Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1895 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

By Miss Mulock

CHAPTER XTT—Continued. “Poor «M Black!” he said one day—or rather night—when, after toiling, soaked through, cp the steep brae, he sat down a few minutes after, dry and warm, by e.a bright fire, holding the little hands hich. hadiaerved him so lovingly. “Poor Black, whom I left in his large, handsome, empty house. I am quite sorry for all old'bachefors.” “Thank you, dear." “Thaugh he told me once, in a confidential momrsat, that his life had been so hard he was often glad there had been no one to ehare ft” “Ha was mistaken.” “I think he was mistaken," Roderick said, pressing his lips on the smooth brow and bright grave eyes, that looked on life utterly without fear, so long as it was a life with Wve In it “I cannot believe that any man is the weaker, but the stronger, for having a woman to help him. Only he must choose a woman who can help him —as I did.” “You are very conceited," she said, gayly, and then clung to him passionately. “Two together; I can bear anything if we are two together. But if you had ieft y me to go through my life alone ■” A kind of shiver passed through her. “Some have to bear it and do. Cousin Silence did. And I would have borne It too—l toM you so once. I would have lived a bogy, useful life. I would not have died. But, ohl—the difference, the difference!” “And u oh! the difference to me!" he said, as he clasped her to his heart, and felt the peace and felt the strength she gave him. And then, coming back to common things, he added, “Poor old Black! He has been just a trifle ‘difficult* of late; he is not the best temper in the world, and he likes you so much, you perhaps might smooth him down. If I bring him home with me to-morrow, can you give us some supper, Mrs. Jardine?” So, in fheduSk of the next evening, the tall young ffeUew, handsome and strong, and the bent old figure with the brown wig and yellow gaiters, appeared at the •front door, which the mistress always herself opened for her husband. “I was going to introduce the visitor,” said he, “for we never have any other; but look here! I feel like Robinson Crusoe when be saw the footmarks on the shore. Wfoeete! horses’ feet! Mrs. Jardine, you must hive been entertaining a carriage and pair?” “Two Carriages and pairs! They have only just gone. And they were so very nice.” “The carriages?”

“No, the people. Such ‘nice* people; Is not that your English word —gentil, agreable, charmant?” “She is going back to her French again —the renegade!’’ “No, I am thoroughly Scotch now. Mr. Black known ft,” said she, as with gentle, almost filial hands, she took off the old man's plaid and bonnet, and sat him in the arm-chnir, he submitting with astonishing meekness; but all old people, just as all children, loved and submitted to Sileace. “How bright your eyes look! Did your visitors talk French with you, my darling?” “A little, for they had been a great deal abroad. But they were so simple and kindly, not grand or overdressed likp ” She stopped. “Like after friends of ours, whom being friends we will not criticise,” said Roderick, with a kind of sad dignity. It had been a sore vexation to him that, except the Griersons, nearly all the Scotch women h« wife had met were of the doss of Mrs. Maclagan, that, exaggeration as national qualities which people of one country constantly make the type of .another. "But, my dear, who are your visitqrtf? Mr. Black will be sure to know them.” “tju, ay; but they would never condescend! th’know me,” said the old man, fingering with a half-comical awe the cards an the table. “Sir John and Lady fiynringtnn, of Symington; Mr. and Mrs. MkcAffeber, of Castle Torre. I told you, sir”—he always addressed Roderick out of ’busteSß hours as “sir,” and Silence as “madams^*—*the gentry of the neighborhood wMSS soon be finding out that there •were again Jardlues at Blackball. Besides, Sr John and your father were lads thegifber, and Mac Alister of Torre—he w« a bit bairn then.” V "_Yes,” Bftid Silence, after a puzzled pauke a£ the Scotch words, which when he forgot himself the old man continually brought m. “Yes, they told me so. They Spoke of too—Roderick, you would have fiked to beer how they spoke of your father. And they said they hoped we ahould be good neighbors and meet very «ften.