ld, I am sure, be quite
impossible for me to love a wife in whose absolute truth and sincerity I
had not entire confidence."

"And you do love me, your foolish, faulty little wife?" she said, in a
tone that was a mixture of assertion and inquiry, while her lovely eyes
gazed searchingly into his.

"Dearly, dearly, my sweet!" he said, smiling fondly down upon her. "And
now to bed, lest these bright eyes and rosy cheeks should lose something
of their brilliance and beauty."

"Suppose they should," she said, turning slightly pale, as with sudden
pain. "O Ned! if I live, I must some day grow old and gray and wrinkled,
my eyes dim and sunken: shall you love me then, darling?"

"Better than ever, love," he whispered, holding her closer to his heart;
"for how long we shall have lived and loved together! We shall have come
to be as one indeed, each with hardly a thought or feeling unshared by
the other."

CHAPTER III.

"One woman reads another's character, without the tedious trouble of
deciphering."--JONSON.

Zoe's sleep that night was profound and refreshing, and she woke in
perfect health and vigor of body and mind; but the first sound that
smote upon her ear--the dashing of sleet against the window-pane--sent
a pang of disappointment and dismay to her heart.

She sprang from her bed, and, running to the window, drew aside the
curtain, and looked out.

"O Ned!" she groaned, "the ground is covered with sleet and snow,--about
a foot deep, I should think,--and just hear how the wind shrieks and
howls round the house!"

"Well, love," he answered in a cheery tone, "we are well sheltered, and
supplied with all needful things for comfort and enjoyment."

"And one that will destroy every bit of my enjoyment in any or all the
others," she sighed; "but," eagerly and half hopefully, "do you think it
is quite certain to be too bad for her to go?"

"Quite, I am afraid. If she should offer to go," he added mischievously,
"we will not be more urgent against it than politeness demands, and, if
she persists, will not refuse the use of the close carriage as far as
the depot."

"She offer to go!" exclaimed Zoe scornfully: "you may depend, she'll
stay as long as she has the least vestige of an excuse for doing so."

"Oh, now, little woman! don't begin the day with being quite so hard and
uncharitable," Edward said, half seriously, half laughingly.

Zoe was not far wrong in her estimate of her guest. Miss Deane was both