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The Fiery Trial
by
The petitioner slowly left the house–murmuring to himself: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” It was more than an hour before he could compose his mind sufficiently to be able to meet his wife with a countenance that was not too deeply shadowed with care.
She was ill, and besides, under the pressure of many causes, was suffering from a nervous lowness of spirits. Against this depression, her husband saw that she was striving with all the mental energy she possessed, but striving almost in vain. To know that she even had cause for the exercise of such an internal power, was, to him, painful in the extreme; and he was bitter in his self-reproaches for being the cause of suffering to one he loved with a pure and fervent love.
Turning, at last, resolutely towards his dwelling, and striving with a strong effort to keep down the troubles that were sweeping in rough waves over his spirit; it was not long before he set his foot upon his own doorstone.
To give force to this scene, and to throw around what follows its true interest, it will be necessary to go back and sketch some things in the history of the individual here introduced.
His name was Theodore Wilmer. In earlier years, he was clerk in the large mercantile house of Rensselaer, Wykoff & Co., in New York. Being a young man of intelligence, good address, and good principles, he was much esteemed, and valued by his employers, who took some pains to introduce him into society. In this way he was brought into contact with some of the first families in New York, and, in this way, he became acquainted with Constance Jackson, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Constance was truly a lovely girl, and one for whom Theodore soon began to entertain feelings akin to love.
Mr. Jackson, (the father of Constance,) was the son of a man who had begun life in New York, at the very bottom of fortune’s wheel. He was a native of Ireland, and came to this country very poor. For some years, with his pack on his back, he gained a subsistence by vending dry-goods, and unimportant trifles, through the counties and small towns in the vicinity of New York. Gradually he laid up dollar after dollar, until he was able to open a very small shop in Maiden Lane, a kind of thread-and-needle store. Careful in his purchases, and constant in his attendance on business, he soon began to find his tens counting hundreds; and but few years rolled away, before his hundreds began to grow into thousands. After a while he took a larger store, and suddenly became known. and respected as “a merchant.” At the end of twenty years from the time he carried his pack out of New York, he could write himself worth fifty thousand dollars. Success continued to crown his efforts in business, and when his children came on the stage of active life, they were raised to consider themselves as far superior to mere mechanics, or those who had to labour for their daily bread.
The father of Constance was the eldest son of old Mr. Jackson, and inherited from him a large share of haughty pride. His wife was out of a family with notions equally aristocratic. Constance was their only child, and they had bestowed no little care in endeavouring to make her the most accomplished young lady in New York. They loved her tenderly, but pride divided with affection their interest in her. She had already declined the hands of two young men of the first families in the city, much to the displeasure of both her parents, when she met Theodore Wilmer, who resided in the family of Mr. Wykoff, partner in the house that employed the young man in the capacity of clerk. In this family, Constance visited regularly, and the intimacy which sprung up between the young couple, had a chance of maturing into a more permanent affection, before Mr. or Mrs. Jackson had the slightest suspicion of such an event. Indeed, the first knowledge they had of the real state of affairs was obtained through Wilmer himself, in the form of an application for the hand of their daughter. It was made to Mr. Jackson, on whom it fell with the unexpected suddenness of a flash from a clear sky in June.