--she would not part with her--if the mother went, she would also go beg

bread for her, die with her, but never desert her. The presence of Lucy was

too necessary in keeping up the order of the house, and in preventing the

whole establishment from going to wreck, for him to permit her to leave

him. He yielded the point; but in all accesses of anger, or in his drunken

fits, he recurred to the old topic, and stung poor Lucy's heart by

opprobrious epithets bestowed on her parent.

A passion however, if it be wholly pure, entire, and reciprocal, brings

with it its own solace. Lucy was truly, and from the depth of heart,

devoted to her mother; the sole end she proposed to herself in life, was

the comfort and preservation of this parent. Though she grieved for the

result, yet she did not repent of her marriage, even when her lover

returned to bestow competence on her. Three years had intervened, and how,

in their pennyless state, could her mother have existed during this time?

This excellent woman was worthy of her child's devotion. A perfect

confidence and friendship existed between them; besides, she was by no

means illiterate; and Lucy, whose mind had been in some degree cultivated

by her former lover, now found in her the only person who could understand

and appreciate her. Thus, though suffering, she was by no means desolate,

and when, during fine summer days, she led her mother into the flowery and

shady lanes near their abode, a gleam of unmixed joy enlightened her

countenance; she saw that her parent was happy, and she knew that this

happiness was of her sole creating.

Meanwhile her husband's affairs grew more and more involved; ruin was near

459

The Last Man