o the others
a far different fate was allotted. The young man who addressed my aunt,
whose name I do not know, was sent for by his father, a wealthy
Yorkshire squire, who, upon his refusing to give up his mistress,
instantly assembled all the servants and tenants, and declared before
them all that the young gentleman, his son (and supposed heir), was
illegitimate, and thenceforth disinherited and disowned. He enlisted and
went to India, and never saw my aunt again. Mrs. Arkwright went home to
Stoke, to the lovely house and gardens in the Peak of Derbyshire, to
prosperity and wealth, to ease and luxury, and to the love of husband
and children. Later in life she enjoyed, in her fine mansion of Sutton,
the cordial intimacy of the two great county magnates, her neighbors,
the Dukes of Rutland and Devonshire, the latter of whom was her admiring
and devoted friend till her death. In the society of the high-born and
gay and gifted with whom she now mixed, and among whom her singular
gifts made her remarkable, the enthusiasm she excited never impaired the
transparent and childlike simplicity and sincerity of her nature. There
was something very peculiar about the single-minded, simple-hearted
genuineness of Mrs. Arkwright which gave an unusual charm of
unconventionality and fervid earnestness to her manner and conversation.
I remember her telling me, with the most absolute conviction, that she
thought wives were bound implicitly to obey their husbands, for she
believed that at the day of judgment husbands would be answerable for
their wives' souls.

It was in the midst of a life full of all the most coveted elements of
worldly enjoyment, and when she was still beautiful and charming, though
no longer young, that I first knew her. Her face and voice were heavenly
sweet, and very sad; I do not know why she made so profoundly melancholy
an impression upon me, but she was so unlike all that surrounded her,
that she constantly suggested to me the one live drop of water in the
middle of a globe of ice. The loss of her favorite son affected her with
irrecoverable sorrow, and she passed a great portion of the last years
of her life at a place called Cullercoats, a little fishing village on
the north coast, to which when a young girl she used to accompany her
father and mother for rest and refreshment, when the hard life from
which her marriage released her allowed them a few days' respite by the
rocks and sands and breakers of the Nort