Arthur a great deal better, and made
him behave a great deal better to me. He has never once attempted to
annoy me since, by the most distant allusion to Lady F--, or any of those
disagreeable reminiscences of his former life. I wish I could blot them
from my memory, or else get him to regard such matters in the same light
as I do. Well! it is something, however, to have made him see that they
are not fit subjects for a conjugal jest. He may see further some time.
I will put no limits to my hopes; and, in spite of my aunt's forebodings
and my own unspoken fears, I trust we shall be happy yet.

CHAPTER XXV

On the eighth of April we went to London, on the eighth of May I
returned, in obedience to Arthur's wish; very much against my own,
because I left him behind. If he had come with me, I should have been
very glad to get home again, for he led me such a round of restless
dissipation while there, that, in that short space of time, I was quite
tired out. He seemed bent upon displaying me to his friends and
acquaintances in particular, and the public in general, on every possible
occasion, and to the greatest possible advantage. It was something to
feel that he considered me a worthy object of pride; but I paid dear for
the gratification: for, in the first place, to please him I had to
violate my cherished predilections, my almost rooted principles in favour
of a plain, dark, sober style of dress--I must sparkle in costly jewels
and deck myself out like a painted butterfly, just as I had, long since,
determined I would never do--and this was no trifling sacrifice; in the
second place, I was continually straining to satisfy his sanguine
expectations and do honour to his choice by my general conduct and
deportment, and fearing to disappoint him by some awkward misdemeanour,
or some trait of inexperienced ignorance about the customs of society,
especially when I acted the part of hostess, which I was not unfrequently
called upon to do; and, in the third place, as I intimated before, I was
wearied of the throng and bustle, the restless hurry and ceaseless change
of a life so alien to all my previous habits. At last, he suddenly
discovered that the London air did not agree with me, and I was
languishing for my country home, and must immediately return to
Grassdale.

I laughingly assured him that the case was not so urgent as he appeared
to think it, but I was quite willing to go home if he was. He replied
th