young wife, with a look and gesture of most
touching devotion. "While you love me, and
believe in me, and are not ashamed of me,
all the world might scorn me,—I should still
be proud and blessed."

"All the world shall honour you," said
Arthur, laughing. "But, come, bathe those
great, blue eyes, and draw a veil between
their love and the outside world. Meet my
mother with as much composure and ease,
and with as little show of feeling as you can.
Remember, she respects strength more than
she sympathises with feeling. She would
honour a victorious foe—however vile—more
than she would pity a prostrate one,
however virtuous. Strength, will, self-assertion
she respects, even when in direct opposition
to herself: timidity, obedience, and excitability
she simply despises and tramples under
foot. Don't be afraid of her. Assert yourself
and all will come right. Is not your husband
by to support you?"

"Arthur! I wish you would give me
something terrible to do for you! I feel as if
I could go through the fiercest, wildest
martyrdom for you and your love. I could die
for you——"

"But you dare not oppose my mother? Is
that it? Darling! you shall live for and with
me; and that is better than dying. Ah! I
wonder if you will say such words after we
have been married as many years as now
days. Let me see,—how many? Twenty-six.
We are almost at the end of our honeymoon,
Geraldine!"

II.

"I THINK Geraldine is slightly improved
since she came," said Mrs. Amphlett, one
morning, to her son. "She is rather less
awkward and mannerless than she was."

"Awkward was never the word for her,"
said Arthur, briskly. "She is only shy
and unused to the world. She is singularly
graceful, I think."

Mrs. Amphlett lifted her eyebrows.

"Think how young she is!" continued
Arthur, answering his mother's look,—"not
quite twenty, yet—and was never in society
before she came here."

"How strange it is," continued the mother,
as if speaking to herself, "to see the marriages
which some men make!—men of intellect,
wealth, education, standing,—all that you
imagine would refine their tastes and render
them fastidious in their choice. Yet these
are the very persons who so often marry
beneath them. Instead of choosing the wife
who could best fulfil their social requirements,
they think only of pleasing the eye,
which they call love—as you have done,
Arthur, in choosing Geraldine in place of
Miss Vaughan."

"Miss Vaughan! Why you might as well
have asked me to marry a statue. A handsome
girl, I confess; but without a spark of
life or a drop of human blood in her."

"That may be. Yet she was the right and
natural wife for you. She was a woman of your
own age and your own standing; formed to be
the leader of her society as befits your wife;
rich, well born; in short, possessing all the
requisite qualifications of the future mistress
of Thornivale. You disregard such patent
harmony of circumstances for what?—for a
good little blue-eyed nobody; who cannot
receive like a gentlewoman, and who steps
into her carriage with the wrong foot."

"But who has goodness, love, innocence,
constancy——"

"Don't be a fool, Arthur," interrupted Mrs.
Amphlett. "What do you get, pray, with
this excessive plasticity of nature? All very
delightful, I dare say, when confined to you,
and while you are by her side to influence her;
but, when you are away, will not the same facility
which renders her so delightful to you,
place her as much under the influence of
another, as she is under yours? Foolish boy!
you have burdened yourself with that most
intolerable burden of all—the weakness and
incapacity of a life-long companion. There!
don't protest, or you will make me angry. I
know she is very amiable and beautiful, and
charming, and good, and all that; but she has
no more strength, self-reliance, common sense
nor manner than a baby. And you know
this as well as I. Here she is.—I was just
talking of you, Geraldine. Are you well
to-day?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes, thank you, quite well," said Geraldine,
always nervous when speaking to her
mother-in-law.

"I thought not; you are black under the
eyes, and your hair is dull. Will you drive
with me to-day?"

"If you please," said Geraldine.

"Or ride with your husband?"

"Whichever you and Arthur like best."

"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Amphlett,
with one of her stony looks, "when will
you learn to have a will of your own?"

"Yes, Geraldine! I wish you would always
say what you, yourself, really prefer, when
you are asked," said Arthur, with a shadow
of testiness.

"I am afraid of being selfish and inconsiderate
to others," said Geraldine, hastily. "But,
if you please, then, I would rather ride with
Arthur."

"You know I am going to Croft to look at
young Vaughan's stud," returned Arthur,
still with the same accent of irritability.
"How, then, can I ride with you to-day?"

"Ah, see, now! what use in giving me my
choice?" cried Geraldine, making a sad
attempt to smile and to seem gay; tears
rushing into her eyes, instead; for, the three
weeks during which she had been under her
lady-mother's harrow, had reduced her to a
state of chronic depression.

"Would it not be more dignified if you
did not cry whenever you are spoken to?"
said the pitiless hawk-eyed lady.