: Clemence The Schoolmistress of Waveland by Babcock Retta - Boarding schools Fiction; Young women Fiction

@FreeBooksTue 06 Jun, 2023

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irst to award the meed of praise, but in its place there is only the bitter brand of a life-long disgrace."

"I don't believe that even the best of men truly appreciate the value of a pure-minded woman," said Clemence, thoughtfully. "They are too gross and material, and I have met with very few whose society seemed to have a tendency to elevate. In the company of the majority of men I feel a constraint and like uttering the most commonplace remarks. Yet their idle curiosity leads them to seek to penetrate the very 'holy of holies' of the soul, and which they can neither understand nor appreciate."

"Oh, child!" said the elder woman, coming to her side; "my pure-browed darling, I pray God that you may never suffer misery like mine. I had rather the child's dream would be realized; that you might be permitted to follow him, though my lonely heart aches at the thought of losing you, than that you should be dragged down to a life for which you are not fitted. Never marry, Clemence, for you are more likely to be wretched than happy. I have so little faith in any man that I should fear for your future if you were to bestow your affections upon any one. I mean to guard you well hereafter; and I am sure that there cannot be the least possibility of your ever having met one to appreciate or awaken a feeling of interest in your mind."

The girl did not reply to this half-uttered query, but a faint rose-tint swept into the pale cheeks, and up to the blue-veined temples.

"But to be an old maid, Ulrica," she said a moment after, in a troubled tone; "it is a dreary future for any woman to contemplate. It used to be the one object of my ambition to devote my life to some good cause, thinking that thus I might rise above worldly cares, and grow nearer Heaven. But of late my whole being shrinks from such a course."

"It seems to me that a single woman cannot be as useful as one 'whom the dignity of wifehood invests as with a garment.' You know there is a stigma attached to old maids that must detract from their usefulness."

"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Hardyng; "and of late I am beginning to think that it is, perhaps, in some cases but too well merited. Do you know, dear, that all the spinsters of my acquaintance have got married on their very first offer? I can't help feeling a little mortified that some of my models that I have held up triumphantly as examples to prove the usefulness and necessity of their existence, should have failed me in the end."

"You are not presenting a very attractive side of the picture," said the other, laughing.

"No, but a true one, nevertheless. I wish women would be true to themselves."

"There is another failing of our sex," said Clemence, "that has often come under my notice; and it is this: Let a gentleman enter society and have it whispered around that he is what is called a 'ladies' man,' with the added interest of one or two sensational anecdotes of a young lady who went insane out of a hopeless attachment for the gentlemanly scoundrel; or that this or that infuriated husband who has challenged him to mortal combat; and, though the stain of murder be upon that man's soul, women who call themselves virtuous will welcome him with approving smiles.

"Why, I have been completely disgusted, and that more than once, to hear women of the most exemplary character praise and hang upon the words of these smooth-tongued villains. I have now in my mind one in particular, whom the world looks upon as a devoted wife and mother, and who I think has never yet contemplated sin. Yet I know better than herself, that she is hovering on the brink of a precipice, that may, at some future day, engulf all she loves, with herself, in one common ruin.

"Society, as it is now constituted, is dangerous, and calculated to contaminate any pure-minded woman who enters it, unless she be blessed with sufficient decision of character to choose a strict line of conduct and abide by it, at the risk of being called dull, prudish, and uninteresting.

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