ng given cause for one, and
dashed into an indifferent, common place topic in the most provoking
manner.

"When does the justice begin haymaking, Barbara?"

There was no reply. Barbara was swelling and panting, and trying to keep
her emotion down. Mr. Carlyle tried again,--

"Barbara, I asked you which day your papa cut his hay."

Still no reply. Barbara was literally incapable of making one. The
steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat was
working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a convulsive sob,
or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. Carlyle turned his head
hastily.

"Barbara! are you ill? What is it?"

On it came, passion, temper, wrongs, and nervousness, all boiling over
together. She shrieked, she sobbed, she was in strong hysterics. Mr.
Carlyle half-carried, half-dragged her to the second stile, and placed
her against it, his arm supporting her; and an old cow and two calves,
wondering what the disturbance could mean at that sober time of night,
walked up and stared at them.

Barbara struggled with her emotion--struggled manfully--and the sobs and
shrieks subsided; not the excitement or the passion. She put away his
arm, and stood with her back to the stile, leaning against it. Mr.
Carlyle felt inclined to fly to the pond for water, but he had nothing
but his hat to get it in.

"Are you better, Barbara? What can have caused it?"

"What can have caused it?" she burst forth, giving full swing to the
reins, and forgetting everything. "_You_ can ask me that?"

Mr. Carlyle was struck dumb; but by some inexplicable laws of sympathy,
a dim and very unpleasant consciousness of the truth began to steal over
him.

"I don't understand you, Barbara. If I have offended you in any way, I
am truly sorry."

"Truly sorry, no doubt!" was the retort, the sobs and the shrieks
alarmingly near. "What do you care for me? If I go under the sod
to-morrow," stamping it with her foot, "you have your wife to care for;
what am I?"

"Hush!" he interposed, glancing round, more mindful for her than she was
for herself.

"Hush, yes! You would like me to hush; what is my misery to you? I would
rather be in my grave, Archibald Carlyle, than endure the life I have
led since you married her. My pain is greater than I well know how to
bear."

"I cannot affect to misunderstand you," he said, feeling more at a
nonplus than he had felt for many a day, and heartily wishing the whole
fem