Not Pretty, but Precious

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Not Pretty, but Precious

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Title: Not Pretty, But Precious
Author: John Hay, et al.
Release Date: March 1, 2004 [EBook #11392]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS ***

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[Illustration: "My uncle followed his words with a brightening face,
and when they grew particularly mixed, he would exclaim, softly, 'It is
a great gift! a great gift!'"

The Victims of Dreams. Page 34.]

NOT PRETTY, BUT PRECIOUS, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES.
By
John Hay, Clara F. Guernsey, Margaret Hosmer, Harriet Prescott
Spofford, Lucy Hamilton Hooper, Etc.
Illustrated.
1872.

Contents.

Not Pretty, but Precious, Margret Field. The Victims of Dreams,
Margaret Hosmer. The Cold Hand, _Clara F. Guernsey_. The Blood
Seedling, John Hay. The Marquis, Chauncey Hickox. Under False
Colors, Lucy Hamilton Hooper. The Hungry Heart, _J.W. De Forrest_.
"How Mother Did It," _J.R. Hadermann_. The Red Fox, _Clara F.
Guernsey_. Louie, Harriet Prescott Spofford. Old Sadler'S
Resurrection, _R.D. Minor_.

Not Pretty, But Precious.

_Mille modi veneris!_

Part I.

Mr. Norval: It is now four weeks since your accident. I have made
inquiry of your physician whether news or business communications,
however important, brought to your attention, would be detrimental to
you, cause an accession of feverish symptoms or otherwise harm you.
He assures me, On the contrary, he is sure you have not been for years
so free from disease of any sort, with the sole exception of the broken
bones, as now. This being so, I venture to approach you upon a subject
which I doubt not you are quite as willing to have definitely arranged,
and at once, as myself. I can say what I mean, and as I mean it, so much
better on paper than in conversation--as I have so little self-possession,
and am so readily put out in the matter of argument--that I have
determined to write to you, thinking thus to be better able to make you
understand and appreciate my reasons and motives, since you can read
them when and how you choose.
I have been your wife three weeks. The horrible strangeness of these
words is quite beyond me to compass; nevertheless, realize it or not, it
is a fact. I am your wife--you, my husband. Why I am your wife I wish
simply to rehearse here. Not that we do not both know why, but that we
may know it in the same way. You, a handsome, cultivated man, whose
dictum is considered law in the world of fashion in which you move
and reign, with an assured social position, a handsome fortune, and a
popularity that would have obtained for you the hand of any beautiful
or wealthy woman whom you sought, have deliberately chosen to make
me, a poor, plain, brown-faced little school-teacher, your wife. Not
because you wanted me, not because you thought or cared about me,
one way or the other, but simply because, in a time of urgent necessity,
I was literally the only available woman near you. It chanced, from
many points of view and by a chain of circumstances, that I was
particularly available. So you married me. The reasons for such a
sacrifice of yourself were--you had behaved badly, very badly, to a lady,
compromising her name and causing a separation between herself and
her husband. Within a few months, her husband having died, both
herself and her father had determined to force you to make her
reparation by marriage. Going to work very warily, they had taken an
opportunity, after a very luxuriant and fast opera-supper, when you
were excited by your surroundings and flushed by the wine you had

been drinking, your head very light, your judgment very heavy, to draw
from you a promise of marriage at the expiration of the year of
mourning for her husband. As soon as you became aware of what you
had done, you ignominiously fled, and after a Western tour were about
to sail for Europe when this unfortunate accident overtook you. Your
narrow escape from death, upon having been thrown from the carriage
of a distinguished gentleman while driving with him behind a pair of
celebrated racers, gave such publicity to your adventure that your
amorata was at once aware of your whereabouts. The fear of this had
taken possession of you