaking--in the association, he presented them a boat, and
provided them with a building, uniforms, and other appliances. Four of
these clubs were formed at the Port, and three at the Mills; the latter
navigating the pond above the dam.
At Mary’s suggestion, sundry thousands were given to various
associations in the city, whose object was the moral social, and
religious improvement of the race; and thus Eugene’s charities began
to extend beyond Poppleton. What he gave in this way was always
contributed secretly. He made a literal application of the Scriptural
injunction not to let the left hand know what the right hand doeth. If
he had any vanity to be known in connection with his liberal gifts, he
deemed it a duty to exorcise the feeling. A letter, enclosing a draft
for ten thousand dollars, to the treasurer of an association having
for its object the wider diffusion of Christianity, contained these
remarkable words: “I desire to remain unknown in connection with this
gift. It is the Lord’s money, though I give it. To Him give the glory,
not to me. If, by the post-mark of my letter, or other means, you
should discover my name, you are positively prohibited from making it
known. If you should disregard this injunction, all future donations
will be withheld.”
It was not disregarded. He did not choose secrecy for the purpose of
being found out, and to give an additional halo to the deed. He was
sincere. If he ever thought how pleasant it would be to be known as
a munificent benefactor of the race, a liberal patron of Christian
enterprise, he regarded the sentiment as unworthy of him, and adhered
to his fixed rule from principle, not affectation.
The present balance was happily disposed of, with Mary’s cordial
coöperation, and Eugene was at peace with himself. But he did not look
upon giving as his whole duty. He went among the poor himself, with his
loving wife upon his arm. In actual contact with them, he studied their
needs. He gave with his own hand. He went to church at the chapel every
Sunday with his wife, his mother, and his sister; and he did not occupy
an extra-cushioned pew, but took such seats as were vacant. He was a
member of several associations, and performed his duty as such with
care and fidelity. As an Odd Fellow and a Mason, he watched with the
sick himself, be the brother who needed his assistance rich or poor. It
was suggested to him that he might hire a man to perform this sacred
duty; but he indignantly repelled the idea; and even oftener than his
turn came, he kept vigil at the bedside of the sick; for, he said, he
could better do it than those who had to work all day. Eugene was a
Christian in his own way.
Not every man who went to Eugene Hungerford with a subscription paper
was sure of a donation. He had very decided opinions; and he was so
ultra and strange as to believe that it was almost as often necessary
to withhold as it was to give. He was a decided man; and certain pious,
but narrow-minded, people denounced him because he declined to help
forward their projects to make all men believe the same theology.
He did not believe that theology would save any man from his sins;
and while he would help to build a church for any denomination of
Christians, he would not devote a penny to give one man’s creed the
advantage over another’s. The good God would condemn no person for the
errors of his belief, if he was a sincere and earnest seeker after the
truth.
Eugene had a belief precious to himself. It was not at all necessary
that others should adopt it. He not only tolerated, but respected,
others’ creeds. What he gave, he gave for truth, rather than for the