All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography. Barr Amelia E.

my mother’s letter to me on the subject, she said, “I will tell you something, Milly, that I suspect neither Mr. Barr nor your father will tell you, yet you will be glad to know it, and you ought to know it. It is this. Your father told Mr. Barr about your indebtedness to the school board, and Mr. Barr asked how much it was. When Father said he thought about seventy pounds, Mr. Barr laughed, and answered, ‘Suppose, Father, we sent a donation of two hundred pounds to the school board. Won’t that be best?’ Then Father laughed, and Mr. Barr took from his valise a small book, and wrote a check for two hundred pounds, asking Father to send it the next day, which Father did.”

      In this letter I was urged to come home at once, and so I went next day to the school to remove my name from the list of Wesleyan students. Professor Hyslop looked angrily at me.

      “You will get no diploma,” he said.

      “I am going to be married, sir,” I answered.

      “I have heard – I have heard!” he continued, “and I think a marriage certificate will be the best diploma for you – Reverend Dr. Barr’s son, is it not?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Then, Miss, where will your Arminianism be? You will become a Calvinist!” And, with this Parthian fling, he left the room so quickly I had no opportunity for a denial.

      After this event I returned home, and the days went by in a dream of happiness. Robert came every Friday or Saturday to Kendal, and we rode over to Windermere, if it was fine weather, and strolled about its laurel woods, whispering to each other those words which lovers have always said, and always will say, even till time shall be no more – unless, the march of what is called “progress and efficiency” put love out of the question altogether. It was a wooing that fitted wonderfully into my happy girlhood, blending itself with my childhood’s memories, with the wind and the sun, and the mountains and lakes I loved. And I took with a grateful heart the joy sent me – a joy glorified by all the enchanting glamours and extravagant hopes of youth and love. It was always the old antiphony of love:

      “I love you, sweet, how can you ever learn

      How much I love you?” “You I love even so,

      And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know

      How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn

      Your love, so much is all my love’s concern.”

      “My love grows hourly sweet.” “Mine, too, doth grow,

      Yet love seemed full so many hours ago.”

      Thus lovers speak. – Rossetti.

      If the weather was wet we discussed damasks and cretons and books about furniture, which Robert brought with him every week – the colors to be dominant in various rooms – and every trifle of housekeeping; and were as happy as birds building their first nest. Or, I showed any new addition to my wardrobe, about which I had been very fortunate. For it happened that thirty years previously my mother’s uncle had spent four years in Glasgow, and had been very happy there; so he was pleased I was going to marry a Glasgow man. When he met Robert he liked him, and he liked me “for choosing so fine a fellow,” and as a reward gave me a hundred pounds to buy things for the wedding. I went to Bradford for a couple of weeks, had my wedding frock made there, and brought home with me alpacas and mozambiques, baréges and chantilly muslins, and lots of other pretty things. But what pleased me more than anything were the full sets of ready-made underclothing which Mrs. Humphreys sent. I had never even heard of ready-made clothing, and I was delighted with the beautifully trimmed slips and gowns, and so forth, which far exceeded anything I had ever seen. Indeed they were talked about so much that many Kendal ladies asked to look at them.

      My sister Jane had married quietly, almost secretly, only my father and sisters and a friend of the groom being present; but Robert would hear of no such privacy. He wished the whole town to witness his happiness, and I was not averse to his desire. So the dawn of our wedding-day, the eleventh of July, 1850, was ushered in by the beautiful chimes of Kendal church, and the ringers, being well paid, marked, every hour of the day by a carillon until night covered the earth. The ceremony was nine o’clock in the morning, but the church was full, and the sidewalks full, and every one had a smile and a good wish for us.

      Robert looked exceedingly handsome, and his sister and brother-in-lave, David Colville, the great iron and steel manufacturer of Glasgow, were at his side. I had only one bridesmaid, a lovely Yorkshire girl, who had been my playmate in childhood. Robert had one attendant also, a young Scot, called James Sinclair. I wore the usual white satin dress consecrated to brides, but it was not made as bridal dresses are made now. It was of ordinary length, and had three deep ruffles of lace on the skirt. A small polka jacket – they were just coming in then – made of white lace, and trimmed with white satin, covered my neck and arms, and a very small bonnet of white lace, trimmed with orange flowers, was on my head. My sandals were of white satin, and my gloves of white kid, but I had no veil. I walked to the altar on my father’s arm; I left it leaning on my husband’s. That seems but a small change, but it typified the wrench of life and destiny. For that hour had broken the continuity of life. I could never! never! go back to where I stood before it.

      There was a pretty wedding breakfast at my father’s house, where everything was profusely adorned with large white pansies; for, in Kendal there was, and likely yet is, a miraculous profusion and perfection of this exquisite flower in July and August. My father blessed the breakfast, which was happily and leisurely taken, then Robert glanced at me, and I went upstairs to put on a pale blue dress, a white silk India shawl, and a little bonnet trimmed with blue flowers. The shawl was of wonderful beauty and of great value, but what girl of nineteen would now wear a shawl? Yet, it was far from unbecoming, and it shared my fortunes in a remarkable manner.

      It was considered proper and elegant in those days for brides to show great emotion, and even to weep as they left their home and father and mother. I could not do so. I loved my home and my kindred with a deep and strong attachment, but I knew from that moment when I first saw the man who was now my husband that, among the souls allied to mine, he was of

      “… nearer kindred than life hinted of;

      Born with me somewhere that men forget,

      And though in years of sight and sound unmet,

      Known for my soul’s birth-partner well enough.”

      CHAPTER IX

      THE HOME MADE DESOLATE

      “There is a warm impression, an instinctive sagacity, by which we anticipate future events.”

…

      “Life is filled with issues.”

      With renunciation life begins. For nineteen years I had been a receiver: I was now to learn the grace of surrender, and of giving up. I was to drink the cup of pain, and to go through the valley of humiliation. As far as my home and kindred were concerned, we had counted the price together, and accepted the inevitable toll of marriage, understanding well, that marriage, as well as death, makes barren our lives. This fact was soon illustrated by the attitude assumed by my old friends in Glasgow. I thought I should be treated even with additional éclat, and they had apparently cut me out of their lives. I met Mrs. Sage one morning, soon after my return from my wedding journey, and greeted her with glad excitement. She was polite, but restrained, and when I asked her to call on me, regretted she had no time. The girls were going off to school, and her son Alick was going to Australia as representative of the Western Bank of Scotland. She gave me this information with a great deal of pride, and just a tone of resentment, then said, “Good morning,” and virtually passed out of my life.

      I was much troubled by her behavior for a week, then I went one morning to Campbell’s for some muslin, and there I saw Mrs. McIntosh. She was such a good-hearted, sweet-tempered soul, I never doubted her kindness; but she, also, was changed. Civil, of course, but she never once spoke of their Saturday evenings, or asked, “When are you coming to see us?” I told Robert of these meetings, and he smiled and said that the behavior of my friends was quite natural. I was no longer available for young parties. I was out of the