LIVES OF FEMALE MORMONS;

A NARRATIVE OP

FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION.

BY

METTA VICTORIA PULLER,

' Here is light on the sea and land,
And the dream deceives nevermore."

PHILADELPHIA :
PUBLISHEDBY Gr. G. EVANS,

NO. 439 CHESTNUT STREET.
1860.

I

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
v4. Q. EVAN?,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.

INTRODUCTION

THE following narrative tells its own sad tale ; but
will its moral sink deeply in the hearts of the people
of this Union who are now called upon to admit
Deseret into this brotherhood of States ? The people
of Utah, strengthened by numbers until the pop-
ulation now reaches upward of 77,000 inhabitants,
have prepared their Constitution, and will, ere this
work reaches the hands of the reader, have presented
it to Congress, asking for admission as a State. Ere
that admission is granted we conjure every man
who has respect for humanity and for progress, to
pause over this little record of one history, and then,
multiplying it by tens of thousands, say if he can
find it in his heart to fellowship with such a moral
monster as Deseret now is, and will continue to be
under the laws and Constitution which she has pre-
scribed for herself.

A crisis has come in our affairs which it is as painful
to contemplate as the slow march of a disease which
threatens to desolate all households. Men are armed

iv INTRODUCTION.

against men State legislates against State violence
obtrudes into our legislative halls, once sacred to the
people's representatives men are pronounced ''in-
cendiaries," "enemies of their kind," "traitors," and
the physical force of the bayonet and cannon-ball has
jome to quell the first outbreak of passion. Like the
baffled sea, the waves for a moment recede, only to
come leaping with a more terrible force to the shore,
then moan, and beat, and rage, until that barrier
gives way, and the fair land is given up to the fright-
ful deluge. It becomes citizens of America to pause
before that rising storm, and to see if there be not oil
for the troubled waters.

Under the principles of sovereignty embodied in
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, any Territory with a re-
publican Constitution and a sufficient number of in-
habitants, can come into this Union of States. The
social and internal regulations of such State are to be
ordered as the people, by popular vote, shall decree.
Upon its face this seems a just enactment ; but, look-
ing beneath, to its eventual operation, we see that the
principle is one dangerous to the stability and progress
of the country, detrimental to the individual State
and to the individuals of such State. For, under its
operation, Utah is entitled to enjoy unmolested her
polygamy and slavery ; and thus the Constitution of
the United States, which regards all men free and

INTRODUCTION. V

equal, fosters two as great wrongs as now disgrace the
civilized world. We ask, as Americans, are we willing
that such a construction should be placed upon that
Constitution ?

The institution of slavery in a free government is
a paradox, and gives the lie to the professions the
authors of this republic made, else have we shamefully
perverted their gifts which, it is not hard to say.
Territory which they pledged to be FREE has been
overshadowed by the darkness of African servitude
the political influence of such an institution has grown
apace with each additional State adopting negro " prop-
erty" as a basis of representation in Congress and
thus has the free government of our fathers become
but free in form, to protect a tyranny such as no
civilized nation on the face of this earth would tolerate.
The responsibility of such a perversion rests with
the degenerate sons of noble sires, and the future will
not fail to fasten the record where it belongs.

This we say in no spirit of enmity to the South, nor
of undue reproach to the North : it is from the love
we bear to that blessed Constitution, earned by the
blood of our fathers, and the tears and sufferings
of our mothers ; and we appeal to their children to
stay their tongues long enough for thought and
prayer; to stay the passion which governs them, to
see if they are not in the wrong, in the advocacy,

VI INTRODUCTION.

directly, or indirectly through the "squatter sov-
ereignty" principle, of what their better sense knows
to be wrong, degrading, dangerous to happiness, fatal
to all true progress and true liberty.

Repulsive as slavery appears to us, we can but
deem polygamy a thing more loathsome and poison-
ous to social and political purity. Half-civilized
States have ceased its practice as dangerous to hap-
piness, and as outraging every instinct of the bet-
ter nature within every breast ; and as ages rolled
away they left the institution behind as one of the relics
of barbarism which marked the half-developed state
of man as a social being. Its last remaining shadow
now rests upon the Turk, and he, profiting by the ex-
ample of his sultan, is gradually casting it aside, and
soon will stand forth as a monogamist. And thus it
bade fair to die out, and woman and society bade fair
to come forth clad in a nobility of moral purity,
which should, indeed, seem like the livery of heaven.
Who could have prophesied that in republican Amer-
ica the lie should be given to that promise, and that
the atrocity, protected by the strong arm of govern-
ment, should become once more a power for evil ?

The American people, absorbed in their grand
schemes of physical development, are apt to shut
their eyes to the moral aspects of their society. This
moral apathy it is which has allowed the system

INTRODUCTION. Vll

of slavery to grow and expand until it is now fast
becoming the controling element in the government;
and this apathy it is which would allow the intro-
duction of polygamy into American institutions to
become one of the elements of our society. Who shall
be to blame if that instrument of barbarism becomes
linked to our country, protected by its army and navy,
by its Constitution, by its moral force and sympathy ?
Let us not be deceived longer, but open our eyes
to the serpent now asking to be warmed into life
by our national hearth-stone; let us arise and say,
" Away leper ! cleanse thyself! and then come, and we
will gladly receive thee into our household will then
gladly give thee equal share in our councils then
will protect thee as our fathers protected Bunker's
Hill? Away with thee, and cleanse thyself!"

Reject Deseret, and we accomplish the first step in
a reform which shall restore our country to its once
proud purity, and give to it a new character for moral
and intellectual grandeur. Under its laws we ought
to be the best, the purest, the wisest, the bravest
people on earth ; and this we shall be are we but true
to the first principles laid down by our Revolutionary
fathers the nobility of man. Whatever degrades
him whatever corrupts and injures his moral, in-
tellectual, and physical well-being is inimical to the
well-being of society, to the State, to the whole coun-

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

try; consequently, to the spirit and intent of that
Constitution which is to perpetuate the republic, and
render it, in truth, the refuge for the oppressed, the
home of liberty. And, as citizens of this country,
we owe it as a duty, not only to the Constitution, but
to humanity, that we sternly oppose slavery in all its
forms intemperance and its hideous deformities, and
polygamy with its train of evils which no man can
truly conceive, but which surely will end in animaliz-
ing man, in corrupting the very founts of virtue and
purity, and, finally, in barbarism. Reject Deseret, we
say, as the first step in this great reform refuse to
her the sympathy and equality of the old and long-
tried commonwealths compel her to cast away her
overshadowing sin, and then shall we have assurance
that our hearts are still right, and hopes that our
country will come out of the present threatening crisis
purified, strengthened, full of life, and well-fitted to
accomplish our mission of initiating the true republic.

We may be permitted to quote from the Phila-
delphia "North American and United States Gazette"
the following, not only as "food for thought," but as
embodying suggestions which will serve as a basis for
action in the present contingency :

INTRODUCTIC., IX

4 'Among a party of nine hundixl Mormons, who
recently left comfortable homes in England, to sur-
render themselves to the sway of Brigham Young and
his hopeful associates, came two girls, whose transfer
to the Utah land of abominations has very much the
character of kidnapping. The story of their flight, as
related in the English papers, is as follows : Their
father was a man in middle life, well to do and in-
dustrious. His labors had placed his family, consist-
ino 1 of a wife and several children, in a state of decent

O '

competence and happiness. Satan came among them
in the guise of a Mormon emissary, and beguiled the
eldest son, who made a pilgrimage to the land of
rogues. True to their instincts, the crafty elders
of Salt Lake made Mormonism so delightful to the
neophyte, and advanced him so rapidly in their fra-
ternity, .that he returned to England as a preacher of
the delusion. The father, whose employment took
him away from his family for periods of a week at a
time, returned to the house one Saturday from a
business excursion, to find it deserted. His whole
family had disappeared, with whatever portables they
could lay hands upon ; and his wife had stolen his
money to no inconsiderable amount all that she could
collect or pilfer. He traced the fugitives to Liverpool,
and reached that place to discover that they had em-
barked, under the persuasions of his Mormon son, in

X INTRODUCTION.

an emigrant ship, the Enoch Train. The distracted
father chartered a steam-tug, and taking with him a
police officer, overtook the vessel. After an infinite
deal of persuasion, aided by the master of the ship,
and opposed by the Mormon leaders, he succeeded in
inducing his wiijp to go back with him. He also, as
a matter of great favor, obtained the surrender of
his .infant children. But his two eldest daughters
refused to return with their parents, and the heart-
broken father went without them. Their fate, going
thus unprotected to Utah, may well cause a shudder.
"A community thus replenished is maturing meas-
ures to apply for admission as one of the States of
this confederacy. We were never among those who
'calculated the value of the Union,' or who dreamed
that the possibility of its being sundered was among
contingencies to be considered in any case. But the
possibility that our fathers may have fought to es-
tablish a shield for a community of adulterers and
bigamists, and their progeny, makes us pause. That
all which we hold sacred in religion, or virtuous in
social and family relations, may be trampled under-
foot by a State represented on equal terms with those
founded by Penn and the Pilgrims, by Oglethorpe and
the Cavaliers ; that the Old Dominion and the land of
the Puritans may be allied with a fraternity of licen-
tious and debauched rogues these possibilities, should

INTRODUCTION. XI

they become facts, will leave no value to the Union
for any body to ' calculate.' Nothing has cast so
great a doubt over the future of this country as the
Mormon plague spot. And if the State of Utah is to
be admitted into our constellation, the sign will lose
its present proud significance, and stand as stars
sometimes do, in an equivoque the representatives of
something too foul to be spoken or written.

" And all this evil, if it be consummated, will
be fairly chargeable upon the absurdity of squatter
sovereignty a demagogue's figment to serve a party
purpose, carried to its legitimate deductions by knaves,
operating through the instrumentality of zealots, fan-
atics, fools, and lechers. We have no patience with
the Mormons, and as little with temporisers who leave
the evil to increase, until at last literal and bloody war
may be forced upon us to crush what common sense
and a just idea of the powers of the general govern-
ment might have averted. The contact with the
Mormons of such settlers of the West as have just
ideas of purity and decency, will be terrible whenever
the tide of emigration reaches them. And if the
descendants of the wretches now wallowing in Mor-
monism modern vermin perpetuating their kind in
the disgusting ratio of other loathsome creatures if,
we say, these children of such paternity do not form a
Pariah race in our country, it will be because this bad

Xll INTRODUCTION.

leaven taints the whole moral mass. Extremes meet.
We have enjoyed a high order of social virtue in this
republican country, because no corrupt royalty and
nobility have made illegitimacy tolerable, and recom-
mended the bend sinister as a badge of honor, provided
that the blood, no matter by what questionable vein it
descends, be 'honorable.' But if squatter sovereignty,
and liberty deteriorating into licentiousness, produce
the same results, we have only substituted Fitz-
Youngs and Fitz-Mormons for Fitz-Jameses and Fitz-
Clarences; and certainly have not gained much by
the exchange."

MORION WIVES.

CHAPTER I.

"Bring flowers, fresh flowers, for the bride to wear!
They were horn to blush in her shining hair.
She is leaving the home of her childhood's mirth !
She hath bid farewell to her father's hearth;
Her place is now by another's side
Bring flowers for the locks of the fair young bride."

MBS. HEMANS.

IT was the first day of June, and Margaret
Fletcher's wedding-day. She was to be married
in the evening, and all the afternoon she sat alone
in her chamber. It was a small, low room in the
upper half- story of the old farm house ; but it
was pleasant despite of its smallness. Its window
looked over the rose-bushes and pinks in the front
yard, across the road, to the meadow and woodland
beyond, and to the blue line of the sea lying in the
distance. "Within, all wore that look of order and
neatness which spoke the purity of the maiden's
tastes. The curtains of dimity at the window and

26 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

around the toilet-table were newly hung and deco-
rated with sprays of myrtle and rose-buds. The
fine linen pillow-casings and handsome counter-
panes were exquisitely white; a dress of snowy
Indian lawn, a pair of satin slippers, and two or
three simple adornments for the robe lay upon
the bed. Guiltless of a knowledge of French per-
fumery, Margaret had strewn rose-leaves over the
bridal attire and throughout the room.

She sat at the casement, her head leaned into her
hand, looking off in the direction of the ocean, but
seeing only the dream-land of the future in which
her thoughts were wandering.

Clouds drifted up over the declining sun, throw-
ing a shadow upon the landscape which startled
Margaret. She thought it later than it was, and
arose to dress for the ceremony. She had no
sisters to aid her at this pleasant task, and she had
not asked any of her companions in the neighbor-
hood to be her bridemaids. Slowly and still, as
if half-lost in reverie, she arranged her dark brown
hair. Three or four long, shining curls dropped
down beside either cheek and lay against her beau-
tiful neck; the rest were gathered into a simple knot

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 27

behind. Her fingers rested idly when this was
done, and she stood looking into the reflection of
her own earnest eyes until the voices of two or
three relatives, coming through the yard, again re-
minded her that she must hasten.