** -Roderick looked pleased—it is but huvuun nature to enjoy being “respeckit like the tartf*—but suddenly he clouded over. “Don’t let us talk of this; it is impossible." Silence was so astonished at the tone as weH as the words that the natural, innocent “"Why?’ died on her lips. She turned away and began talking to Mr. Black as something else, asking no more (questions, nor referring again to the visitors, who, Roderick saw with pain, had evidently charmed her and been a little brightness in the long empty day. H<» told her so. when the old man departed—after a rather dull two hours; for the master cf the house was very silent, and wteh he did speak, there Was once or twice the faintest shade of discontent in Ms tone. a sort of half apology for their eimple menage and frugal fare, of which Silence took no outward notice. She had given hey guest the best she had—given it with a warm heart, too, and a grateful —for Mr. Black had been very kind, and ■•-any a bnce of grouse and bunch of grapes had found their way from the Mill-house to Blackball. “And I think he knows our ways, and does not expect ns to requite him with turtle and venison,” said the young hostess. “Perhaps not; he knows the barrenness of the landT answered Roderick, sharply —very sharply for him. “But other folks do Mot know and need not. Your magnffiddnt visitors, for instance. I hope you did liot let them penetrate beyond the dritwihg-room, or invite them to stay to tea, lest they might quote the famous lines, ‘Dove in a. hut with water and crust, t*—Love, forgive us!—-cinders, ashes, dttet’” "I think you may well ask Love to for<ive you, dear,” Silence answered, not •dtetaff the laugh, which was scarcely •Men* “Ye*, I offered them tea, •» X them, and I wanted them to

stay till you came home, thinking you would like them, too. They did stay, as I long as they possibly could, and we had i a pleasant iJk, and Janet was baking, ‘ so I gave them some hot scones, and—” “What charming hospitality! It must ! have reminded them of Caleb Balder- ! stone’a Why, my dear wife, we'strrrll ' soon have to set up a Caleb since Blackball has grown into a wrt of ’ Wolf’s Hope. Silence, my darling"—taking her face between his hands and trying hard to curb his excessive irritation—“you are the sweetest and simplest of women; but—you must not invite people here again. Not people such as these. They wsSild only go home and laugh at ns. I don’t care for myself; I ean dine off porridge and salt—it would not harm me —but I chn not bear the world to know it. We must put the best on the outside.” She looked up, more than surprised—startled. Evidently there was something in the woman’s nature —larger or smaller, who shall decide?—which could not understand the man at all. “Never mind, however, for this once. We’ll hire a fly—a carriage and pair perhaps, in noble emulation —return these visits, and any others with which the ‘gentry of the neighborhood,' as old Black called them, may condescend to honor us —and so end it all. To keep up acquaintance with them is, as I said, simply impossible.” “Why impossible 7* “Can you not see? Birds of a feather must flock together—it is natural law. These people are the *magnates of the county,’ and we the impoverished Jardines of Blackball. Besides, did you tell them—it was just like you, my innocent one, to do it—that I am also foreman of the cotton mill?” Again she looked at him in quiet surprise. He seemed so very unlike himself. “If I had told them, would it have mattered very much?” "Certainly not—to me. But I think it would to them. Dear, a man is always despised for being poor; and—l will not be despised. I can live upon bread and water, dress tn fustian —or rags, if necessary; but my wife will prevent that,” added he, tenderly. “Only our poverty must not betray itself. If we appear in the world at ail, it must be as Mr. and Mrs. Jardine of Blackball. Whatever we suffer, let us ‘die and make no sign.’ Or, even to go a little further, let us imitate that very reserved gentleman of whom Ms valet said, ‘Master’s dead, sir— but ho doesn’t wish it to be generally known.’ ” Silence did not laugh at the stale joke, which indicated a long undercurrent of bitter thought now welling up to the surface; but she attempted no remonstrance. “My friend”—the old tender “mon ami” —“do not be angry with me. I liked these people because I thought you would like them, too, and that a little society , would be good for you; but since it cannot be ” “Since it cannot be," he repeated, decisively, “we will not trouble ourselves about it, or them. Doubtless our neighbors will trouble themselves very little about us— at least, as soon ns they know al! the facts conceraing u ,wh ca or couise they very soon will. Nover mind, my wife. Kiss me and be happy! We are happy, are we not? Let the world go its way—who cares?”

