Bessie's Fortune - Page 7/376

There was a trip to Saratoga, and Newport, and the Catskills, and then, early in September, Burton brought his bride to the house on Beacon street, which Geraldine at once remodeled and fitted up in a style worthy of her means, and of the position she meant her husband to occupy. He was a growing man, and from being clerk in a bank, soon came to be cashier, and then president, and money and friends poured in upon him, and Geraldine's drawing-rooms were filled with the elite of the city. The fashionables, the scholars, the artists, and musicians, and whoever was in any degree famous, met with favor from Mrs. Geraldine, who liked nothing better than to fill her house with such people, and fancy herself a second Madame De Stael, in her character as hostess. All this was very pleasing to Burton, who, having recovered from any sentimental feeling he might have entertained for Lucy, blessed the good fortune which gave him Geraldine instead. He never asked himself if he loved her; he only knew that he admired, and revered, and worshiped her as a woman of genius and tact; that what she thought, he thought; what she wished, he wished; and what she did he was bound to say was right, and make others think so too. There had been a condescension on her part when she married him, and she never let him forget it; while he, too, mentally acknowledged it, and felt that, for it, he owed her perfect allegiance, from which he never swerved.