Read Ebook: Good for evil by Leslie Madeline

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1058 lines and 42415 words, and 22 pages

GOOD FOR EVIL.

THE LAW STUDENTS.

THE day was sultry; the air, portending a shower. Groups of young men were loitering about the steps of the different collegiate halls; some glancing up to the sky; others gazing wishfully in the direction of the river, where even at this distance a number of boats could be distinguished, safely moored ready for the race of the morrow.

"Look at that cloud," murmured a young man about to graduate from the law school. "We shall hear the thunder soon; or I'm mistaken. But if you say so, Paul, we'll go as far as the great elm."

"Aye! aye! Wallingford. I shall feel better for the walk. If we are caught in the rain, the wetting, on a day like this, will do us no harm."

"There they go," exclaimed a youth, whom his companions called Cicero, on account of his frequent quotations from that renowned orator. "They're walking off together as usual. It would be a treat to see Wallingford by himself for once."

"They're too Davidiac and Jonathanic for that," laughed another. "They are both fine fellows; but I confess Wallingford is more to my taste than Dudley; and I prophesy he'll make a greater mark in the world."

In the mean time the two friends sauntered slowly on through the college grounds, keeping a careful survey of the advancing cloud, until at length they reached the Post office where Dudley secured a couple of letters.

"You're a lucky fellow, Paul," said his companion heartily.

"It's only from mother," was the careless rejoinder. "One of her lengthy epistles about nothing. Even the girl's scribblings have more interest."

"Don't speak so," murmured Wallingford. "If you were motherless, as I am, you'd understand how such words hurt me."

"Pshaw, Ned! you know I love my mother. She isn't exactly the character to inspire respect as you can well understand. Warm-hearted and affectionate, ready to work herself to death to please one of my foolish fancies; yet she is not all that one would want in a mother."

Ned Wallingford paused his face flushed with more than the heat, and gazed reproachfully at his companion. "I would rather cut off my hand," he said at length, "than to speak so of a mother. Excuse me, Paul; but the only fault I could see in yours, was that she was too anxious to please you. She displayed devoted love."

"The natural consequence of being the only son in a family of five," Dudley answered with a light laugh. "Worship comes natural to me. I shall exact a vast amount of homage from my wife."

"Not more than you will yield to her charms, I hope."

"It strikes me, we are starting a new subject," demurely answered Paul; "and as I felt a drop of rain on my nose, I propose we adjourn to number eighteen, North Hall, up one flight, before we proceed with the interesting discussion of my wife's claims on my affection."

Three minutes of quick walking brought them inside the large hall just as the windows of heaven were opened and the rain descended in torrents.

Wallingford having thrown off his wet, linen coat, seated himself at the window and watched for a time the occasional flashes of lightning illumining the dark clouds and followed by the rumbling of the distant thunder; but his thoughts were not on the scene before him, sublime as it was.

Memory was carrying him back some dozen years, to the hour when his mother lay upon the bed of death. Her face was pale as the white robes that surrounded her; but there was a holy light resting on every feature, which had made such an impression on the boy's mind, that he had never forgotten it. He knew as he stood by her side that she must die;--that, the transparent hand closely clasping his would soon become the food for worms;--that the voice now feebly lisping words of love and counsel would soon be silenced for aye; but he could not weep. She was so happy, rejoicing that she was soon to be in the presence of her Saviour, and to join the husband and babes who had gone before her to glory; her death seemed such a fitting end to a life like hers; humble, active, trusting, that he felt it would be selfish to wish her to stay. Again, he heard her dying voice; committing him and her little Gertrude to the care of the Shepherd of Israel; again he saw her eyes, dim with the film of dissolving nature, turn to his with the parting injunction, "Edward I leave Gertrude to you as a sacred legacy, teach her to fear God and keep his commandments, I shall expect to meet you both in heaven."

"What in the world are you thinking of, Chum?" asked Paul in a gay tone, tossing, as he spoke, his mother's letter on the table. "You've sighed and sighed like a heart-broken maiden."

"I was thinking of my mother," was the serious reply. "Though she has been dead a dozen years, she still exists in my mind as the embodyment of every womanly virtue. If my sister lives to imitate her, I shall be happier than I deserve to be."

Dudley arose from his seat, looking graver than he was wont, and crossing the room to where his companion sat, he put his mother's letter into Wallingford's hand, murmuring:

"You have made me ashamed of what I said."

He spoke earnestly, adding with a bright flush, "You're my good genius, Chum, and have been for six years. You must read what mother says about you. Even she, blind to my faults as her love makes her, admits that I might be better if I would imitate my friend more closely. What I shall do when you are not by, I can scarcely conceive."

Wallingford grasped the hand which had given him the letter, saying earnestly:

"No mother could have a son more frank to confess an error. Now the shower is over, shall we walk again?"

"Yes, I can spare half an hour."

My dear reader, I will improve the time of their absence by relating briefly a history of the two friends I have introduced to your acquaintance.

Paul Dudley, as the senior in age, must first be described. He was the third child and only son of a merchant in Philadelphia. His mother was the sole manager in the family; she averring that her husband had his share of labor in earning the money which supported them. He was engaged in a lucrative business which afforded his family every comfort, and some of the luxuries of life. He was an honest; upright man in the world's opinion, and in his own opinion; but though he took no advantage of his neighbor's necessity, he defrauded his Maker, of what was his due,-- the first and best affections of his heart; and beside this, he defrauded his own soul of the comfort and support of religion.