But it was evident that foe did care: and when after a week or two he found he had been mistaken, and people did “trouble themselves” about the young Jardines, inasmuch that by and by, either from friendliness, respect, or curiosity, they had called at Blackball—whether pleased or vexed, Roderick was certainly interested. “Well, and who has been here to-day?” was always his first question on coming up from the mill; sometimes adding, with a bitter earnest underlying the jest, that he hoped that she had told all her grand neighbors that her husband was “out at work,” his work as foreman of the mill. “Yes. I thought you wished everybody to know? It could not matter, you being a gentleman and a Jardine. You once said so.” “And I say so still, in my best moments; but in my worst— Well, I suppose we men are great cowards—moral cowards. No matter, I am glad the murder’s out You did It,for the best, my wife; and it is the best, for they will never come again, depend upon it.” But strange to say, they did; and at last it became absolutely necessary to return these friendly visits. “I will beg a holiday from my master” —poor Roderick! he sometimes took a savage pleasure in the word—“we will hire the village fly and go in state; appearing for once as respectable people—, Mr. and Mrs. Jardine, of Blackball.” “I think we are respectable people,” the wife answered; she had learned not to be hurt at these accidental bitternesses. “We are well-born, well-bred; we live in our own pretty house; we pay our debts; and we stint nobody— except ourselves, perhaps.” Herself she might have said, for her husband, simple as he was in his ways, wonderfuly so, considering his up-bring-ing, never suspected how many domestic and personal sacrifices were necessary, that she might in a sense, though not in the sense he had meant it, really “put the best on the outside” for him when he came home.

He was at home so little now that the whole day’s holiday—they two was quite a treat to look forward to. But when, instead of the village fly, which Mr. Black had offered to order for them, there came up his own well-appointed but rarely used carriage, with his compliments, and the horses had not been out for a week, would Mrs. Jardine oblige him by using them? Then Roderick’s pride rose up at once. “Take Mrs. Jardine’s compliments to Mr. Black, and she regrets extremely that ” A hand laid on his arm—a whisper which always fell on his jarring nerves like a soft finger-touch on a quivering harp-string. “Dear, yesterday when I was thanking Mr. Black for all his kindness, he said—you know his quick, husky way of speaking—‘Madame, you may have a hard life—l rather think you will—but I hope you will never know one hardship: to find yourself In your old age without one single human being whom yon have a right to be kind to.’ ” “Poor old fellow!” said Roderick, much moved. “My little Conscience! you are right. John, tel! your master he is exceedingly kind, ns he always is; and Mrs. Jardine will enjoy her drive exceedingly." So she did—to an almost pathetic degree—for it wns weeks since she had been outside the garden gate. And the whole world was so lovely that still November day—November, but bright as June; it often is so in Scotland—all the fading landscape looked as beautiful as an old face sometimes looks to eyes that loved it when it was young. These two, sitting side by side and hand in hand, though they hid the latter fact under a kindly plaid from John the coachman, were young still; to them the dying year brought only a charm of sadness. They were very happy, and all the happier, Roderick declared, because in their circuit of nearly twenty miles.

owing to the rarely fine day, they romra everybody “out” except one family— the Symingtons. Sir John—a “fine old Scottish gentleman” of the last generation—with his old wife beside him, still keeping the remains of that delicate English beauty which had captured him fifty years ago, werg, even Roderick owned, quite a picture. And they remembered his father; and they had known Cousin Silence. Their greeting was more than courteousfriendly; and their house, upon which, being childless, they had expended all they had to spend, was full of art treasures collected abroad, each with a history and an interest. The old couple seemed still te have the utmost enjoySpent in life, and to have the faculty of making others epjoy life too. “I knew you would like them,” said Silence, when, having sent the carriage away, they walked home through the wood-path, which, Sir John carefnly pointed out to them, made Symington only a quarter of an hour's distance from Blackball. “Yes, I like them. That is just the sort of house I should care to go to, if I could go. Lucky folk those Symingtons. They seem to have had everything heart can desire.” "Not quite. Did you see a miniature over Lady Symington's arm-chair? She saw me looking at it, and said—you should have heard the tone, quiet as she is—‘That was our only son—my one child! He died at seven years old.’ I think,” Silence continued, softly, “if you do not mind, I should like now aud then to go and see Lady Symington.” Her husband pressed her arm, and then said, suddenly, “My innocent wife, what a happy way you have of taking everything.” “It is because I am so happy.” “And I—yes, I ought to be happy, too, God knows! But ” She put her hand upon his lips. “God does know. And I know, too. Many things are very hard for you to bear—ranch harder for you than for me. We will not speak of them; we will just bear them. We can bear them, I think, together.” “Yes, my darling.” And after that he made no more "misanthropic” speeches for the whole evening.