The clouds were sweeping more darkly now over
the sky, and it was twilight, although the sun had
not set. In a few moments the slender foot was in
its satin slipper, and the soft folds of the snowy
lawn waved airily about the youthful form. Mar-
garet was one of the most beautiful of those fair
New England maidens, who grow up amid the hills
and chilly breezes as sweetly and delicately as
Alpine roses. She had been reared in seclusion
upon the farm, and on the homestead where she
was born ; but no lady of the fashionable world
had a more dainty repose of manner, a more stately
carriage, or a gentler beauty. Suddenly the sun,
the moment before his setting, shone through a rift
in the thick clouds, deluging the little chamber
with floods of crimson light. But it was not the
red of the sunset tinging Margaret's cheek. The .
step, the voice of the bridegroom she heard from
the door below, and her whole being became ra-

28 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

diant in the glowing light. A warm color rushed
into her face, her eyes drooped, and the fingers,
which were fastening a white rose in the bosom of
her dress, refused to accomplish their task. It
seemed as if the rosy hue which tinged her bridal
dress was caught from her face and bosom instead
of from the lustrous sky.

Some one tapped at her chamber-door. She
thought it was her mother, and tried to overcome
the rapid beating of her heart, as she said, " Come in!"

"Sarah Irving! how come you here?" she ex-
claimed in surprise, as a girl of about her own age
entered the room and stood, half embarrassed, half
defiant, before her.

" As you did fnot invite me, I thought I would
ask myself to the wedding," replied her visitor,
forcing a smile into the brilliant dark eyes, which
looked as if their owner had ways of her own for
accomplishing her will, even when it did clash with
conventionalities.

"It was your own fault that you were not in-
vited, Sarah ; but I am very glad to see you, if you
have come in good faith."

" I know that it was my own fault all my own

OF FACTS STRANGEK THAN FICTION. 29

fault, dear Margaret ; and. it is just like you to for-
give me, even before I have made apologies. It
was a childish mood of coldness I took toward you.
I ought to be treated like a child scolded, and par-
doned. It is all past now, and I have to try to be
worthy of your former friendship. See I have
brought you a wedding-present."

She took from her own dress an old-fashioned
brooch, set with costly pearls, and fastened with
it the rose upon Margaret's breast.

" Why, Sarah, I must not accept that ! I know
how highly you prize it as a family treasure ; it is
too rich a gift. Keep it for your own wedding, my
dear friend."

Sarah laughed a quick, bitter laugh.

" I shall never be married ; so keep my offering,
or I shall be offended."

It was a strange assertion for one so young and
beautiful to make with such sharp earnestness. So
Margaret thought, as she looked affectionately into
her perturbed face.

" Never be married !" she said, with a smile. " 1
hope you will not, until, like me, you have met

the man whom you can not help obeying when he

. 2

30 MOBMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

commands you to unsay that. As for your being
offended at me it will not be the first time ; how-
ever, I wish to run no risks; so I accept your
beautiful gift, and with double delight because it
comes from you."

"They are waiting for you down stairs; the
minister has arrived," said Sarah, hurriedly putting
by Margaret's kiss of thanks ; " let me see, I do not
believe I have brushed my hair to-day."

She gave a passing glance into the mirror. Her
hair was indeed rather carelessly arranged, but it
was beautiful however it might chance to fall.
She almost started back from the intense brilliancy
of h^er own eyes.

" It will have to do," she said, taking her com-
panion's arm ; " dear 1 how red my cheeks are red
as poppies !"

The two girls passed down the staircase together.
They had been friends from infancy ; at school
they had chosen each other as confidantes ; they
were neighbors; and they had grown up without
any serious misunderstandings, although Sarah,
with her passionate temperament, sometimes took
freaks of anger or jealousy.

OF FACTS STKANGER THAN FICTION. 31

Margaret was the most patient, loving, and for-
giving of the two. Sarah could rely upon her
generous, placid goodness, even when her own
whims deserved resentment. She often wounded
her needlessly, but her own remorse would be so
keen she would cast herself back upon her
friend's love with a humility so touching in one
so proud, that it was far from Margaret's deeply
tender heart not to forgive her.

This last coldness of hers had been of a more
serious nature. About three months gone she had
adopted a reserved, even repulsive manner; so
that Margaret, after some attempts at an ex-
planation, and some secret tears, gave over all
effort to reconcile a difficulty when she was ig-
norant of any cause of offense. She grieved over
this separation less than she might otherwise have
done, as, about that time, she became engaged to
Kichard Wilde, and all other feelings were absorbed
in the love she felt for him. Often, when she sat
in her chamber preparing her wedding-garments,
or thought in solitude over her strange happiness,
she wished for Sarah to share in this new and won-
derful joy ; but again her feelings would seem to

32 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

her so sacred and beyond expression, that not even
her friend's old sympathy couM be trusted with
them. And when she was in Eichard's presence,
then she forgot a wish for any one else in the
world. The music of his rich voice, the spell in
the light of his deep gray eye, fascinated her
every thought and sense.

It was one of the wonders of the earth to her that
any one could say a word against Richard. She
thought all must yield to the sweet influence of his
smile, and the magic which lurked in his subtle and
flashing glance, as readily as she. He was a win-
ning man to the most of people ; though he excited
that doubt and remark, and sometimes that dislike
which people who can not be entirely comprehended
are apt to provoke. His mind was of cultivation
and capacity beyond that of any other in the quiet
village where he resided. His studies as a lawyer
in the office of his father, old Squire Wilde, the
resources of the family library, and his own inquir-
ing, restless disposition, forever prying into the
meaning of things, had made him not only intel-
ligent but ambitious. Twice he had left home and
wandered abroad for a year or two, partly seeking

OF FACTS STKANGEE THAN FICTION. 33

for a situation where the powers he felt within
him might be developed, and partly satisfying his
craving to know all about the world of men and
objects. Both times he had returned without any
particular result in the eyes of his neighbors,
except an increased faculty for making himself
entertaining by the variety of knowledge he con-
trived to communicate in his conversation. And
another charge was whispered with awe and in-
credulity by the pious and faithful inhabitants of
that Puritan village. From his neglecting almost
entirely to attend worship, and from some sneering
remarks which he had made about their forms and
ceremonies, it had come to be rumored that he was
"an unbeliever." This was the only shadow upon
Margaret's happiness.

She did not believe, as many of her neighbors
did, that he was an atheist or an infidel. She had
questioned him closely; and he had avowed his
faith that there was a God of goodness and love
who controlled the universe, and that men should
be governed by the precepts of Christ

" But he could not give his heart," he said, " to

the hollow forms of their chilling doctrines ; he.
3

34 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

despised the self-righteous sanctimoniousness of
many of their deacons and ministers ; he believed
that the Church stood in the way of progress ; he
believed that he could accomplish more good not
to be fettered by her chains.'*

Margaret could not but grieve and shed tears at
this ; for to her, reared in all the rigidness of the
old Puritan school, such avowals seemed not only
wrong and dangerous, but positively wicked. Yet
Eichard was not wicked ! His doctrines might be,
but he was not. He was charitable, he bore no
malice, he was kind to the poor, he praised God,
with a full heart at times, when he was lost in ad-
miration of His works. Oh, no ! when she com-
pared him with some of the envious, avaricious,
cold-hearted men who held high places in the
Church of which she was a member, she excused
his words, his mistaken doubts, upon the plea that
his heart was all right.

It was more difficult to convince her parents of
this. In a worldly view, Eichard "Wilde was an
excellent match for their daughter; but they had
her real interests too deeply at heart to be willing
to give her up to " an unbeliever." He reasoned

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 36

with them more earnestly than he had done with
Margaret ; and, too, he made concessions, more
than he could have done with perfect candor. But
he loved their child, and he could not lose her
upon a misunderstanding or a difference in relig-
ious matters. Upon his promising to attend church
for six months regularly, and to try and open his
soul to conviction, they gave their otherwise pleased
consent to the union.

Richard Wilde smiled he could not help it as
lie walked home after that interview, at the idea
of his sitting for six months under the preaching
of an ignorant and dogmatic minister, whose whole
logic and argument he had long ago at his fingers'
ends.

"It is but a concession to the feelings of those
who love me," he said to himself, in extenuation
of his want of perfect truth. (l I need not refuse
what will, after all. be but a trifling sacrifice of my
comfort, since I am to sit by the side of my beauti-
ful Margaret. He may drag his sermons out au
hour and a half every Sabbath if I am to have Mar-
garet nestled in the same pew my wife."

The last charmed word plunged him into a sea

36 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

of dreams, where his fancy floated upon blissful

" God bless you, Margaret, my child, and make
you as happy in the new relation as your mother
has been. Twenty-fere years your father and I
have dwelt together, and we are dearer to each
other this moment than when we were first pro-
nounced man and wife. A mother's blessing I give
you, my daughter," said Mrs. Fletcher, coming out
to meet the girls as they descended the stairs, and
taking Margaret in her trembling arms.

A few tears dropped from the young girl ? s eyes
as she kissed her mother's cheeks. But Kichard
had come out, too, and was gazing upon her with
eyes of passionate admiration. She saw all the
love, the exultation of his air, although she gave
him but a half glance ; then, her cheeks suffused
with blushes, and her eyes yet bright with tears,
she gave him her hand, and he led into the large,
old-fashioned parlor, where a few relatives only
were assembled.

Lamps had been lighted, displaying bouquets in
the china vases upon the mantel, and wreaths over

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 37

the windows and mirror. The guests were too
intent upon the entrance of the bride and bride-
groom, to notice how sultry the air had grown, or
how suddenly a hot wind came up, blowing a cloud
of fragrant rose-leaves in at the casement, and mak-
ing a hoarse murmur amid the trees upon the lawn.

The blushes died from Margaret's cheeks when
the ceremony began : she stood, pale and earnest,
making, in a low voice, the customary replies. The
minister had not finished his blessing, when a crash
of thunder, so terribly near and unsuspected that
all were startled, interrupted him. The bride trem-
bled and clung to her husband, but soon recovered
from the brief terror, and turning her glance upon
her friend Sarah, was surprised to see her deathly
white, and her eyes fixed upon vacancy.

"Speak 'to her, mother," she entreated Mrs. Flet-
cher, who came up to give her the first greeting.

" Why, Sarah, are you ill ? are you frightened ?"
exclaimed the mother, laying her hand upon her
shoulder to arouse her.

" I am neither neither ; I believe I was a little
shocked," was the gay reply ; and the young girl
sprang to her feet with a mocking laugh. " The

38 MORMON WIVES: A NARRATIVE

thunder has seen fit to salute you ; let me do you
like honor," and she shook hands with the newly-
married pair.

They felt that her hands were icy cold, and that
there was something remarkable in her manner;
but she was a creature of impulse and wild behav-
ior, and they thought no more of it

One of those sudden storms common at that sea-
son of the year, had broken upon the night, and
was spending its fury as it passed over. Peal after
peal of sharp thunder rattled around ; but none was
so startling as the first. The company soon regained
composure going out gayly to the supper-room to
partake of the dainties which had been spread for
them.

"I wonder what has become of Sarah Irving? she
ought to have a chance toward obtaining the ring,"
exclaimed one of Margaret's young brothers, as the
bride-cake went the rounds.

One or two of the youths went to the parlor in
search of her, but she was not to be found. She
had fled away into the night and tempest. Unable
any longer to brook the happiness of the marriage-
feast, she had dashed out into the wind and rain,

OF FACTS STRANGEE THAN FICTION. 39

braving the elements, in her thin dress, careless of
or defying danger. By the glare of the lightning
she found her way home ; drenched and miserable
she crept to her room, sitting by the window until
the storm without doors and the storm in her own
heart were somewhat weaned out.

CHAPTER II.

"Unwise and most unfortunate
My way was ; let the sign
The proof of it be simply this,
Thou art not, wert not mine P

PlNOTKBY.

"WITHIN a week or two after their marriage,
Margaret went to housekeeping in the village of

S , which was only about two miles from the

old homestead. Kichard's father gave him a hand-
s some house standing in the midst of a couple of
acres of cultivated garden and lawn. Four 01
five stately elms kept guard before the grass-plot ,
honeysuckles and roses clambered over the por-
ticoes : it was as sweet a place as "young love"
need desire for his first beginning in domestic
life. Margaret's parents had given her carte blanche
to furnish the mansion as her taste dictated; and
simply and cheerfully, not with garish display,
was it fitted up. A beautiful piano was the
richest article the parlor could boast a new piano,

FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 41

for the mother would not let the old one be
taken away : she wanted Margaret to play for them
when she came home, which must be very often.
The profuse supply of household linen which had
long been hoarded up for her, and which the bride
received as a part of her portion, might have awak-
ened the envy of less comfortably supplied begin-
ners.

Like many of the unequalled New England girls,
she could not only cull exquisite music from the
piano, but she understood all the mysteries and du-
ties of neat and economical housekeeping. She had
a good servant in the kitchen ; and it was a pleasure
for her to superintend all the arrangements, and even
to execute the lightest daily tasks ; while she still
had abundance of leisure to bestow upon the small
society of the village, upon her music, and always,
time to run and meet her husband, to smooth her
curls, and put fresh roses in her hair and on her
cheeks for his coming, to sing for him, to talk with
him, to make him happy.

Eichard had gone into the office with his father
as partner in his law business. There seemed noth-
ing in the way of this young .couple's leading a life

42 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

of peculiar prosperity, blessed as they were witli a
competency, health, beauty, intelligence and love.

True to his promise, Kichard went every Sabbath
to church, and sat by the side of his beautiful bride
with a face of sufficient gravity to please the most
sanctimonious. Not that he was hypocritical about
that : he was a mocker of the Church but not of
God; and when he heard His name, or went to
the place dedicated, however farcical he might
deem it, to His presence, he observed a propriety
of demeanor. But he did not spare the minister
and deacons. If Margaret asked him, after reach-
ing home, how he liked the sermon, his reply was
either a ludicrous and sarcastic criticism upon the
good man's effort, or a "Keally, darling, I did not
hear it, indeed I did not ; I was lost in reverie ; I
was thinking of you, wife, a much more interest-
ing occupation than listening; and the old man's
eloquence fell upon my ear like the distant mur-
mur of ocean waves upon a senseless shore."

Sometimes tears of reproach would bedew Mar-
garet's eyes, and then he would soften what he had
said with kisses, and love her more tenderly than
ever; for the most reckless man likes to see a

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 43

woman religious, even if her faith takes the shape
of prejudice.

Among the most frequent of Margaret's visitors
was her own brother Harry, a pleasant-appearing
young man about two years older than herself,
and her friend Sarah Irving. She loved to fancy
that they came there to meet each other. She had
but little doubt that Harry had yielded his heart
into the keeping of her beautiful friend; she did
not see how he could resist, pure-hearted and inno-
cent of art as he was. The influence of Sarah's
thousand charms and graces, all the more fascinat-
ing that they were touched with the fire of her
peculiar nature, as a southern flower is warmed
and tinged by a southern sun. She was the most
accomplished and brilliant girl whom Harry had
ever met, and knowing her from childhood, while
her intimacy with his sister gave him every oppor-
tunity to see her and be near her, it might be ex-
pected that she had grown to be the ideal of all
womanly loveliness to him.

Almost every evening during the summer of
the wedding he was at Margaret's house, who
could not fail to notice that if Sarah was absent,

44 MOKMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

not even her music which he professed to come
to hear, could win him from his abstracted mood.
If the young girl was there, and gave him one arch
smile or one playful glance of her bright eyes,
or one flashing ebullition of wit however much at
his expense, he seemed content. For was there
not always the long walk home with her, alone
beneath the evening sky? and the saying good-
night at the door always simply " good-night ;"
though each evening he would resolve that at the
next he would add some tell-tale word or beg a
precious boon beside. Yet something in her man-
ner restrained him, sending him on the other mile
which he had to walk in solitude, not always de-
spondingly, but more often with that feeling of
love and awe which dwells in the heart of a pure-
minded man toward the woman whom he has not
yet won to confess a preference for him.

As the weeks glided by, Margaret grew to be
less contented with the state of affairs. There was
something about Sarah which she could not under-
stand. Hitherto, although it was stirred by wild
and capricious winds of fancy and passion, when-
ever her spirit was at rest, Margaret could see to

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 45

the very bottom of its clear, bright waters, and
love their fairness : but now, even when not tossed
by unexpected moods into sparkle or gloom, it was
ruled by a cold, impenetrable mist.

She began to mistrust that Sarah did not and
never would return the passion of her brother,
which was growing every day more away from
his power to conceal it. She felt a small degree
of sisterly indignation when she looked upon the
earnest face of Harry, pale sometimes with re-
pressed feeling, and noted how all his deep solici-
tude was met with the same gayety, untouched
with the softness of emotion.

" If she should trifle with him," she thought to
herself; "but no, Sarah will never be guilty of
heartlessness. It is but the coquetry natural to
a proud young girl. Her soul will be melted,
as mine has been ; she will find it sweeter to
yield to a noble affection than to make sport of
it."

Thus the weeks glided on, and in time Henry
became restless and uneasy ; the fever of an un-
avowed passion was consuming his soul; there

grew a shadow, and beneath it a brightness in his
3

46 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

blue eyes; and the frank smile that dwelt upon
his lip became fitful and rare. Yet still Sarah
came day after day to the house of his sister, as
if on purpose to meet him; still she laughed
earnestly, played music that was " dancing mad,"
and her eyes shot glances of fire from beneath
the covert of their long lashes. One hour she
would bewilder them with her bright, invulnerable
gayety ; and the next sit silent and dark beautiful
as evening, and as sad. Then it would seem as
if the tenderness yearning in the heart of the
young man must burst forth ; yet to him, even in
her stillness, she was unapproachable as a stai
No one knew whether she was acting out merely
her untamed girlish impulses, or whether some
secret spring was moving her spirit no one but
Eichard Wilde, and he only suspected that he had
the key to her actions

"What do you think has come over Sarah?"
his wife asked him one night, after the young
couple were on their way home.

Sarah had been in one of her most wilful moods,
and had grieved Margaret, astonished Richard,
and wounded Harry ; so that he had offered to

OF FACTS STKANGER THAN FICTION. 47

escort her home with great coldness, and ;she had
accepted his services as haughtily.

"She was always a will-o'-the-wisp, and I am
afraid that she will never be any thing better.' 7

" Oh, no ! Kichard, she is wayward, I know ; but
I do believe that there is depth and truth enough
in her nature to make a noble woman of her yet ;
* with all her faults I love her still.' "

" If there is any truth in her, I wish that she
would not trifle with Harry any longer. It is
no better than murder for a woman to do what
she is doing; keeping a loving heart stretched on
the rack of her coquetry," replied Kichard, with
unusual sternness.

" Yet how sweet she 'is, how affectionate, how
gentle at times ! She was so faithful to me when
I was ill a year ago, Kichard ; she never left me ;
and she is just as kind at home to her family.
They worship her ; and indeed I love her all the
more for her wildness, I think often."

"Well, let Harry win his mocking-bird if he
can. I would rather have my nightingale that
sings always the same sweet song ;" and the young
husband turned the face of his wife toward the

48 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

light as lie kissed her, for he loved to see the
delicate color steal into her cheek, which still
came at a word of praise from him.

" Sarah is very beautiful," he said the next mo-
ment.

"And it is a beauty all her own ; I never saw
any one like her," answered Margaret.

" She has fire and sweetness enough in her eyes
to entrance a stone, when she is in her happiest
moods," continued Richard. "I do not wonder
that Harry is tangled in her spell. If I were him
I would not wait a day no, nor an hour, until
I would have my fate decided for better or worse.
She would not keep me dancing attendance upon
her pleasure: I could not endure it, and I would
not."

" I always thought Harry had pride enough,"
sighed his sister.

" But when men or women are in love, there
is no telling in what strange directions their pas-
sion will develop itself. I presume I acted with
all the customary foolishness, did n't I, Maggie,
before you promised me?"

" I never saw any thing foolish about you," said

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 49

Margaret^ with such a pretty earnestness that her
husband laughed.

The next day, as Mr. and Mrs. Wilde were sit-

/ 7

ting upon the front portico, enjoying a cool breeze
which had arisen, and the sunset clouds that were
glowing in the west, Sarah came from the street
up the garden-walk. Her bonnet was swinging
on her arm, and the wind was blowing her curls
about her face. She came along slowly, looking
a little pale, and there was an unusual timidity
in her aspect.

"I behaved so badly last night," she said, in a
low voice, taking a seat upon the steps at their
feet, " I wonder how any of my friends can love
me ; I can not love myself."

How much more beautiful she looked in that
moment of humility than when in her dazzling
moods. Margaret inly wished that Harry could
see her as she sat there with her eyes cast down.
He did see her. He had been with them to tea,
and was standing in the shelter of the curtains at
the window opening upon the portico, when she
came up, He was gazing upon her almost with
suspended breath ; and the soft voice of her con-

50 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

fession fell upon his perturbed spirits lilse a sweet
calm. All day lie had been distressed, not only
with doubts of whether she would listen to his
suit, but also with fears that if he should win her,
her Variable disposition would render him unhappy.
The touching gentleness of her present appear-
ance banished every such wise reflection; and he
longed to tell her that there was one at least whose
love could not be turned away, even by her mock-
ery of it.

"You seem born to do what you please with

. people," replied Margaret, affectionately. " You are

:<a queen in your own right ; and I do not think you

jrnean to be a very cruel one, though occasionally

you exercise your power in a despotic manner."

" Who can not govern themselves should not
aspire to rule others," said the young girl; "but,
indeed, I am going to do better hereafter. I have
been afflicted with a strange malady for the past
few months ; but the disease is conquered now, I
am sure, and I shall soon be convalescent. Then
you will have the Sarah that you used to have
again, only chastened by her experience in suffer-
ing."

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 51

She spske in a grave voice ; and her dark eyes
looked away into the burning depths of the sunset
with an unspeakable sadness and yearning, She
looked like one who had achieved a victory, and
was yet worn with the struggles serene and yet
melancholy.

Never before had the heart of Harry Fletcher
gone out to her with such fullness of tenderness ;
and yet her words had given him a sharp pain.
What worm had been silently preying upon the
bloom of her heart? What was the nature of her
past sorrow ? "Was it one to which he could not
minister? which would widen the space between
them had she loved another, and in vain, and
he never suspecting it ? The fear was a new one ;
for she had treated all her admirers so much more
coldly even than she had treated him, that he had
felt there was not at least that bar to his suc-
cess in winning her. He was both mystified and
pained. One thing he resolved upon before he
moved a fold of the curtain by which he was con-
cealed : he would no longer endure this suspense
he would hear his fate from her lips that night;
no caprice which she might put on should repel

52 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

him. And, oh! what a wild hope he had the
deepest hope of a life-time that he might break
down the barriers which divided their souls, and
drawing that face, so sweet, so pale in the solemn
sunset light, to his bosom, hear from those lips
that they would be kind to him, would repulse
him no more, would breathe their sweetness both
of grief and joy to him.

As he stood thus, with his soul illuminating his
fine features, he looked manly enough to be the
lover of a very high-hearted woman. He was but
a country youth. Two or three years spent stud-
iously in college had been his only experience
away from home. But he had the native grace
of a gentleman, and full enough personal beauty
to set off his more noble qualities. The natural
purity of his heart had not been polluted by. fash-
ionable dissipations ; his keen sense of honor was
such as sometimes to reflect upon the less scrupu-
lous impulses of his brother-in-law. The girl be-
loved by him ought to have been happy in the
confidence that she was enriched by an affection
which would be life-long, and by the companion-
ship of a generous and gentle spirit ; but " the

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 53

wind bloweth where it listeth," and love obeys no
known laws.

A few more remarks were exchanged by the
friends upon the portico, which Harry did not
hear he was too deeply absorbed in the resolu-
tion he had made. He stepped out by her side,
and gave the greetings of the evening to Sarah.
The sad serenity of her eyes gave way to a trou-
bled look after meeting his glance ; her feminine
intuitions betrayed to her something of what was
in his thought.

"I must go home," she said, presently, "before
it grows dark."

"Why not stay?" asked Margaret.

"I have a new piece of music, and I feel like
playing it to-night. I did not intend to spend the
evening. Good-night, all."

But Harry would not take her hint that she
needed no company. " I must see you safely
home, Miss Irving."

"Oh, no, I thank you. I can reach home be-
fore night ; and I have gone later than this a thou-
sand times."

" Our paths lie in the same direction, Sarah, and

54 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

so I shall walk beside you," lie said, coming down
the steps and joining her.

They bade the others good-night, and passed
along, Harry inly wondering if their paths for life
were to lie in the same direction, and firmly re-
solved to ascertain, without any more of the dan-
gers of delay. For several moments there was
silence between them, until they had passed the
village street, and were out on the country-road*
Then Sarah began talking vivaciously, as if to pre-
vent her companion from broaching any more se-
rious subject.

" If there 's a music in the world which I love,"
said she, "it is this soft murmur of the wind in the
tree-tops. When that little bird, dropping to its
nest, broke in just now, with that clear, quick war-
ble, its effect upon me was as if a sunbeam had sud-
denly fallen upon a smoothly-gliding stream the
flowing of the continuous undertone, and on its
bosom those glancing, sparkling notes. This av-
enue of elms is very beautiful, don't you think so?"

" Very beautiful, Sarah ; but there is something
which I"

" And that faint line of crimson in the western

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 55

sky : I would that it were a boat, and I sailing
about through, that golden sea. By the way, Harry,
did you know that Miss Green is to give a party
this week ?"

"I do not care any thing about Miss Green's
party," said the young man, seizing her hand and
stopping his walk.

They stood beneath a majestic elm; peace and
beauty brooded over the heaven and earth ; there
was no living creature within hearing except the
little bird of which Sarah had spoken; she was
looking so beautiful in the soft light, and she
did not resent the almost harshness with which
Harry detained her. Instead, she stood silent and
trembled.

"You know that I am not thinking of such
trifles," he continued. " You know what is in my
thoughts, and you are trying to prevent my speak-
ing. But you must listen."

" Oh, no I I can not not to night, Mr. Fletcher.
Do not say a word I can not bear it. I would
not have you say what will cause me regret and
pain."

" You can not bear to hear me say that I love

56 MOEMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

you? Then, cf course, it is because you can not
accept the love ! Sarah, what do you mean, what
have you meant by your inexplicable conduct?
You must have known, for months, that my soul
was in your keeping."

His teeth were pressed into his lip as he tried to
regard her calmly; but try as his pride may
prompt him, when the one hope is at stake, a
man can not be indifferent.

"You have no right to question me. I have
not given you that encouragement which should
lead you to speak thus," exclaimed the young girl,
endeavoring to free her hand, while all the bad
elements in her nature arose imperiously, and she
raised a glance of fire to meet his own.

