"It was a small act--a very light sacrifice on my part," said Mr.

Edgar to himself, as he walked, in a musing mood, toward his office on the next morning. "And yet of how much real happiness has it been the occasion! So much that a portion thereof has flowed back upon my own heart."

"A good act is twice blessed." It seemed as if the words were spoken aloud, so distinctly and so suddenly were they presented to the mind of Mr. Edgar.

Ah, if he will only heed that suggestion, made by some pure spirit, brought near to him by the stirring of good affections in his mind!

In it lies the secret of true happiness. Let him but act therefrom, and the sunshine will never be absent from his pathway.

ENGAGED AT SIXTEEN.

"MRS. LEE is quite fortunate with her daughters," remarked a visitor to Mrs. Wyman, whose oldest child, a well grown girl of fifteen, was sitting by.

"Yes; Kate and Harriet went off in good time. She has only f.a.n.n.y left."

"Who is to be married this winter."

"f.a.n.n.y?"

"She is engaged to Henry Florence."

"Indeed! And she is only just turned of sixteen. How fortunate, truly! Some people have their daughters on their hands until they are two or three-and-twenty, when the chances for good matches are very low. _I_ was only sixteen when _I_ was married."

"Certainly; and then I had rejected two or three young men. There is nothing like early marriages, depend upon it, Mrs. Clayton. They always turn out the best. The most desirable young men take their pick of the youngest girls, and leave the older ones for second-rate claimants."

"Do you hear that, Anna?" Mrs. Clayton said, laughing, as she turned to Mrs. Wyman's daughter. "I hope you will not remain a moment later than your mother did upon the maiden list."

Anna blushed slightly, but did not reply. What had been said, however, made its impression on her mind. She felt that to be engaged early was a matter greatly to be desired.

"My mother was married at sixteen, and here am I fifteen, and without a lover." So thought Anna, as she paused over the page of a new novel, some hours after she had listened to the conversation that pa.s.sed between her mother and Mrs. Clayton, and mused of love and matrimony.

From that time, Anna Wyman was another girl. The sweet simplicity of manner, the unconscious innocence peculiar to her age, gradually vanished. Her eye, that was so clear and soft with the light of girlhood's pleasant fancies, grew earnest and restless, and, at times, intensely bright. The whole expression of her countenance was new. It was no longer a placid sky, with scarce a cloud floating in its quiet depths, but changeful as April, with its tears and smiles blending in strange beauty. Her heart, that had long beat tranquilly, would now bound at a thought, and send the bright crimson to her cheek--would flutter at the sight of the very individual whom she, a short time before, would meet without a single wave ruffling the surface of her feelings. The woman had suddenly displaced the girl; a sisterly regard, that pure affection which an innocent maiden's heart has for all around her had expired on the altar where was kindling up the deep pa.s.sion called _love_.

And yet Anna Wyman had not reached her sixteenth year.

All at once, she became restless, capricious, unhappy. She had been at school up to this period, but now insisted that she was too old for that; her mother seconded this view of the matter, and her father, a man of pretty good sense, had to yield.

"We must give Anna a party now," said Mrs. Wyman, after their daughter had left school.

"Why so?" asked the father.

"Oh--because it is time that she was beginning to come out."

"Come out, how?"

"You are stupid, man. Come out in the list of young ladies. Go into company."

"But she is a mere child, yet--not sixteen."

"Not sixteen! And how old was _I_, pray, when you married me?"

The husband did not reply.

"How old was I, Mr. Wyman?"

"About sixteen, I believe."

"Well; and was I a mere child?"

"You were rather young to marry, at least," Mr. Wyman ventured to say. This remark was made rather too feelingly.

"Too young to marry!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the wife, in a tone of surprise and indignation--"too young to marry; and my husband to say so, too! Mr.

Wyman, do you mean to intimate--do you mean to say?--Mr. Wyman, what do you mean by that remark?"

"Oh, nothing at all," soothingly replied the husband; "only that I"--

"What?"

"That I don't, as a general thing, approve of very early marriages.

The character of a young lady is not formed before twenty-one or two; nor has she gained that experience and knowledge of the world that will enable her to choose with wisdom."

"You don't pretend to say that my character was not formed at sixteen?" This was accompanied by a threatening look.

Whatever his thoughts were, Mr. Wyman took good care not to express them. He merely said--

"I believe, Margaret, that I haven't volunteered any allusion to you."

"Yes, but you don't approve of early marriages."

"True."

"Well, didn't I marry at sixteen? And isn't your opinion a reflection upon your wife?"

"Circ.u.mstances alter cases," smilingly returned Mr. Wyman. "Few women at sixteen were like you. Very certainly your daughter is not."

"There I differ with you, Mr. Wyman. I believe our Anna would make as good a wife now as I did at sixteen. She is as much of a woman in appearance; her mind is more matured, and her education advanced far beyond what mine was. She deserves a good husband, and must have one before the lapse of another year."

"How can you talk so, Margaret? For my part, I do not wish to see her married for at least five years."

"Preposterous! I wouldn't give a cent for a marriage that takes place after seventeen or eighteen. They are always indifferent affairs, and rarely ever turn out well. The earlier the better, depend upon it. First love and first lover, is my motto."

"Well, Margaret, I suppose you will have these matters your own way; but I don't agree with you for all."

"Anna must have a party."

"You can do as you like."

"But you must a.s.sent to it."

"How can I do that, if I don't approve?"

"But you must approve."