A week afterward, coming back from meeting the postman, which he always did, though few letters ever came, and never those which, his wife could see, he missed and looked for still, Roderick threw down before her a heap of notes. “It never rains but it pours. Evidently, as old Black says, the ‘hale countrie’ has fallen in love with young Mrs. Jardine. Four invitations to dinner and one to a dance —extending over three weeks, and an area of fifteen square miles. To accept them would take half our quarterly Income, in carriage hire, etc., and to refuse them, why, six Caleb Balderstones could scarcely accomplish that feat.” She read and laid thd notes aside, with a rather sad face. “You would like to go? Well, then, my darling, shall we don our purple and fine linen —we have a few rags of splendor left—and fare sumptuously at our neighbors’ expense for four days? We can starve afterward for fourteen; Pm willing if you are.” “Roderick!” “Else—we must get up some excuse — you must have a cough, and be unable to go out evenings.” “But I am able —they may see me at church every Sunday.” “Most literal of women! Of course It Is a ‘big lee’ —as Black would call it But any lie will do; the bigger the better, since we can not possibly tell the truth.” “Why not?” The question was so direct and simple, yet so perfectly natural, that it staggered him. He laughed, though not very mirthfuly, and made no reply.' “Why not tell the truth?” Silence repeated. “It would be much the easiest way. Why not say to everybody, what everybody must know, or v ill soon, that we are not ric h enough to keep a carriage or give entertainments, but that we appreciate our neighbors’ kindliness, and will be glad to meet them whenever chance allows. Shall I write and say this? Nobody could be offended, for it is just the simple truth. And surely the truth is better than even the whitest of lies.” He had lived beside her and with her for a whole year now—this woman, so different from all other women he had ever known; and yet he seemed always to be finding out something new in her —some flivine simplicity which made all his worldly wisdom useless; some innocent courage which put even his manliness to shame. But he was too truly manly not to own this. “My darling,” he said, not laughing now, “I did not propose to tell a lie—not seriously. But the truth must be hid sometimes, when it is an unpleasant and humiliating truth. Come, then, shall we make a great effort, and appear at all these fine houses en grande tenue, and in a carriage and pair (Black’s, perhaps, borrowed for the occasion), and ‘make believe,’ as children say, that we are rich people?” “Would not that be acting a lie, which comes to the same thing as telling it? Did not your father once say so? And you once told me that if”—she paused a moment—“if you had boys you would teach them exactly as your, father taught you, that eith.er to tell or act a lie was absolutely impossible to a gentleman and a Jardine!” “You little Jesuit!” “Don’t call me that!” and her eyes filled With the quick tears, which, however, she rarely allowed to fall—she was not a “crying” woman. “I cannot argue, I can only feel and think. Dearest, I sit and think a great deal —more than in all my life before. I ought, you know ” Her head dropped and a sudden flush came over the sweet young face, firm through all its sweetness, much firmer than even a little while ago. Her brief eight months of married life had made a woman of her. And there.were the long lonely hours —alone, yet not alone—when a wife ever so young, cannot choose but sit thinking of what God is going to give her; of the mingled joy and fear, and solemn responsibility, stretching out into far generations. Well, indeed, may she say, even as the holy woman of whom it Is recorded, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.” Something of this —expressing what she never said—was written in Silence’s face. Her husband could not quite understand it—no man could; but he saw the soft, tired look—tired, but not weak —there was nothing weak about her; and he put his arm around her very tenderly. “My darling, speak; you know I will always listen to you, even though I may differ from you. No two people can always think alike. But I want a wife, a counselor; I did not want a slave.” She laughed; still she. paused a little before?answering. It was hard to go against him—hard to put into plain, ugly words the fact that she, a wife, dared to think her husband wrong. Dear as he was to her—this passionately loved Roderick—there was something in the other love, dimly dawning, growing daily into a mysterious yet most absolute reality, which made her at once clear-sighted and brave, with the courage that all women ought to have when they think of themselves, not as themselves, but as the mothers of the men that are to be. “Roderick”—he was startled by the sweet solemnity of her tone—“this seems a smaller thing than it is. Whether we accept these invitations or not, matters little; but it does matter a great deal whether we begin our married life with truth or untruth; whether xfe meet the world with an utterly false face, or else a sullen face«. rejecting all its kindness'. Why not with a perfectly honest face, saying oper.ly, ‘We are poor; we know it, and it.is not pleasant; but it no disgrace; we are neither afraid nor ashamed ?' ” “That might be all very well in Utopia; but here? Did you ever know anybody who did it?” “Yes; my father and mother did it. Yours ” Roderick hesitated. “Perhaps my father might, only ” They were both silent. “Think, dearest,” she continued; “it is a question not merely for to-day or tomorrow. but for all our lives.” “God forbid!” The hasty mutter, the gloomy look—they went to his wife’s heart, and he eould see they did; but still she never shrunk. “I, too, say ‘God forbid!’ for I know even better than you do how hard poverty is. Oh, my Roderick! when I think of what I have cost you”—her voice faltered—“of all you have lost through me!” “Lost—and gained.” “Yes, I will not lightly value myself,

nor underrate the woman you choe,, who you thought would make you happy. And I will make you happy, even if we are not rich.” “ The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,’ ” said he, fondly. “But, come, this is nonsense, and quite beside the question. What is the question, by the bye? for I am getting rather confused, and”—looking at his watch —“I must be off to my work. Oh, what a comfort work is! Don’t you perceive that I have been twice as happy, and therefore twice as good, since I was at the mill?” She saw through the little loving ruse to save her pain; it made her feel doubly the pain she was giving—was obliged to give. “You are always good”—taking his hand and kissing it —“and inexpressibly good to me, no matter how great a burden I am.” ‘The heaviest burden I ever had to carry, and the sweetest. But that is neither here nor there”—with a sudden change to seriousness, the serious, almost sad look that sometimes came over him, showing how the youth had changed into a man, the man into a husband—truly a husband —house-band, the stay and support of the house. “Dear, we have chosen our lot; we cannot alter it; we would not if we could. It is not all bright; I know that; but we must not make it darker than it is. We must not look back." “No.” “And for the future ” Then her strength seemed to come into her—strength born of a “further-looking hope” than even he could take In. “It is of that future I think,” she said. “We may be poor, as I said, all our lives. I hope not; but we may. Are we, and more than we, to make life one long struggle and deceit, by ‘keeping up appearances,’ or are we to face the worst, to appear exactly what we are, and trust the world to accept it as such? I believe it would —at least the good half of it. For the others, why need we care?” Gently as she spoke, it was with a certain resoluteness, and the hand which clasped her husband’s felt firm as steel. “For me,” she went on, laying her hand on his shoulder, and creeping close to him, “I am so proud, both for myself and you, that when these people invite me, I believe they really want me—me myself, and not my clothes or my carriage. And when they come and see me, I flatter myself it is really to visit me. And if I liked them, and felt them truly my friends, I would go and see them, and wish my husband to do the same, whether they were poor professors—like ours at Neuchatel or your English dukes and duchesses.” “Even if they said to us, as I have seen condescendingly affixed to church doors, ‘Come in your working clothes;’ for I am not even a professor; I am a workingman.” “Certainly; but something else as well. Look in the glass; you don’t do it too often! could anybody mistake you for anything but a gentleman?” Roderick laughed, coloring a little. J“My dove, you are growing a veritable serpent. Mistress Eve, you tempt your Adam on man’s weakest point—vanity.” “No, you are proud, not vain. Do not be afraid; I see all your faults clear as light.” “Thank you.” “As you mine, I hope; because then we can try and cure both. Dear, we are like two little children sent to school together. We may have many a hard lesson to learn; but we will learn them—together.” He was silent. As she had said, things were harder for him than for her. She recognized this fully. You could have seen by her face that her heart bled for him, as people call it—that cruel “bleeding inside,” which natures like hers so well understand; but she did not compromise or yield one inch even to him, and he knew her well enough by this time to be quite certaifi she never would. A weak man might have resented this, have taken refuge in that foolish “I have said it, and I’ll stick to it,’ or keep up that obstinate assertion of masterdom which usually springs from an inward terror of slavery; but Roderick was prone to neither of these absurdities. He had .that truest strength which never fears to yield, if there is a rational need for yielding. “My wife,” he said, at last, taking her hand and looking up with some gravity, but not a shadow of anger, “what do you wish me to dd?” “ ‘Do richt and fear nocht,’ as your motto—our