"You can say that with some truth, but not
with perfect candor. It is true that you have be-
haved willfully at times kindly, at times coldly
to me. Bat you have gone every day where I was
sure to meet you. You have been as gay, as
beautiful, as bewildering as it was possible for you
to be during those meetings. You have many
times aroused my deepest feelings by a thousand
womanly enchantments, and then after proving

OF FACTS STEANGEE THAN FICTION. 57

your power shrank back into coldness when I
would have spoken, if that is what you call not
giving encouragement. But how could I decide
that this was not merely girlish coquetry, that your
heart was not mine, after all? You have re-
ceived my constant attentions, and you have not
received those of any other man. You shall not
blame me that I love you : you shall feel the full
weight of this result upon your own conscience.
Now you shall tell me with your own lips whether
you return my love or not. Oh, say that you do
that you have been trifling that you are mine
my Sarah 1" he exclaimed, with a sudden burst of
passionate hope, as he saw her lids tremble with
tears which dropped to her cheeks.

He was about to sustain with his arm the form
that he would have given worlds to hold to his
bosom now, as it seemed bending beneath some
deep emotion.

" Would to heaven that I were yours !" she said
in a low, sad voice. "Then I should be proud,
be blessed, be happy. But I am not, and I can not
be never! It is utterly in vain to flatter you
with a false expectation. I have done wrong, I

58 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

have wronged you ; and that is the bitterest drop
in the cup. It may be a poor consolation for you
to know that I am, at least, as miserable as you
possibly can be; and I have brought all my un-
happiness willfully upon my own head."

" No, Sarah, it is no consolation to me to feel that
you suffer as I do at this moment. Neither do I
believe it. A person capable of such feelings could
never trifle with another. It is enough for you, in
the pride of your youth and beauty, to bear with
you the memory that you have broken a true
heart."

He dropped those slender fingers from out of
his cold hands and turned away. There was no
anger in his tones, the keen anguish of their very
coldness smote her heart like a sword.

With that strange impulsiveness which char-
acterized her, she sprang to him and laid her hand
upon his arm.

" Forgive me, Harry, or it will kill me. I can

.not endure such language from you, who have

been my friend always. If it will be any relief to

your pain, know that I will never marry any

other man. If I married any one it would bo

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 59

you, and I would be your wife if I could make
you happy. But you have not my heart it is
as grieved as broken more hopeless than your
own ; it is not fit to mate with yours it is an ob-
ject of pity. Forgive me and forget me, Harry."
She kissed him a pure kiss of friendliness and
sorrow and while a tear which fell from her eyes
lay warm upon his hand, she fled away, leaving
him more in love, more in doubt than ever. He
stood where she left him, until she disappeared
up the lane which led toward her father's house,
and then he wandered into the solemn twilight
woods, the most wretched man, he thought, that
the stars ever came out to look down pitilessly
upon.

CHAPTER III.

* Within my breast there is no light,

But the cold light of stars;
I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars."

LONGFELLOW.

" WHAT is the reason that Kichard lias not been
to church for the past three weeks?" asked Mrs.
Fletcher of her daughter Margaret.

They were sitting alone in the parlor at the
old home; Margaret was spending the day with
her mother, and had been playing old-fashioned
airs for a long time on the piano, but was now
engaged in making the button-holes in a shirt
for her father, which the defective sight of the
elder lady would not permit of her finishing.

" He does not like the minister," said the young
wife ; but her cheek colored a little, for she knew
that this was not the sole reason ; and she had
been mortified by the fact that although Mr.
Wilde had scrupulously kept his promise to at-

FACTS STEANGEE THAN FICTION. 61

tend church for six months, that the week the
time mentioned had expired, he had, with s>ome
stubbornness, declined going again.

" He has n't the gift of an eloquent tongue, sure-
ly," replied the good mother; "but he preaches
a safe and a sound doctrine; and it is much bet-
ter to listen to him than not to go to meeting at
all."

"Richard thinks that the parson is not as holy
a man as he affects to be ; that he is not so
charitable and self-denying as he preaches. He
says that he is obstinate and prejudiced, and
Pharisaical that he has got a very small, very
selfish soul behind a very solemn face."

"Richard should be careful that he himself is
not uncharitable. But if he is so strongly op-
posed to our minister, why does he not attend
the Episcopalian services ? We would not make
any great objections, though we had rather have
him with us. I feel uneasy about Richard's course,
my dear."

"So do I," murmured Margaret, scarcely re-
pressing a sigh. She would not tell her parent
that she had urged her husband to attend the

62 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

Episcopalian church ; and that he had good-
naturedly but positively refused ; giving as his
reason, that he had so much law-business through
the week, that he was obliged to take Sunday for
general reading and refreshment.

" I hope I shall get him out with me again be-
fore many Sabbaths," she continued ; u but he has
been so busy lately that he is tired, and takes the
holy day as a day of rest."

" Your father has been an industrious man the
most of his days, Margaret, but he is never so tired
that he has not a few hours to give to the worship
of the Lord out of the whole week. And he has
been a good husband to me. I hope we have not
done wrong in marrying you to an unbeliever, my
child."

" So is Eichard a good husband, mother," replied
Margaret, quickly. " I love him more every hour
of my life."

" Time will prove time will prove," murmured
the old lady. " It 's a risk for a lamb of the fold
to go wandering away from the flock in hopes to
persuade a stray sheep. But I believe that you
are a true Christian, my dear ; and I can only

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 63

counsel you to keep strict guard over your own
conscience."

" You know what St. Paul says, mother : l And
the woman which hath an husband which believeth
not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her
not leave him : for the unbelieving husband is sanc-
tified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sano
tified by the husband ; for what knowest thou,
wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?' I
have faith that it will be given me to save Eichard.
He has such a noble nature-4-it only needs to be
touched by Divine grace."

There was a sound as of tears in Margaret's
voice, which showed how deeply in earnest she was
her mother could not find it in her heart to say
any more on the subject.

A few moments afterward the young wife look-
ed up from her sewing, and saw Eichard coming
across the lawn to take tea with the family, and
accompany her home. She flung down her work,
and bounding to the door to meet him, welcomed
him as gladly as though they had been separated
a week.

"It was lonely dining at home to-day. I am

64 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

afraid I did not do justice to Betty's dinner," Kich-
ard said, while she was untying the shawl from
about his neck.

" And we could not half enjoy the turkey and
cranberry-sauce because you were not here," she
replied. " But you shall have some of it cold for
supper. I have had such a pleasant day with
mother ; but the last two hours have been so long.
"Why did you not come sooner ? it is five o'clock ;"
and then the husband laughed.

Mrs. Fletcher listened with a smile and sigh.
Perhaps it was foolish of her to feel such forebod-
ings about the future, as long as her son-in-law's
actions were good and admirable ; and she arose
and met him with the same motherly kiss which
she bestowed upon her own children.

When he took her hands, and held her away
from him, and looked into her kindly eyes with
his own dark, dancing ones, declaring that she was
almost as young and handsome as Maggie, and that
that was saying the most he could say, she yielded,
like the rest, to the charm of his manner.

After half an hour's cheerful conversation they
went to an early tea; for Eichard wished to get

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 65

back to town in time for an evening lecture at the
court-house. x

"Where is Harry?" asked he, as the meal was
nearly finished. "He has not been in the village
for two weeks, as I remember. Tell him we shall
mark him out of our list.' 1

" I saw him in the orchard as I came in," replied
the father, " and he said he would be in presently."

"Something seems the matter with the lad. I
am afraid he has taken a dislike to farm-life, or
else his health is not going to be good. He is not
the same boy that he was when you went away,
Margaret. I think it is lonely for him out here,
without any sister," remarked Mrs. Fletcher.

The young married couple looked at each other.
They had the clew to his altered appearance ; but, as
he had kept his secret from his parents, they did
not see fit to reveal it.

"If he would get a good wife, and bring her
home here, it would make us all a little more lively,
since Maggie has run away from us," said the old
gentleman.

" I do not know who he would fancy, unless it

was Sarah Irving," mused his wife.
5

66 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

" And she 's quite too much of a fire-fly for any
man, though she's pretty, and I like the gipsy.
She 's hardly the girl for Harry, though ; and she
has not joined the Church yet ;" and Mr. Fletcher
shook his head.

Eichard smiled and colored slightly at the last
objection, while the mother coughed as she asked
him if he would have another cup of tea, and Mar-
garet looked down upon her plate.

" She 's a beautiful girl, for all that, 1 ' said Eich-
ard ; " and I hope she and Harry may sometime
take it into their heads to get married."

" She 's right smart, too ; and can manage a
house, when her mother is sick, as well as the
best," added Mrs. Fletcher.

" Ah, well I I guess we had better wait until we
see some signs of danger before we discuss the mat-
ter so seriously," laughed Margaret, as she arose
from the table.

She was pained at the state of unhappiness which
her brother was in, and she did not wish to fix
attention upon it, so as to make it a source of any
more speculation.

"Wrap up warm," was her mother's injunction,

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 67

as she was preparing for her long walk of two miles
to the village.

" We will walk rapidly ; that will be the best
way to keep the cold off. Come, Maggie. Good-
by ; all."

The ground was frozen smooth, and a few flakes
of snow fell slowly through the air, gray with the
approaching evening. As they hurried down the
lane by the orchard, they saw Harry, with his arms
folded over the fence, and his head drooped upon
them, gazing intently toward the house of the Irv-
ings, just visible through a vista of trees at that
spot.

" Why, Harry ! you have not been to tea yet,
and here you stand in the cold," spoke his sister,
running up to him, and looking into his face with
so much sadness and tenderness that he could not
resent the sympathy her looks inferred. " Dear
brother, I can not bear to see you so grave and
pale. Come along with us to-night, will you not ?
Eichard will be out, and I want you to sit with
me."'

"!N"o no! not to-night, Maggie. I had rather
b* alone."

68 MORMON WIVES; A NAKRATIVE

She kissed his cheeks, and told Jiim not to stand
there any longer.

" Do come to town oftener. Cry ' Begone, dull
care !' and whistle all melancholy down the wind,"
called out Eichard to him, in a bluff, hearty voice,
as his wife came back to him, and they passed
along.

As they drew near to the residence of the Irv-
ings, they saw that Sarah was out walking back
and forth through the long front portico. It was a
chilly night, and almost dark ; there was already
some snow gathering in the crevices around the
house ; but she wore no shawl or hood to protect
her from the cold. The wind waved her black silk
dress about her limbs, and tossed her hair, which
was blacker than her dress. They could not see
distinctly through the gathering gloom, but they
thought that she looked thinner in face and form
than when they met her last. She did not visit
them now, except at long intervals, when she was
quite certain that she should not meet Harry. They
could not treat her coldly, despite of their sympathy
with their brother ; for they believed that she had
not meant to wrong him, and they saw that for

OF FACTS STKANGEK THAN FICTION. 69

gome mysterious reason she was unhappy. They
could only love them both, and hope that sometime
all would be well.

" How do you do, Sarah ?" they called out, gayly,
as they came opposite her in the road.

She lifted her head, answered faintly, " How do
you do ?" and re-commenced her lonely promenade.

" You will get sick, exposed to this bitter cold,"
cried out Margaret again.

"That would be a piece of good fortune," was the
reply ; and with this they left her to her thoughts.

CHAPTER IV.

"But man crouches and blushes,

Absconds and conceals;

He creepeth and peepeth,

He palters and steals."

RALPH WALDO EMEBSON.

WE have said that Eichard Wilde was am-
bitious, and that he was not quite content to settle
down in his native place. This might have been
the key to all his subsequent proceedings, although,
it was not the motive the most prominently be-
fore his friends and the public.

TJie day after the one which ends the last
chapter, he told Margaret that he wished her to
attend a lecture with him in the evening. He
had been very deeply interested in the one of
the preceding night, and he wished her to go
and see if she would be as pleased as he had
been. The speaker was a stranger, and the sub-
ject was a religious one.

" A religious one!" Then the wife would be

\
FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 71

glad to go, for the desire most fervent in her
heart was that her husband might be influenced
by the right, and withdrawn from the verge of
that dangerous skepticism upon which he stood.

She went; and the man was a Mormon, and
his object was to convert as many people as he
could, and induce them to join the great caravan
which was even then on its way from Missouri
to the Great Salt Lake city, which had been
chosen and laid out the previous summer. They
had stopped, the most of them, for the winter,
on the banks of the Missouri river, and would
be glad to be joined by new friends and brethren
before they began their journey in the spring.

Such arguments as might possibly deceive the
unlearned and the very fanatical, were given with
a kind of eager, rough eloquence, that was pe-
culiarly the speaker's own ; but not such reasoning
as should have influenced an honest or intelligent
mind. Margaret came away disgusted, and her
husband came away a Mormon convert !

That was a very unpleasant night for the young
wife. The two sat up until long past midnight
discussing the subject which had suddenly be-

72 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

come of such vital importance to them. The
gentle nature of Margaret ha:d never been so
thoroughly aroused in opposition to any matter
before ; the glow burned upon her cheeks, and the
proud light flashed from her eyes as she heaped
indignant scorn upon the doctrines which had
been set forth. The one fearful vice which now
forms so prominent a feature of the Mormon in-
stitution had, at that time, been little discussed
by the public, and she was ignorant of its ex-
istence in that society. But the whole matter
wore to her such a look of farce and trickery
played off by a few leaders upon a foolish and
devoted people, that she was lost in astonishment
that her husband Kichard Wilde whom she so
muph admired and honored for his keen and

logical intellect could be, for a moment, duped

or influenced.

"You are not in earnest, Richard !" she exclaimed,
bursting into tears, when he at length announced,
in answer to her plea, that he had resolved to
join the emigrants, and become one of the found-
ers of the future city.

"Now, Margaret," said her husband, drawing

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 73

her upon Ms knee, and caressing her; "you ought
to be glad to hear that."

" Glad to leave my father and mother my
home to go away into that wilderness! and
worse, to bring disgrace upon ourselves by such
a religion ! oh, Eichard !"

"Have you not told me time and again, Mag-
gie, that you would cheerfully sacrifice home,
and country, and worldly prosperity, and all
things, to see me a professor of the religion of
Jesus Christ ?"

"Yes, I have, Eichard: and I would; but this
is the mockery of false prophets this is not the
religion of Jesus Christ."

" Well, Margaret, my wife, I leave the decision
of my future with you. I have always found it
impossible to give my faith at all to the formal
and repelling ceremonies which seem to me, in
this community, to usurp the place of some real
religion if there be such a thing. And finding
nothing here to fix my heart upon, I have fallen
almost into a state of entire unbelief; doubts and
perplexities have pressed upon me ; and I have
found my intellect warring with satire and phil-

74 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

osophy against my soul. But in this new insti-
tution I find something to attract and interest
me; my fancy, at least, if not my heart, is en-
gaged; I think that I can see my way through
into a more satisfactory belief. It rests with you
whether you will encourage this, or throw me
back upon my old skepticism."

Poor Margaret ! this was a new way of putting
the question to her. She felt that there was
something hollow in this speech, yet she could
not detect or expose it. And, perhaps, this was
the way in which her unwearied prayers for her
husband were to be answered; perhaps it was
only given her through sacrifice of much that
was dear to her, to be permitted to effect im-
mortal good for him. And should she shrink
from the coveted test of her sincerity, now that
it had a shape different from what she expected ?

That fathomless love, which lives in the heart
of a true woman for her husband and her God,
was stirred in her bosom to its deepest depths.
If it had been the martyrdom of herself, she
would not have shrunk, if convinced that her
husband's best interests demanded it. As it was,

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 75

the sacrifice was "hardly less cruel pride, old
beliefs and associations, old loves and home had
all to go.

"This has come suddenly upon me," she said,

, i
in a tremulous voice; "you have thrown such

an awful weight upon my conscience, that, for
the present, I am faint and confused. I will
think of what you have said; and you know,
dear Eichard, that however I decide, it will be
my love for you which prompts me."

The beautiful face, bathed in tears, sank upon
his breast, and Eichard, deeply moved by the
unselfish affection which hallowed those sweet
blue eyes, drew his wife more closely to his heart,
and they sat in silence for several moments a
silence, the sweetest in the world, for it is not
all silence when two hearts beat together as if
they were one, and the bliss of living is made
divine by being doubled. Even in the excited,
unsettled state of their minds, they were happy.

Neither of them slept much that night. Eichard
had his own thoughts about the step he had re-
solved to take, and his wife was too deeply dis-
turbed and grieved to rest; she passed the hours

76 MOKMON WIVES; A NARKATIVE

in a vain attempt to become reconciled to her
new fortunes, and in silent supplication to the
Source of all truth and wisdom to enlighten her
as to what was her duty in this perilous case.

After daybreak she fell into a light slumber,
and when her husband arose on his elbow and
looked upon her beloved face, the flush of tears
was yet upon her cheeks, and a slight con-
traction of the fair arched brow revealed to him
the shadow which lurked in her usually happy
dreams.

"I am asking her to resign a great deal for
my sake," he mused. " She will give up all that
is dear to her in the world to follow my for-
tunes. Dear Margaret! at least I will reward
you with all the devotion which your heart can
require."

"Do not look so sad, Margaret; do not, I beg
of you," he said, as they sat at the breakfast-
table, where the cup of coffee sat untasted by
her plate.

"I was thinking of mother, Eichard; and of
how I should break the news to her."

"Are you not willing to 'leave father and

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 77

mother, and cleave unto your husband?' you,
who are such a good Christian, Maggie?"

"If there is to be a choice between; but we
were so happy all here together. I have hardly
learned to do without my mother yet," said the
young wife, with a faint smile. " And she -I am
an only daughter, and I can not bear to leave her
so desolate."

"It is the destiny of families to be scattered
sooner or later, and when you became my wife
you ought "

" I know it I know it ! I do not hesitate a
moment that is, I would not if I were convinced
that it was for your temporal or spiritual benefit
that I should yield. But you will allow me some
natural emotions of regret will you not, Eichard ?"

"Why, yes, my darling; and you must not
think me so selfish as not to have dreaded this,
too. It is hard, I know, and it pains me deeply.
But I am acting now with reference to all our
future, earthly and eternal, and I must not pause
for trifles. "Wherever we are, you will have me,
Maggie, my love, my tenderness, my constant care

for your happiness. We will be a thousand times
5

78 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

dearer to each other, even than now, when we
have none but ourselves to cling to."

This appeal brought up from the depths of the
bright eyes opposite him, a look of such glad devo-
tion, that he knew his cause was gained. Never-
theless, when Mr. Wilde had gone out upon the
business of the day, Margaret's heart was any thing
but light. She felt as if she must fly to her mother
for counsel; and yet she dreaded the hour when
she should have to reveal a fact to her which was
not only painful to the affections, but mortifying to
their Puritan pride.

That day her husband brought home the Mor-
mon missionary to dinner. She could scarcely treat
him with ordinary politeness. He talked much and
well, but she grew more disgusted with him every
moment; not from any thing repelling in his ap-
pearance, but because of the influence he exerted
over Kichard. Their conversation was not so
much upon the religious theories of his people as
upon their future worldly prospects. The beauty
and richness of the country which they were to
appropriate the means within themselves of amass-
ing wealth the ease with which men of talent and

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 79

education among them obtained eminence and po-
sition among the brethren their prospects for be-
coming a mighty nation by themselves, and with
their own government were some of the points
discussed.

" ' First come first served, 7 you know, Mr.
Wilde. Now is the time for a man of some for-
tune and more ability, like yourself, to make him-
self a name and fame, and secure to himself all the
exaltation of wealth and renown. Glorious prizes
are verily thrown at your feet, and if you do not
pick them up, the fault is your own."

Margaret sat listening, and weighing their words
in the correct balance of her pure mind. She felt
more discouraged than before ; a faint doubt of the
truthfulness of her husband's convictions, and the
possibility of some merely worldly motive influenc-
ing him, troubled her ; yet she hardly knew which
was worst that he really should be the disciple of
a false prophet, or that he should put on such a
guise for selfish purposes.

After dinner Kichard went down town with the
missionary ; and Margaret, unable to bear the lone-
liness of the house, started to visit her mother. She

80 MOEMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

"had a little black pony in the stable which she could
saddle without assistance ; and although it was a
chilly winter day, she resolved to ride. The first
mile, galloping along through the sharp, bright air,
somewhat restored her spirits, when, all of a sudden,
the thought rushed over her, that this familiar coun-
try, every acre of which was dear to her, must be
deserted by her these fields, these trees, this pleas-
ant, winding road, even this precious jet-black steed,
who had known no restraining hand but hers, were
all to be changed for a strange, distasteful land ;
her parents, her brothers, the old homestead, the
ocean, whose grandeur had given a tinge of sub-
limity to her girlhood's dream, and which tossed
restlessly but a few miles away but most, her
mother! The tears which ran rapidly down her
cheeks so blinded her, that if the pony had not
known its destination, he might have gone far
astray.

" Now, for mercy's sake, child, what 's the mat-
ter ?" exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher, as Margaret came
into the hall, her eyes red with weeping.

She only threw her arms about her mother and
sobbed.

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 81

" In trouble so soon ! "What has happened, Mag-
gie?"

The young wife recovered herself with a quiver-
ing smile.

" I do believe it is only the first quarrel," spoke
out the good mother, somewhat relieved. " Has
Richard been cross, or denied you any thing, or
neglected to kiss you when he went out of the
house for an hour, baby ?"

" Oh, mother, it 's a great deal worse than that.
We are going out West early in the spring."

" Going out West, child?"

"Yes ! into the far, far West ; away off to Utah,
mother."

" Utah ?" was the still incredulous question.

" Yes, mother. And, what is worst of all, we are
going to the Great Salt Lake city ; Richard 's be-
come a Mormon."

Mrs. Fletcher uttered a little scream. It was very
seldom that she allowed her equanimity to be dis-
turbed ; but this was no trifling shock, and she
sunk down into a chair, unable to give any other
expression to her feelings.

"Don't look so sad, dear mother don't; I feel
6

82 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

so badly already. And perhaps it's all for the
best."

"All for the bestl This comes from marrying
an unbeliever. I do believe it's the judgment of
heaven upon you. My daughter's husband join
the Mormons ! It 's a disgrace a burning dis-
grace. I know your father will feel it so. He, a
deacon of the Church, and has always stood so high,
to have a son-in-law a disciple of Jo Smith instead
of Jesus Christ. This is what comes of being taken
with fine talents, and fine looks, and fine educa-
tion, instead of with goodness, and grace, and hu-
mility."

Perhaps this was the best thing the mother could
have said to arrest Margaret's passionate weeping.
If her friends were all to condemn Eichard, she
must defend him. So she dried her tears, and went
over to his side of the argument. The objections
she had so eloquently urged when talking with him
the previous night, were left out of sight, and only
his reasons and expectations given.

" It is your duty to stand by your nusband, child,
if you think he is right. He has already blinded
your judgment. I know, my darling, that it is his

OF FACTS STKANGEB, THAN FICTION. 83

soul's salvation which you seek. But ' be not de-
ceived ; God is not mocked.' '

" "Well, dearest mother, what else can I do ?
Eichard thinks he has found a rock to keep him
out of the ocean of skepticism : shall I push him off,
and leave him to struggle with its waters again?
You have often said that he had abundance of hard,
practical common sense. I trust greatly to that. I
think that when we arrive among this new people,
if his judgment is dissatisfied, that he will return.
He may lose a year or two of time, and some money
by the venture ; but I shall stop to weigh nothing
in the scale against his spiritual welfare."

" ' Ay, there 's the rub.' If it only was for his
spiritual welfare," murmured Mrs. Fletcher, with a
deep sigh. " This is bad news to break to your
father."

"And how can I leave him, and leave you,
mother ? Oh, I hope that Eichard will change his
mind, and grow weary of Mormonism, and come
back again. Yet this may be the answer to my
prayers, mother 1"

So it was that Margaret reconciled hersel

The saddest family group gathered around the

84 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

table that night which had been since the death of
a little sister years before. Mr. Fletcher did not
say as much as his wife had said, but he felt the
more deeply. He immediately detected in this sud-
den conversion some selfish, ambitious purpose,
which lay hidden from the unsuspicious eyes of
his wife and daughter

" Richard Wilde is too keen to be taken in the
trap of any such sham religion as that," he mused
in his heart. " A man that can argue as he can,
would never be duped by the doctrines of Jo
Smith. Something's at the bottom of this in the
shape of speculation. He '11 make his fortune out
there, but I don't like the way. Honesty's the best
policy. Poor Maggie, I 'm afraid for her."

The brothers were loud in their expressions of
disapprobation.

" I shall hate Kichard, if he takes away my only
sister," muttered John, a sturdy boy of fourteen.
" And I thought him such a splendid fellow be-
fore."

Almost every body thought Eichard Wilde a
"splendid fellow." That was the impression his
vivid wit and great tact in pleasing others, usually

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 85

left. He was so fond of being admired, that he did
not despise the good opinion of a child, and gen-
erally he said and did something for all which
delighted them. Yet many older heads who still
thought him a " good fellow," mistrusted the depth
of that goodness. The tendency to exaggerate,
which made him brilliant, took from his sincerity.
His impulses were not yet bad, only a little too
selfish. He was generous to others, but most
generous to himself. He, himself, having not
yet been tried in any great ordeal, thought himself
a good, perhaps a splendid fellow, and that his
lily -flower Margaret showed great discretion in lov-
ing him as she did. He adored her with a kind of
passion and unrest which did not promise as well
for duration as for strength ; but of this the pure
and single-hearted woman never dreamed.

Harry, like his father, did not say much. He
had seemed less cheerful even, when he first came
in, than when she had met him the day previous.
After hearing the exciting news, he fell into a
reverie from which he aroused himself, looking
more happy than he had done for a long
time.

86 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

" I do believe Harry is glad that we are going,"
said Margaret.

"I am glad; I think it will be a good thing
for Eichard."

This decision filled the family with surprise.
Margaret was comforted by it, for she placed con-
fidence in her brother. Far from her remotest
thought was any idea of the true cause which
influenced his opinion.

As they always gave her an early tea, the young
wife hoped to reach home in time to preside over
his cup for her husband ; she did not like him to
eat in solitude.

So telling them all that she would see them
soon again on the now-engrossing subject of her
visit, she sprang upon her pony and bounded away.

As she passed the Irvings', she saw Sarah, with
bonnet and cloak, waiting at the gate.

" Check the speed of your fiery steed, for I want
your company into town," she said, as she came
forth to meet her.

" Then you must get up behind, for I am in
haste, and pony wouldn't like to measure his
steps with your little feet."

