Could she be happy in this marriage? I gave to my own question an
emphatic "No!" She might have a gay, brilliant, exciting life; but
to that deep peace which is given to loving hearts, and which, in
hours of isolation and loneliness, she would desire with an
irrepressible longing, she must forever be a stranger.
I looked into her beautiful young face as she stood receiving the
congratulations of friends, and felt as I had never felt before on
such an occasion. Instinctively my thought ran questioning along the
future. But no hopeful answer was returned. How was she to advance
in that inner-life development through which the true woman is
perfected? I pushed the question aside. It was too painful. Had she
been one of the great company of almost soulless women--if I may use
such strong language--who pass, yearly, through legal forms into the
mere semblance of a marriage, I might have looked on with
indifference, for then, the realization would, in all probability,
be equal to the promise. But Delia Floyd was of a different
spiritual organization. She had higher capabilities and nobler
aspirations; and if the one found no true sphere of development,
while the other was doomed to beat its wings vainly amid the lower
atmospheres of life, was happiness in the case even a possibility?
Among the guests was Wallingford.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140