"Ignoble conclusion to a tender affair; but not so devoid of
tragicality as would seem. Infuriated at the desertion of this
modern Joseph, Louise, the lorn, avenged the slight offered her
charms by declaring to her youngest brother, the only one who
resided in the same city with herself, that Joseph had made
dishonorable proposals to her--a proceeding which demonstrates that
the feminine character has withstood the proverbially changing
effects of time from age to age. My narrative is but a later and a
Gentile version of the Jewish novelette to which I have referred.
The role of Potiphar was cast for the unsophisticated brother, who,
being unable to immure the unimpressible Joseph in the Tombs,
attempted the only means of redress that remained to him, to wit:
Personal chastisement.
"And here," continued the narrator, yet more slowly, "I find myself
perplexed by the discrepancy between the statement I have had to-day
and one of this section of the story furnished me several years
since. In the latter the indignant fraternal relative flogged the
would-be betrayer within a quarter of an inch of his life. The other
account reverses the position of the parties, and makes Joseph the
incorruptible also the invincible. However this may have been, the
adventure seems to have quenched the loving Louise's brilliancy for
a season. We hear no more of her until after her father's decease,
when she re-enters the lists of Cupid in another State, as the
blushing and still beautiful virgin-betrothed of a man of birth and
means, who woos and weds her under her maiden cognomen--the entire
family, including the valiant brother who figured as whippee or
whipper, in the castigation exploit--being accomplices in the
righteous fraud. I might, did I not fear being prolix, tell of
sundry side-issues growing out of the main stalk of this plot, such
as the ingenious manoeuvres by which the promising couple of
conspirators averted, upon the eve of the sister's bridal, the
threatened expose of their machinations to entrap the wealthy lover.
Suffice it to say that the duped husband (by brevet) lived for a
decade and a half in the placid enjoyment of the ignorance which my
sagacious sister here is disposed to confound with rational
bliss--nor is he quite sure, to this day, whether spouse No. 1 of
the partner of his bosom still lives, or by clearance in what court
of infamy or justice she managed to shuffle off her real name, and
win a right to resume the title of spinster."
He lighted a fresh cigar, and for the space of perhaps a minute, a
dead and ominous silence prevailed. Mabel, pallid and faint at
heart, could not take her eyes from his countenance, with its cruel
smile, frozen, shallow eyes, and the deep white dints coming and
going in his nostrils.