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 87

"If you were an old-fashioned cavalier, there
would be something worth while in mounting the
same steed and flying away into the regions of
sunset, with the sounds of hot pursuit dying in
the distance/' laughed Sarah, as she sprang up,
and the little pony cantered away, looking rather
overloaded.

"You are too romantic for this common-place
era, Sarah ; you ought to have been born in the
days of troubadours ; those bright, proud eyes of
yours would have brought plenty of them to sigh
beneath your window. You must marry, and
settle down soberly, like me."

" What do I care for these eyes of mine, since
their arrows could not bring down the game I
wanted ? Do not talk to me about settling down
soberly. I never did any thing as other people
do ; and I have a presentiment that I shall not
marry as other people marry. By the way, I heard
a very strange rumor this afternoon."

"That we were going west?"

" Yes."

"Well, I fear that it is too true."

There was a long silence ; at length Sarah spoke

88 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

in a low voice, full of meaning, which startled her
friend.

( (Do you know that the Mormons believe in
potygamy, Margaret ?' :

She felt the heart around which her arm was
thrown give a sudden leap, but it grew composed
again.

"No," was the reply ; "and I do not believe it."

" Well, it is so." v * 1

"If Eichard knew that he would not go near
them," said the wife, at length ; " he would be
too much shocked. I think you must be mis-
taken: there are so many reports."

Sarah did not repeat the charge, and Margaret
went on to tell her about the lecture and the
missionary, etc., until they reached her home.

" I am just in the mood for riding a little
farther," said Sara, as the other dismounted, "and
if you do not object to loaning your horse for a
half hour, I will ride on."

" I would loan you any thing I possessed, ex-
cept the heart of my husband. But is it not
too cold to ride so near night?"

" Not too cold for me : I love it."

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 89

She sprang into the seat, and waving her
hand with a grace which none but herself might
equal, she touched the fiery little pony with the
whip, and away they flew down a cross-street
leading out into a road which ran down to the
sea. There was no wind, but the air was sharp,
and the sun was low. Her cheeks were crimson
with the cold ; her hood fell back, and her glossy
black hair floated around her face in disorderly
curls. If James could have seen her in that declin-
ing winter light, he would thereafter have written
eternally about one young horsewoman riding
down upon the beach, instead of two horsemen
riding over a hill if indeed he did not mistake
her for an apparition, and write about a spirit upon
a bewitched steed. Before he would have time
to rub his eyes and convince himself, she would
have been out of sight as by magic,, so madly
she hurried her swift little horse along the path.

It was half an hour's ride to the ocean, and
although she had only asked to be gone that
length of time, when she came in sight of those
eternal waves, the same spirit which had prompted
the ride, impelled her on to the shore. Ah, how

90 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

cold it was there, and the sun was sinking behind
her. But the moon was rising before her. Out
of that bed of silvery ripples in the dim distance
she came up, and hung cold and bright over a
glittering waste.

Sarah Irving rode to and fro along the gravelly
beach. There were none in that lonely spot to
wonder at her mood, only the poor pony whom
she gave not time to breathe, as she urged him.
back and forth. Her eyes, growing darker and
more intense, looked over the boundless waters.
As moonlight took the place of day, she too began
to look pallid and wan ; the ocean had on a ghostly
splendor which was reflected in her face. The
waves rolled in upon the beach, expiring with a
prolonged cry. By-and-by she too began to cry
out in a long, low voice, " Oh, no, I can not, I can
not I" she cried, and then the next moment, "but
I will I must!" No other human being could
have rightly guessed the secret of the struggle in
her swelling breast. It heaved with sighs like
the infinite bosom of the sea before her.

"Oh, sea!" she sobbed at last, turning her
horse's head, and facing it, " we must have some-

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 91

thing in common, so strangely do you sympathize
with my words. But you are more or less than
human. I, alas, am human ; in my breast is the
war of passion against principle : you know not
the awful strife. Yet your voice is sadder, your
sighs morp mighty than mine. Can you feel more
than I do? Have you a grief? do you know
mortal or immortal pain like mine?"

The tide was coming in; even as she ceased
speaking, the waves, crested with glittering foam,
broke around her horse's feet, who plunged and
shivered beneath her restraining hand ; she sat
erect and held him subdued.

" I knew that you returned my love," she con-
tinued; " and here you are creeping close to me at
the sound of my voice, to assure me of your
good understanding with me. We are friends.
Are we not both wild, and fascinatirg, and sad,
and unrestrainable ? You have many lovers,
ocean ! and so have I ; but I have not the one
whom alone of all I sought. You toss ships,
and treasures, and men into destruction to prove
your power ; why should not I toss one poor,
feeble heart aside, to prove mine ?"

92 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

Perhaps she waited for an answer to her hard
question, forgetful, in the whirl of her excited
mind, that the friendship of the sea was not to
be trusted ; again the breakers rolled in ; and
this time they swept her away. They hurled
her off her horse, whose frightened scream she
heard as the cold waves deluged him. They
drove the blinding mist into her eyes ; they seized
upon her breath ; they chilled her heart, and
she knew no more of what they did with her.

The sea was not very cruel, after all. It would
do by her as she would do by others: if she
would toss a human heart aside as mad, it would
toss her aside; yet not quite hopelessly. When
it had played with her a moment, it threw her
chilled and senseless upon the pitiless shore,
where she must have very soon perished, had
not a horseman, as by providence, come riding
down that way.

It was Harry Fletcher, who had followed his
sister into town to talk with Eichard about the
news, and had been sent by her in search of the
long- absent girl who had ridden off alone toward
the ocean. He threw himself beside her, and drag-

OF FACTS STKANGER THAN FICTION. 93

ged her away from danger ; he took her head upon
his bosom, and chafed her hands, and kissed her
lips ; it was in vain to try to resuscitate her there,
and her wet garments were freezing around her.
He flung her light form over his horse's neck,
sprang into the saddle, and rode to the first farm-
house.

Poor Jenny, Margaret's beautiful black pony,
was not thought of in that moment ; the waves
did not treat her as kindly as they did the mis-
tress who compelled her into danger she drifted
out, and went down to darkness and death.

The people who lived at the farm-house had a
large fire and a bed in the sitting-room. They had
had cases of drowning to attend to before this one,
and with skill and kindness they soon revived the
sufferer. The woman put dry garments upon her,
covered her in the bed, and gave her a little wine.
Harry was admitted to see her lying pale and beau-
tiful upon the pillow, to hear her whisper, "I
thank you," to him, as her preserver for although
Sarah was not happy, she was young, and not
really quite ready to die to meet the glance of

her sad eyes beaming almost tenderly upon him,
6

94 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

and then lie rode away after Margaret to come and
stay the night with her.

When he returned with his sister, they found her
doing very well ; there was a faint color in her
cheeks borrowed from the heat of the fire which
blazed opposite ; she looked so subdued and gentle
that she was hardly like the same Sarah who had
left her home two hours before. Her hair, from
which the salt sea was drying, had parted into a
thousand little shining strands, indescribably beau-
tiful. Harry, now that the fright was over, was
completely overcome ; his overstretched nerves re-
laxed ; as he sat by the bed the tears welled quietly
from his eyes, and were wiped away. The people
were all out of the room, and Margaret went too
for something which the invalid needed.

"You need not weep any more," said the young
girl in a faint voice, reaching out her hand across
the bed to him; "you shall have the life which
you have saved."

He gazed at her an instant as if afraid that he
mistook.

" If you dare take so wild a creature, I will be
yours."

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 95

The half smile and blush assured him that he
had heard aright; and he bowed his lips to that
hand which had been given him, in a thrill of joy
too sudden for words.

CHAPTER Y.

"The breath of the morning is with her,
Wherever my darling goes.

" "What if, with her sunny hair,

And smile as sunny as sweet,

She meant to weave me a snare

Of some coquettish deceit ?"

TENNYSON VMATTD."

SAEAH IKYING had neither father nor mother.
She inherited a few thousand dollars, over which
she now, being of age, held entire control, and
lived with an uncle and aunt who were childless.
They loved her very tenderly, and had indulged
her too much for the true good of so wayward a
spirit. After losing her parents, and when be-
tween eight and twelve years of age, she had
visited amid her friends and relations, her home
being unsettled; and as she was beautiful, win-
ning, and heiress to some wealth, she was every-
where petted and caressed. The strong will of
her wild but interesting nature grew unchecked;
when she finally found a permanent resting-place

FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 97

at her Uncle living's. They were afraid of even
the appearance of uokindness to the orphan, and
allowed her to grow just as her own character
inclined itself.

All the wildness about her might have been
trained into exquisite proportions, but she came
up like the forest vine. All owned the charm.
of her very willfulness, while few foresaw that it
would ever bring her any trouble.

All that there was unusual about her was very
bewitching. Her laughter and her frown had beau-
ty in them ; her gracefulness knew no rules ; she
herself made the laws which governed her dress
and her manners. If, sometimes, she was angry,
it was only a flash of summer lightning, break-
ing out from her dark eyes, and revealing more
clearly her warm and glorious beauty. If she
took offense without reason, she was as quick as
the humblest child to implore pardon for her mis-
deeds.

So here she was in her nineteenth year, and no
persons but the envious had ever found serious
fault with her, until the next morning after her
accident, when her aunt and uncle heard of her

98 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

*
last night's peril. They had supposed her safe at

Mr. Wilde's, until the news arrived, by way of
Harry, the next day; and then their fright and
anxiety convinced them, for the first time, that
their niece was altogether too careless, and too full
of wild freaks to be trusted ; and they gave the
poor child a lecture, meant to be very severe,
when they arrived at the cottage where she was
waiting to be taken home.

The husky voice in which her uncle scolded, and
the kiss with which her aunt was finally obliged to
turn suspicion from a tell-tale tear, showed Sarah
that they were not half so offended with her as she
deserved. She got comfortably home, and there
was nothing then to cry about but the loss of the
pony. Margaret shed many tears for him, and
Sarah accused herself vehemently for his loss.

Harry could not grieve even for poor Jenny.
He thought his happiness cheaply purchased by
her life. If he had been as cool and calm in his
love-matters as in his business affairs, his good
sense would have taught him to have feared the
stability of words spoken under such circumstances.
Gratitude is not love; and it remained to show

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 99

whether even that sentiment would diminish or
increase. He did not stop to think ; his being was
absorbed in feeling ; his mental faculties were
buried in a delicious stupor, while his heart held
high revel.

That evening he went to see Sarah. He found
her sitting in a large arm-chair before the fire,
a crimson shawl wrapped about her, and the hair
brushed back plainly from her somewhat pale fore-
head, and falling in clusters of curls around her
shoulders. She received him very quietly, yet
very pleasantly ; he had never seen her when she
appeared so perfectly contented, and to be enjoying
such sweet repose ; every trace of restlessness had
gone from her voice and manner. It was the calm
after the tempest ; the peace of exhaustion ; the girl
felt as if her destiny had been decided for her, and
she was too weary to struggle with it any longer
she would take it as it came, and be glad that
circumstances had taken the trouble of any further
doubt away from her.

If a dream had flitted across his brain during
the day, that a promise made under such exciting
impulses should not be relied upon, he forgot it

100 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

now, as he gazed and gazed upon that serene
countenance with the intensity of hope and passion.
Her aunt had said, as she retired to her own sitting-
room, that Sarah must go to bed early ; and Harry,
fearful of fatiguing her, staid but a little while,
and made no reference to the great event of the
previous evening. But when he arose to go, he
bent over her, and pressed his first kiss upon her
lips ; then he looked into her face with a lover's
boldness, to see how she received it. Her eyes were
cast down, but she neither smiled nor frowned. Ob,
how he yearned to have her look up and give
him one radiant glance in answer to the love
which was beaming from his gaze one of her
sweet, swift glances, only it should be touched
with a new beauty of timidity and affection ; but
those eyes were still modestly downcast, so he
said "good-night," softly, and went out from her
presence.

It was a great comfort to Margaret to hear of
the engagement of Sarah to her brother. She was
rejoiced not only that their happiness seemed now
secured, but she felt much more contented about
leaving her mother, since a new daughter was

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 101

going into the family, whose high spirits would
keep loneliness from haunting the old homestead,
and whose merry fingers and sweet voice would
fill the parlor with the old, beloved melodies.

The holidays came and were spent in the usual
round of feasting and gayeties, the cheerfulness
becoming to the season being shaded a little by
the thought that it was the last time for many
years that Margaret would grace the family circle
Eichard said that just as soon as the great tide of
emigration setting westward made the journey
back less difficult, that his wife should return and
stay as long as she wished ; but it would be a long
time before they could hope for such a state of
civilization, and in the mean time, what might not
happen ? "Who, of all these dear ones, would be
missed from the group, when she returned?
Would her mother not probably be taken away
before that? What loss might not sickness and
accident bring? Such questions were continually
stirring in Margaret's heart, and dimming her
eyes with tears in the midst of the brightest

hours.
*
After New Year's they were all very busy aiding

102 MOKMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

in the preparation for the long and wearisome
journey. Eichard had his business to settle up,
and Margaret the providing of such comforts as it
was possible to take with them. Sarah sewed for
her many an hour, and Mrs. Fletcher's most abid-
ing thought was " What more can I do for them ?
what else can I add to their store of necessaries ?"

The young couple had possessed a large circle
of friends and admirers ; but the tide of popular
feeling was now against them, and there were but
few who expressed their good- will either by cheer-
ing words or tokens of affection.