Mrs. Dudley was a devoted mother. She was bound up in her family, for whom she was willing to work early and late; denying herself many luxuries, that her children might never feel the need of them. Two daughters, girls of good sense and a fair education, were already settled in homes of their own; the one just younger than Paul was betrothed to her father's junior partner; and Anna, the youngest, was still in school.

Though probably Mrs. Dudley would not have admitted the fact, it was allowed by all the others, that Paul was her favorite. From his very birth his sisters had been taught to yield their will and wishes to his. As he grew older they were called to wait upon him; to humor his whims; and in many ways involving self-denial and sacrifice, the whole family proved to his young lordship that his pleasure was their first consideration.

Of course under such training, it could not be expected that Paul would be otherwise than selfish and domineering, claiming their service as a right; petulant and irritable when his demands did not receive a due amount of attention.

When he entered College he was thrown into the society of Edward Wallingford; and admiring his abilities as a scholar, sought his friendship. For six years they had roomed, studied, talked and walked together. The ambition of Dudley's friend had stimulated his best efforts, while the constant society of a noble, ingenuous mind had done much toward counteracting for the time what was erroneous in his early training.

Edward Wallingford was the son of a gentleman who had accompanied his father from England at the age of ten years. They settled at length in New York, where they established a large iron and steel business. The younger Wallingford married soon after he attained his majority and took his wife to his father's house, where they lived only two years before the death of the Senior partner in the firm, produced a change in the business. Six months later, the elder Mr. Wallingford died, leaving his son his share in the iron works together with a few acres of rocky land just outside of the city proper.

Edward, the subject of our story, was the second child and the only one out of six children who lived to be seven years of age. Fearing, from these repeated afflictions, that the air and confinement of a city were the cause of the death of his loved ones, the father, in Edward's ninth year, purchased a place on the Hudson river, and removed his family there just before the birth of a tiny girl called Gertrude.

There amidst the picturesque scenery of that region, the children grew apace until Ned had reached his twelfth and Gerty her third summer; when a terrible affliction came upon them in the death of their father.

Mr. Wallingford had been greatly esteemed as a shrewd, successful businessman; the papers in noticing his death, remarked that he was a friend and supporter of all the benevolent enterprises of the day; but only the wife and children of the deceased knew how his large heart had beat in sympathy with every effort to advance the cause of the Redeemer's kingdom. To them it appeared for a time as if the sun had set in a total eclipse. Even after years had passed, and time had in a degree allayed their grief, they mourned his loss as the most tender husband, the most loving father, the most conscientious, humble and earnest Christian, it had been their lot to know.

Three years Mrs. Wallingford survived him; and then she too was called to her home in the skies. The summons was not a sudden one; for months she had felt her health to be declining, and to her the thought of being free from her body of sin and death was delightful. The only struggle she felt in exchanging the scenes of time for those of eternity, was when she thought of her children. But her faith in the promises of a covenant-keeping God at length prevailed over every doubt; she said to her faithful pastor:

"How can I shrink from leaving my dear ones with my heavenly Father, when I know how he pities his afflicted children? and when I remember how many earnest prayers for them are registered in heaven."

Soon after her death Edward was sent to school to prepare for college; and it was only during his vacations that he had returned to Rose Cottage, where Gertrude in the care of their faithful Hannah still resided.

GOING HOME.

THE last day of the last term had come; and gone. Paul Dudley with Edward Wallingford were candidates for the bar. Paul had chosen the new and flourishing city of Chicago as the field in which he was to become famous, while Edward had decided to return to his native place. The thought of the separation which their new lives involved, was painful to both. Six years of the closest intimacy had united their hearts in an uncommon degree. Paul's love to Edward was mingled so largely with respect, that during all their intercourse he had been conscious of a desire to keep his own bad qualities out of sight, lest they should excite contempt.

Edward, though the younger by a year, had come gradually to regard his chum as a charge; one who must be encouraged and assisted to do right. This very care, had greatly enhanced his affection.

Since he entered college, it had been Wallingford's habit to return to Rose Cottage twice a year; spending at least part of his vacations there; but now fully twelve months had elapsed since his last visit. One short recess he had passed with Paul in Philadelphia, while the long vacation was occupied by a pedestrian excursion, long talked of, to Niagara and the Canadas. Now that their examination had passed successfully, Paul gladly complied with his friend's invitation to spend one month together at Rose Cottage before they commenced their battle with the world.

Edward had often spoken to Paul of his anxieties concerning his sister; and his fear lest she were growing up under the care of Hannah, in a state of semi-barbarism. He complained of her want of interest in her books; the perfect wildness and ignorance of the most common customs of society, which had characterized her at their last interview.

Paul remembered having seen a picture of the little sprite in the earlier days of his acquaintance with his friend; and he must be pardoned if he judged from her juvenile scrawls, denominated letters, of the same period, that she had been, indeed, sadly neglected.

After they had taken their seats in the cars which were to convey them to Wallingford's home, the young lawyer's heart sank as he reflected on his mother's parting injunction; and realized how sadly he had neglected his duty to the sister left in his care.

His regretful thoughts were reflected on his countenance, and his companion gayly insisted on an explanation of his gloomy and disconsolate appearance.

"I was thinking of my little sister," was the serious, almost gloomy reply. "You musn't blame her too much, Paul, if she appears rude and romping. I left her wholly unformed; her greatest delights being to climb the highest trees where she used to sit like a little monkey, swaying about among the blanches; the air filled with her shouts of mirth at my alarm."

"She must have a curious governess," remarked Paul, dryly.

"Good old Hannah has never been dignified with that title. She is manager general of the farm, house and grounds and can't be expected to have much time to devote to Gerty's education, even if she were competent to direct it."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet