“Very clearly defined, cousin Grace; so then you do not agree in opinion with those who are for enlarging the boundaries of woman’s domain, and would fain make her a gladiator in the arena, instead of a spectator in the amphitheatre of action.”
“That women have some wrongs to be redressed is an undoubted fact, but I am no friend to this new warfare for the ‘_rights of women_;’ let the sex only do their duty at home to parents, brothers, husbands, or friends, and they will have little cause to repine that the forum, the pulpit, or the poll is closed against them. But I have not forgotten your innuendoes respecting the selfishness of women, Frank, and I should like to tell you a story which will convince you of how much self-devotion a woman may be capable, even when the strongest passions of her nature are to be subdued.
“Fanny Wilbank was one of those patient, long suffering creatures, who seem sent into the world to fulfil the command, ‘_Bear ye one another’s burdens_,’ for from her very childhood she had borne the burdens of the whole family. Her father, one of those good-hearted, thoughtless prodigals, who, in their readiness to help other people, are apt to forget their own interests, had been all his life unfortunate. Nothing seemed to succeed in his hands—the most promising business was sure to fail if he undertook it, and as his family increased his means diminished, until they were reduced to the utmost straits to preserve that respectability of station in which they were born and bred. Fanny was the eldest of the family, and of course upon her devolved the duty of assisting her sickly mother in the care of the children, and the management of their household. Here was a wide field for the exercise of self-denial and patience. A weary lot is that of hopeless poverty, when it relies on charity alone for food and warmth and raiment; but wearier still is the lot of those, who, amid privation and want, still struggle to keep themselves from the deep abyss of beggary, and strive with decent pride still to retain their foothold in a world which too often confounds misfortune with disgrace. It was amid cares, and troubles, and anxieties of every kind that Fanny Wilbank grew up to womanhood. To say that she was beautiful would convey but little idea of the gentleness, the delicacy, the loveliness of her countenance. I might describe her soft black eyes, her full bright lips, the jetty blackness of her luxuriant tresses, the grace of her slender form, and the elastic spring of her bounding step, but it would need the painter’s art to image the tender sweetness of her expression. Her face was such as one might fancy for a Madonna—pale, pensive and full of high-souled thought; but Fanny knew little of her beauty and cared less. Had she possessed the talisman of wealth she might have been the artist’s model and the poet’s theme; but the spell of beauty alone is powerless to unlock the treasures of earth, and Fanny was too poor to behold her own charms in the magic mirror of flattery. Indeed she never seemed to think of herself; she managed for every body, ministered to the comfort of every body, and took her share of enjoyment in beholding the gratification of others. But it must not be supposed that her beauty and goodness were unknown and unappreciated. Several unexceptionable offers of marriage were made to her—offers, which if accepted, would have placed her far beyond the reach of want and labor—but Fanny was not to be influenced by sordid motives in so momentous a matter, and resisting all the temptations of a life of ease, still preserved her quiet cheerfulness to illumine the home of her childhood.