Eichard's own father was very bitter; the min-
ister was bitterer still. He called upon Mrs.
"Wilde, when he first heard of their intention,
to know if it was possible that she, a member of
his church, could cast such discredit upon her
profession, as to consent, for any reason, to accom-
. any her husband into the midst of a wicked and
f IPO people.

jfargaret wept a good deal daring his visit, and
expressed /her own regret at the step, but said
firmly that where Eichard went she must go,
and expressed her hope that this delusion of liis

OF FACTS STKANGER THAN FICTION. 103

might result in the conversion of his soul to the
true religion in the course of time.

The pastor represented the enormities and idol-
atries of the Mormons in indignant terms, and left
his lamb of the fold feeling very lost, unsettled,
and unhappy. Eichard, in turn, had an equally
warm and indignant defense to set up : he dwelt
upon the persecutions to which a homeless and
peaceful people had been subjected; called for
proof that there was any thing evil in their habits
or belief ; commended their wisdom and prudence,
and their wonderful patience, perseverance and in-
dustry. He painted their future success and pros-
perity in almost too glowing terms ; for Margaret
apprehended that his mind was more captivated by
the projected splendor of their worldly enterprises,
than by their religion.

She had nothing to do, however, but to sub-
mit, to pray more fervently, and to trust, with a
woman's faith, that all would be well.

As for Harry, as the weeks flew by he was
not quite so happy as he had expected to be.
Sarah had gone back into her old capricious
moods; and try to be satisfied as he might, he

104 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

could not shake off a feeling of discontent at her
conduct. Sometimes she was wrapped away out
of his sight in a cloak of cold reserve ; again she
was sad, and could give no explanation of her
gloom ; then she put on a bewildering, tantalizing
gayety ; occasionally she gave him a playful caress
or a thrilling glance, but never did he find her in
that subdued, tender and loving mood for which
he longed.

" She does not love me, and she will never make
me happy why do I not resign her at once ?" he
asked himself again and again, and always the
answer was "I can not give her up ; she is only
wayward, a wild bird that refuses to be tamed, yet
ah! so beautiful I"

And at the vision of her beauty the resolution to
prove himself wise and proud melted into air.

One evening he sat with her and others in her
uncle's parlor. She was in one of her unapproach-
able and queenly guises, not petulant, but cold.
She sat near the lamp, and made it an excuse to
be very busy with her crocheting of, a purse for
him, that she need talk but little. He asked to
hold the little ball of blue silk, but she put it in her

OF FACTS STRANGER THAK FICTION. 105

pocket ; he essayed to make her drop a stitch and
she received his pleasantry very seriously.

At last he gave up the hope of interesting her
and sat gazing rather sullenly upon her bright,
impassive face, with its downcast eyes fixed upon
her work. Suddenly a step and voice were heard
in the hall ; the blood rushed into Sarah's cheeks ;
her hand trembled so that she dropped more than
one stitch ; the full blaze of the lamp shone upon
her, and Harry could see how her heart beat rap-
idly beneath its bodice. She was aware that she
had betrayed agitation, and she turned her chair
nervously so as to shade her face.

It was only Eichard Wilde who entered, and
presently the young girl was calm again ; but her
lover was not ; he it was who was now silent and
reserved, yet who noted with a jealous eye how soft
and rich a tone her voice took on unconsciously as
she answered the new comer, how the flush lin-
gered on her cheek, and how she stole glances at
his married brother which he would have periled
his soul to win. In vain she now became conde-
scending and social to him, striving to cover past
haughtiness with present humility ; gloom was upon

106 FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION.

his brow and the agony of mistrust in his heart.
Harry might have been mistaken in his fierce sus-
picion ; he was a jealous lover, and

" Trifles light as air

Are, to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ."

CHAPTER VI.

"And ever in soft dreams
Of future love and peace sweet converse lapt
Our willing fancies, till the pallid beams
Of the last watchfire fell, and darkness wrapt
The waves, and each bright chain of floating fire was snapt

"And till we came even to the city's wall,
And the great gate, then, none knew whence or why
Disquiet on the multitude did fall."

SHELLEY.

THE twentieth day of March had arrived the*
day set for the departure of Eichard and Margaret
from the home of their youth for a far, uncivilized
land. They were to go to New York, and there
join a company who were bound for the same
goal, proceed from there to St. Louis by railroad,
take a boat up the Missouri, buying horses and
wagons at the latter city to use in passing the
vast plains and discouraging mountains which lay
between the furthermost-bound boat and their re-
mote destination.

A weeping group was gathered about the youth-
ful adventurers. Margaret summoned all her res-

108 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

olution when the carriage, which was to convey
them to the depot, came to the door. One by one
her friends embraced her, and their tears fell hot
upon her cheeks. She would not give way to the
sobs which choked her when her father and mother
took her in their arms, for fear of adding to their
already too burdensome grief. Last of all came
Sarah to say good-by. She had been laughing and
jesting all the morning, as it seemed, with a brave

endeavor to keep up the spirits of the rest of the

i

party ; but as she gave her hand to Eichard, and
he kissed her with tear-blinded eyes as he had the
rest of his friends, she turned very pale. Giving
her hand from his grasp to that of Margaret, she
tried to say her farewell, but her lips quivered
without any sound, and she fell fainting into her
arms. Here was an event which added to their
already excited feelings ; but the carriage could not
wait. Margaret kissed the white cheek of her
childhood's companion, and amid repressed sobs
of grief, was led out and lifted into the vehicle.

Their first half-day's ride was gloomy enough.
Margaret had her vail over her face to conceal the
tears which flowed silently but plentifully. There

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 109

was something exhilarating in the swift motion of
the cars, and her unrestrained weeping had " eased
her heart," so that, at last, by the persuasions of
Eichard, she lifted her vail, and allowed herself to
be diverted by the variety of scenes through which
they impetuously swept.

In New York they had a day or two of sight-
seeing, the rest of the company not being quite
ready for their journey. Her husband was so full
of hope and animation, that Margaret would have
been tolerably content were it not for the thought
of those she was leaving behind. She had traveled
but little a trip to Niagara with her father being
almost the extent of her experiences so that all
things had the charm of novelty.

Their company was made up of the superior
class of emigrants men like Eichard, who were
of some fortune and education, and who, perhaps,
like him, had some other than religious motives in
embarking their all in such a venture with their
families, women following their husbands as Euth
did Naomi, and a few children who knew but little
except of the pleasures of continual change.

They were weary enough of their long ride when

110 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

they reached St. Louis ; here they had a day or two
in which to rest, while procuring stores for theii
journey, cattle, wagons and provisions, and wait-
ing for a boat.

The spring rain had swelled the river, so that
their boat panted and puffed along quite steadily.
They were ten days in reaching Council Bluffs,
where they were to begin the most tedious part of
their wanderings.

Those ten days were really enjoyed by Margaret.
She had now become somewhat acquainted with
her fellow-passengers, with all of whom she was
rendered a favorite by her personal beauty and
sweetness of disposition. Many of them she liked
in return. They had various kinds of amusements
to beguile their time going on in the cabin ; but as
the weather was quite warm and dry, it was her
chief enjoyment to sit out on deck with Kichard,
marking the scenery through which they passed,
and talking over the future and the past. Not
even in the days of their betrothal had he been at
more pains to make himself agreeable to her. He
seemed to dread lest home-sickness should take
possession of her, and to avert that calamity he was

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. Ill

more lover-like than ever. As they passed the
Bluffs, which rose in beautiful terraces, now close
to the shore, and now sweeping further back into
the country, he would point out every new charm,
and talk with a winning eloquence about the wild,
free, beautiful life tney would live in that far away
new world, that wonderful Atlantis, where all of
nature's magnificence would be theirs, and wealth,
and honor had only to be sought and found.

The conventionalities, the cold-hearted formal-
ities of civilized barbarism should not fetter them
there. It is true that they would dwell in a city,
but a city unlike any other that ever was built a
city of sisters and brothers living in peace and
delight. They would be free to worship in the
grandest temples of nature, to love the beautiful, to
grow out of the harshness and conventionality of old
ceremonies each into his own individuality. Their
natures would expand like the glorious prairies
around them, and their unfettered hearts would
expand with the worship of all things pure, and
truthful, and free, and thus they would ever be-
come capable of a more perfect love toward one
another. As their spiritual being grew in beauty

112

toward the Above, their union would become still
more what the angels would contemplate with pleas-
ure, so that the ever-increasing fairness of their
pathway through life would lead them, at length,
both to a still more lovely life in another world.

These were a few of the anticipations which he
poured into her fascinated ear as they sat alone on
the deck, oftentimes in the mystic moonlight, which
gave all their surroundings a weird and softened
look, while her little hand nestled itself in his, and
he rounded all his most eloquent periods with a
kiss upon her smiling mouth. How could she
choose but take him at his word, and believe that
they were really just about entering a new At-
lantis, the most beautiful the world ever dreamed
of? At least, whether it were a desert or a para-
dise, she was with her husband, and he loved her,
and would love her yet more and more.

Arrived at Council Bluffs the party put them-
selves in marching order. They joined another
company who had come from St. Louis in wagons,
and, in all, numbered a hundred fighting men, who
were all well armed, and half as many women and
children. There was quite an array, and as the

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 113

weather was fine and provisions ample, the emi-
grants were in fine spirits. - f .

A slight cloud came over them, though, the first
day, as they reached the little village, a few miles
beyond Council Bluffs, where the Mormons had
wintered, a large body of them, the season before.
They had extemporized this village for their win-
ter quarters; cold, famine, and disease had made
sad havoc with their numbers, and more than a
hundred new-made graves met the startled eyes
of their brethren who followed after/ This un-
fortunate company of saints, when they left, but a
few weeks previous, this, their unhappy stopping-
place, shook the dust from off their feet, and
cursed it in sorrow and bitterness of heart

The memory of the rest of that lon'g and perilous
pilgrimage became afterward like a fever-dream to
Margaret ; it haunted her like something she had
endured, and yet which had no reality. During its
progress she thought often of that vivid picture in
" Alton Locke's" wonderful fever-vision. She re-
peated it to her husband ; and as it is an altogether
more true and sublime history of her journeying

than we can give, we quote it :
8

114 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

" The noise of wheels crushing slowly through
meadows of tall marigolds and asters, orchises and
fragrant lilies. * * * So I slept, and woke,
and slept again, day after day, week after week, in
the lazy bullock-wagon, among herds of gray cattle
guarded by huge, lop-eared mastiffs ; among shag-
gy, white horses, heavy-horned sheep, and silky
goats ; among tall, bare-limbed men, with stone
axes on their shoulders and horn bows at their
backs. Westward, through the boundless steppes,
whither or- why we knew not, but that the All-
Father had sent us forth. And behind us, the rosy
snow-peaks died into ghastly gray, lower and
lower as every evening came; and before us the
plains spread infinite, with gleaming salt-lakes, and
ever fresh tribes of gaudy flowers. Behind us,
dark lines of living beings streamed down the
mountain slopes; around us, dark lines crawled
along the plains all westward westward ever.
The tribes of the Holy Mountain poured out like
water to replenish the earth and subdue it love-
streams from the creator of that great soul- volcano
Titan babes, dufcib angels of God, bearing with
them, in their unconscious pregnancy, the law, the

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 115

freedom, the science, the poetry, the Christianity of
Europe and the world.

" Westward ever who could stand against us ?
"We met the wild asses on the steppe, and tamed
them, and made them our slaves. We slew the
bison-herds, and swam broad rivers on their skins.
The Python-snake lay across our path ; the wolves
and the wild dogs snarled at us out of their coverts ;
we slew them, and went on. The forests rose in
black, tangled barriers ; we hewed our way through
them, and went on. Strange giant tribes met us,
and eagle-visaged hordes, fierce and foolish; we
smote them, hip and thigh, and went on westward
ever. Days and weeks rolled on, and our wheels
rolled on with them."

So to Margaret's excited imagination seemed their
long, long wanderings. She saw great prairies all
in a whirl and splendor of flame ; broad, nameless
rivers glittered in the sunlight; she breathed the
aroma of unknown flowers ; she heard the scream
of the panther and the yell of the wild Indian ; she
saw hills standing up against the sky, which they
were to wearily climb ; she trernbled at times with
fear, and again she thrilled with speechless pleasure

116 FACTS STKANGER THAN FICTION.

as she looked abroad over lands of wonderful mag-
nificence.

They left more than one new grave to its awfuU
solitude in the wilderness ; and they welcomed two
or three infant souls, born in sorrow and discomfort,
to a place in their never-resting company. More
than once they thirsted for water, and were mocked
by glittering springs and pools of salt and bitter
waters ; again, they feasted upon delicious berries
gathered at morning from the dewy plains ; and so
with joy and pain they traveled on, till they found
an abiding-place in the eager, hospitable heart of
the Great City of the Saints.

CHAPTER VII.

"The mother, with her dewy eye,

Is dearer than the blushing bride
Who stood, three happy years gone by,
In beauty by my side."

BURLEIGH.

