Christians Mistake | Page 2

of one who, born a gentleman and a genius, had so
lived, that, as all Avonsbridge well knew, the greatest blessing which
could have happened to his daughter was his death. But, as by some
strange and merciful law of compensation often occurs, Christian,
inheriting mind and person from him, had inherited temperament,
disposition, character from the lowly-born mother, who was every
thing that he was not, and who had lived just long enough to stamp on
the girl of thirteen a moral impress which could resist all contamination,
and leave behind a lovely dream of motherhood that might, perhaps--
God knows!--have been diviner than the reality.
These things Dr. Grey, brought accidentally into contact with Christian
Oakley on business matters after her father's lamentable death, speedily
discovered for himself; and the result was one of those sudden resolves
which in some men spring from mere passion, in others from an
instinct so deep and true that they are not to be judged by ordinary rules.
People call it "love at first sight," and sometimes tell wonderful stories
of how a man sees, quite unexpectedly, some sweet, strange, and yet
mysteriously familiar face, which takes possession of his fancy with an
almost supernatural force. He says to himself, "That woman shall be
my wife;" and some day, months or years after, he actually marries her;
even as, within a twelvemonth, having waited silently until she was
twenty-one, Dr. Grey married Christian Oakley.
But until within a few weeks ago she herself had had no idea of the
kind. She intensely respected him; her gratitude for his fatherly care
and kindness was almost boundless; but marrying him, or marrying at
all, was quite foreign to her thoughts. How things had come about even
yet she could hardly remember or comprehend. All was a perfect dream.
It seemed another person, and not she, who was suddenly changed from

Mrs. Ferguson's poor governess, without a friend or relative in the wide
world, to the wife of the Master of Saint Bede's.
That she could have married, or been thought to have married him, for
aught but his own good and generous self, or that the mastership of
Saint Bede's, his easy income, and his high reputation had any thing to
do with it, never once crossed her imagination. She was so simple; her
forlorn, shut-up, unhappy life had kept her, if wildly romantic, so
intensely, childishly true, that, whatever objections she had to Dr.
Grey's offer, the idea that this could form one of them--that any one
could suspect her--her, Christian Oakley--of marrying for money or for
a home, did not occur to her for an instant. He saw that, this lover, who,
from his many years of seniority, and the experience of a somewhat
hard life, looked right down into the depths of the girl's perplexed,
troubled, passionate, innocent heart, and he was not afraid. Though she
told him quite plainly that she felt for him not love, but only affection
and gratitude, he had simply said, with his own tender smile, "Never
mind--I love you;" and married her.
As she stood in her white dress, white shawl, white bonnet--all as plain
as possible, but still pure bridal white, contrasted strongly with the
glaring colors of that drawing-room over the shop, which Poor Mrs.
Ferguson had done her luckless best to make as fine as possible, her tall,
slender figure, harmonious movements and tones, being only more
noticeable by the presence of that stout, gaudily-dressed, and loud-
speaking woman, most people would have said that, though he had
married a governess, a solitary, unprotected woman, with neither kith
nor kin to give her dignity, earning her own bread by her own honest
labor, the master of Saint Bede's was not exactly a man to be pitied.
He rose, and having silently shown the paper to Christian, enclosed it in
an envelope, and gave it to Mr. Ferguson.
"Will you take the trouble of forwarding this to 'The Times,' the latest
of all your many kindnesses?" said he, with that manner, innately a
gentleman's, which makes the acknowledging of a favor appear like the
conferring of one.

Worthy James Ferguson took it as such; but he was a person of deeds,
not words; and he never could quite overcome the awe with which, as
an Avonsbridge person, he, the jeweler of High Street, regarded the
master of St. Bede's.
Meanwhile the snow, which had been falling all day, fell thicker and
thicker, so that the hazy light of the drawing-room darkened into
absolute gloom.
"Don't you think the children should be here?" said Mrs. Ferguson,
pausing in her assiduous administration of cake and wine. "That is--I'm
sure I beg your pardon, master--if they are really coming."
"I desired my sisters to send them without fail,"