motto—says. That is all.” “What is the right?” “The simple truth. Say it and act it.” “How?” “Let us tell our neighbors that we are not rich enough for what is called ‘society,’ but that we feel their kindness, and will accept it, whenever we can. Occasionally we will go and visit them— Symington, for instance, is quite within a walk; and when they visit us”—she smiled —“I hope I shall be able to give them a little hospitality, without need of a Caleb Baldersione.” “My darling!” “Do not be afraid of me”—she kissed him with a slightly quivering lip. “I may be young and foolish, but I know how to keep my husband’s dignity, and my own. Now, shall I write the notes, or you?” “You,” he said, and, plunging into a favorite book, referred to the matter no more. At supper time she laid before him silently a little bundle of letters, which he read, and then looked up with the brightest smile. “What a comfort is a wife who can get one out of a difficulty! You have the prettiest way of putting things—French grace added to Scotch honesty. How do you manage it?” “I don’t know. I just say what I feel; but I try to say it as pleasantly as I can. Why not?” “Why not, indeed! Only so few do it.” He looked at her, sitting at the head of his table—young, indeed, but with a sweet matronly dignity, added to her wonderful crystalline simplicity—looked at her with all his heart in his eyes. “People say that though a man’s business success rests with himself, his social status depends uporrtis wife. I think, whether rich or poor, I may be quite sure of mine.” A glad light was in her eyes, but she made no answer, except just asking if the letters would do. “Yes. But, little law-giver. I see you have accepted one invitation—the Symingtons’ ?” “You do not object? You liked them? And they will have a house full of pleasant people for Christmas—Lady Symington told me so. It is not good for man to be alone—not even with his ow mvife, who is half himself, and therefore no variety. I cannot bear you to hide your light under a bushel.” “Always me—nothing but me.” “It is always you—it ought to be,” she cried, with that rare passion less expressed than betrayed. “You think so little of yourself that it is right some ode should think for you. Everybody will by-and-by.” “We shall see. Once I had ambitions for myself.” “And now I have ambitions for you. They can wait. We are young. We bide our time. Only we’ll leave nothing (un-

done. Well watch the turn of the Ude. - “And meanwhile we’ll go to the Sym- I ingtons,” said he, with a smile. “You . see, I let you have your own way." “So you ought, if yon think it is the right way. And I may send off these notes? You agree?” “Yes. But.” half jesting, half earnest, . “suppose I had not agreed, what then? There is a little word in our English mar- j riage service—it was not in the Swiss one, ' I think—‘love, honor, and obey.’ ” ‘The two former imply the latter; but I if an English wife does not love or honor, , must she obey ?” “Would you obey?" Silence paused a moment, and then answered softly, but very distinctly, I “No. Neither God nor man could require | it of me. Oae must both honor and love : the man that one obeys, or obedience is | impossible. If a wife sees her husband ' doing wrong she should try to prevent him; if he tells her to do wrong she should refuse, for God is higher than man, even though it be one’s own husband. Roderick, you might ‘cut me up in little pieces,’ as the children say, but not even you could make me do what I felt I ought not to do, or hinder me from doing what I thought was right." “My little rebel! No,” snatching her ; to his bosom, “my little Conscience—the best conscience a man can have—a wife who is afraid of nothing and nobody; not even of himself.” “And are you not angry with me?” “Angry—because you spoke your mind; even though I thought one thing and you another—as may happen many and many a time. My dearest, did I not tell you once I wanted a wife, not a slave? Time enough for you to turn slave when I turn tyrant. I may like to rule —most men do; and it is fair they should if they rule wisely, but I should despise myself if I attempted to tyrannize. Now, kiss me. Our discussion is over; oar quarrel ended.” “Not a quarrel—only a difference of opinion.” “In which each holds his own till satisfactorily convinced to the contrary.” “Or till both see that there may be a wisdom beyond both theirs, which is perhaps the best lesson one learns in marriage. Except one —my husband!” And for the second time she took and kissed his hand, not in humiliation of repentance—what had she to repent of?— but in that tender reverence, that entire trust without which obedience is a fiction and love an impossibility. Then, ceasing to talk, he put her on the sofa, with her work-table beside her, and threw' himself on the hearth rug at her feet, to “improve his mind,” he said, and hers—by reading aloud. But, as often happened now, he was so tired that all these laudable intentions failed. He laid his head against his wife’s lap, and fell fast asleep with the hook in his hand. (To be continued.)