FOE a couple of months after their arrival, the
Wildes, like many others, lived in a tent or canvas
house. It was glorious autumn weather ; the
world around them had on a gorgeous appareling
of purple mist, and flowery prairies, and many-
hued foliage, such as they had never seen in their
chilly, New England home ; and Margaret, for a
time, was all enthusiasm. Her novel mode of life
had a thousand charms for her poetical nature,
which had found but little at home to stimulate, it,
except the ocean, ever grand, ever unequaled, and
whose green or purple waves she loved to fancy in
the soft swell of the grassy plains lying beneath her
gaze. It was a luxury to sit in her tent-door and
feel the delicious air blowing about her, sweet with

118 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

the breath of a million dying blossoms ; and a still
greater luxury to mount the Indian pony which
Eichard had presented her, and ride away by his
side into the sublime solitudes which surrounded
the city.

Bitter drops soon began to distill into her cup of
sweets. Her day-dreams were broken in upon con-
stantly by uncongenial companions. The women
of Utah were talkative and inquisitive more than
women usually are, for the simple reason that their
homes were not happy and they did not believe
in any of their number setting themselves up to be
unsocial or exclusive. They were disposed to show
Margaret more attention than she cared to recipro-
cate. She was very much disappointed in the char-
acter of the community generally. She was a stout
republican, and yet she felt it impossible to frater-
nize with some who claimed her friendship.

The city itself was busy, prosperous, neat and
pleasant: and Kichard was full of animation and
ambition ; but Margaret grew all the time less satis-
fied. She began to get glimpses of the true state of
religion and domestic morals amid the people. She
could hardly tolerate their religious ceremonies, but

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 119

attended them in obedience to the wishes of her
husband. Her pure nature was inexpressibly shock-
ed by those other principles which she dreaded, and
yet was compelled to believe were rife amid the
community. Eichard glossed the matter over for a
while to her, but her female friends were continually
revealing facts to her, and endeavoring to elicit her
sentiments. She gave them no room to doubt of
her displeasure and detestation. The severity of
her rebuke was more than they could bear, and
Richard was soon given to understand that his wife
must use more discretion that it was not becoming
for a stranger in their midst to inveigh against ex-
isting institutions.

Richard's desires that she should keep her own
counsels, were very earnestly expressed. He was
ambitious ; he wished to make a fortune ; but most
he aspired to gain influence over his fellow-men.
This, by means of his tact and brilliant talents, he
was rapidly acquiring, and he could not be thwart-
ed in his aims by having a prejudice gotten up
against his beautiful wife. He wished her to con-
ciliate to use her fine powers of pleasing, as he did
Jiis own, for selfish purposes. Bat this he dared

120 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

not ask of her ; in truth, he was not yet so selfish
in his love of power, that he wished to see his wife
any less modest, truthful, gentle, and pure than she
was.

"When talking with her, he condemned, as heart-
ily as she could wish, the sin which threatened to
undermine their social foundations, but he made her
promise silence.

Margaret was almost sorry when their little adobe
house was finished the tent was so novel and
charming ; but a cold breath of wind sweeping in
through the canvas, proclaimed the approach of
winter, and the comforts of a more substantial
dwelling.

" It is not equal to the home we left," she said
with a sigh, when the few articles of plain furniture
were arranged in the four small rooms which com-
pleted the cottage. "Oh, for my beloved piano,
and our books, Kichard I"

"Wait just a few years until we have our
railroad built, darling; then you shall have a
piano, and every thing else that your heart can
imagine. This is but a temporary home. I am
going to be a rich man, Maggie, a very rich man ;

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 121

and you are to reign as a kind of queen over this
new Atlantis."

" Ah, Kichard, I have no ambition of that 'kind ;
I only dread lest your glowing schemes lead you
unconsciously into selfishness. I only fear that
your heart, which is now all mine, will be divided
between me and the idols of your earthly ambition.
For the world with all its splendor, J would not
have you lose your singleness of heart, your pure
tastes, your love of the beautiful, your devotion to
me," she added with a blushing smile, though the
tears were in her eyes, so earnestly she spoke.

She put her arms about his neck,- and leaned her
head in her chttd-like manner against his breast.

" The touch of this beautiful head upon my
bosom is worth more than all my hopes of worldly
success to me," he said, in his most deep and tender
tone. " Never never shall I do any thing which
shall prevent it from reposing thus confidingly
upon my heart, my wife Margaret."

"My wife Margaret 1" the musical, impassioned
tone his voice assumed in breathing her name,
thrilled her heart with the sweetest happiness.
Her new home grew all perfection to her then.

122 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

It was invested with the one glory which alone
can gild with true splendor either palace or cot-
tage ; the one radiance whose beauty no jewels
can emulate ; the one sunlight which makes sum-
mer in the dreariest climate.

" I am content with your love ; and would be any-
where," she said, after a moment of blissful silence.

" And a Iqving husband may atone for the want
of a piano ?" he asked, playfully.

" Yes ; that is, if he will sing for me the songs he
used to sing in the moonlight nights at home. His
voice is sweeter to me than any instrument."

" For that piece of flattery, then, I will repay you
with your old favorite let me see, w^iich one ?"

"I can wait a little while," said Margaret, laugh-
ing. " Moonlight airs will not sound accordant
before tea. Look ! the table is spread, and we will
partake of our first feast in the new house ; and it
will really be a feast, for a neighbor brought us
this delicious wild-honey to-day, and here are your
favorite cakes. We have coffee, too, made of
barley, which, with rich cream, is a drink not to be
scorned. We will have to drink it altogether,
hereafter, for I have given away all the tea we

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 123

brought with us to the old ladies of my acquaint-
ance, who are not used to being deprived of it, and
who really need it. That was right, wasn't it
dear ? for you care but little about tea, and we are
young, and can do without.' 7

"It was just like you, Maggie, and so I can not
say that I have any fault to find," was the affection-
ate reply; "though I think you had better have
saved one paper for yourself; you may need it by-
and-by."

" Not so much as they. How do you like bar-
ley-coffee ?"

' It 's as good as Mocha for me. This wild-
honey is one'of the sweets of barbarism, isn't it?"

" Say rather of nature. And I think it all the
more delicious when I remember that it was gath-
ered from prairie-flowers by bees, yellow-belted,
striped, and tattooed like Indian furies, coming
down in tiny hordes upon the frightened blossoms,
with spears all poised, to rifle them of their precious
stores. There is something romantic about our
repast, not unfit to be associated with poetry, re-
minding me of the feasting of Adam and Eve."

" That kind of poetic feeling is associated with

124 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

almost all that I do," replied Kichard. "There is
a charm the charm of wildness, and freedom from
old customs about every thing ; as if, in this far-
away west, we were indeed living in the beginning
of creation, or, at least, in another, newer world.
There is nothing to trammel my energies, no prec-
edent which I must follow, every thing is free, and
great, and boundless, and my spirit swells to a kin-
dred greatness."

"If it only were not for the people, Eichard,
I should think that our dreams might be realized.
But any amount of self-deception can not hide
the fact that, instead of escaping the evils and
stains of society, we have riveted around us those
of a more degrading kind. Instead of the re-
serve and coldness of New England civilization,
we have the interference and curiosity of ignorance
and prejudice. If we were living in the midst of
a few choice people, such as we would have chosen
for ourselves, we should indeed believe the Atlantis
was found."

"What do you think," said Kichard, after a
pause, " was proposed, to me, to-day, by one of
the leading elders?"

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 125

Margaret drew in her breath, and said she
could not guess.

"Nothing less than that, as my new house was
now finished, and had four good rooms, and as I
promised fair to be a man of influence, he thought
it best for me to set a good example by taking
another wife."

The young husband laughed merrily at the in-
dignant and breathless acorn of his beautiful com-
panion.

"How did he dree to insult you so grossly?"
she asked, when she Laci recovered somewhat from
her astonishment.

" Do you suppose he thought it an insult, darling ?"

" But I am sure ycu showed him that you con-
sidered it so."

' Well, I told him that I was a good Mormon,

but that I must have the privilege of managing my

domestic affairs as I pleased ; tuat I loved the wife

I had very dearly, and could not think of taking

, another as long as that was the case."

" I presume some envious woman who bofr^dg**
me my happiness was at the bottom of tiia

gestion," said Margaret.
8

126 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

" Or, perhaps, some woman who has become en-
amored of my beauty," said Kichard, laughing at
his own vanity.

" I should not wonder," answered the wife, look-
ing up into his handsome face with a proud smile.
" As if she thought my Kichard was to be won 1"

" They little dream of what true love is, Maggie,
or true happiness, either. Strange ! that people will
thus wreck their own best interests, and involve
themselves in all kinds of intricate, miry laby-
rinths, chasing after an ignis fatuus, when the star
of peace burns brightly at home. But since we
are among them we must take the good and leave
the evil. Think as little of it as you can, my
darling ; and perhaps in time the community will
see its own folly, and return to the true life."

" Well, I am almost glad that it is coming win-
ter, that I may make the weather and my health
an excuse for not going out. I can not forget
my Puritan education, Eichard, far enough to as-
sociate with those women without a shudder of
dislike."

"You must remember that they are deceived,
that they do wrong just when trying most earnestly

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 127

to do right. Many of them are forced into their
present circumstances, and are unhappy enough
to merit your pity."

" And I do pity them," said the happy, beloveci
wife.

After this, Margaret made bad weather and
delicate health an excuse for staying closely at
home. She treated all who 'came to see her with
that kindness which was a part of her nature, but
she had no real association except with two or
three cultivated families, where but one wife pre-
sided over the household, and who had tastes
and habits similar to her own. Her time was
nearly all occupied, as she kept no help, except
a little girl of thirteen, who did the coarsest of
the work, and her basket was always full of
sewing, ready for her leisure moments. Some
little garments which laid therein may have been
indebted to her home-sickness for many an elabo-
rate pattern patiently wrought out.

"All the pride of the flesh, and wicked in the
sight of God, the putting so much work on a baby's
clothes ;" so one of her pious and meddling neigh-
V>rs informed her.

128 MORMON WIVES; A NARRATIVE

But Margaret loved to look at the little ward-
robe, made beautiful by countless stitches of her

embroidery-needle. It gladdened tier he^rt, and
solaced many a lonely liour when Hichard was
away. He was scarcely at home at all, except
evenings, his business was becoming so engrossing ;
and she would have grown home-sick beyond en-
durance had it not 'been for this labor of love,
The knowledge that he had invested his money
. profitably, and was getting rich ; that when the
city grew, as its enthusiastic inhabitants believed it
would, to be the grandest city in the world the
gathering-together place of the saints all over the
earth, the dazzling focus of all the rays of true
glory upon earth, the future home of the immor-
tals he would be one of the foremost of regal
and magnificent princes of the Lord's people, was
the ever-present consolation for the time and
thought he was obliged to give in order to work
out his purpose. Much as she loved him, she
could not hear these things from his lips without
a secret trembling of mistrust and apprehension in
that heart which possessed a woman's intuition.
When Christmas came, it found Margaret the

OF FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION. 129

mother of a healthy and beautiful boy. When

Eichard came home, as he did three or four times

,
a day as long as she was confined to her bed, and

looked at the fair young wife fast gaining her
strength and bloom again, and the little child
lying sweetly upon her bosom, and realized that
they were both his his priceless treasures he
deemed himself a proud and contented man.

" I thought you as lovely as you could be when
you were a timid girl and I scarcely dare kiss your
reluctant hand," he said, in those accents of praise
so dear to a young mother ; " but you are far mor0
beautiful now ; you are my Margaret now, and this
is our child, for which I bless you."

The happy and important news, with tidings of
the welfare of all, were written home, and dis-
patched by the first messengers who wended their
weary way back to civilization.

Margaret was seldom home-sick now. This new
charge absorbed her interest and love. It was only
when she thought, "What would father say to
such a great fair boy as this ? Oh, if mother could
see the darling wouldn't she go wild with joy?"

and, " Ah, if they could see how fast he grows,"
9

130 FACTS STBANGER THAN FICTION.

and " what darling little curls" and " deep blue
eyes," etc., etc. after the fashion of mothers with
their first babies that she pined very much for
her old home.

The baby was, in truth, a fine child. The most
spiteful mother of squint-eyed, cross, or scraggy
children, would have been compelled to admit
that Mrs. Wilde's boy, Harry as they called him
after brother Harry was a beauty.

Surely those little delicate robes were none too
pretty for such a baby; so that even the pious
neighbor who had twitted her of the "pride of
the flesh," acknowledged that he looked "dredful
handsome" in them.

CHAPTER VIII.

Thou wast lovelier than the roses

In their prime ;
Thy voice excelled the closes

Of sweetest rhyme ;
Thy heart was as a river

"Without a main.
"Would I had loved thee never,
Florence Vane 1"

PHILIP COOKS.

THE most unhappy of all the friends who wit-
nessed the departure of Margaret and Eichard from
their native village, on that twentieth day of
March, was Harry Fletcher. His eyes had kept
guard over Sarah all the morning, and when she
fainted in his sister's arms he did not wait to see
her recover, but mounted his horse and rode back
at full speed to the farm. There he dashed into
the hardest work he could find, and labored fu-
riously all day long. Margaret and he had always
been so tenderly attached that no one thought
strange of his gloom.

As soon as it was dark, he started for Mr. Irv-

132 .MORMON WIVES; A NAKEATIVE

ing's. "When he knocked at the door, the servant-
girl came to him, and told him that Miss Irving
was not well enough to see any one that evening.

"I saw her walking in the portico about five
minutes ago, so I know she is up," was the reply.
" Tell her I must see her a few moments, this even-
ing I will not detain her long."

As it was bright moonlight, Sarah came out on
the porch where he was, a shawl wrapped