with
him and traveled to England and France, and he was going to send her
back to Holland, when his mother urged him to marry her, which he did
reluctantly."

In what way or to what extent, if any, the relations between the young
mariner and his wife were affected after Hymen had stepped in and
chained them together, there are data for determining. If we are to
unqualifiedly accept the averments of the captain's affidavit we should
come to the conclusion that Marie's nature and disposition were woefully
transformed when she could legally designate herself, "Mrs. Captain
Oliver P. Hazard." She then discovered "a jealous disposition" and "an
ungovernable temper." When he returned from his various voyages she "did
not receive him kindly;" but, contrariwise, sometimes received him on
the side of "a poker," on the end of "a dirk" or at the muzzle of
"pistol." Moreover--and this is dolefully comic--"she repeatedly left
this deponent imprisoned in the house for hours under lock and key!"
What a situation for a foaming mariner, accustomed to roam the vastness
of the majestic, the free, the uncontrollable deep! Probably the next
arraignment is still more exasperating. "She kept a servant to act as a
spy and treat this deponent with disrespect." With the lapse of years,
and with the peculiar hue which strife assumes in its backward
prospective, his once happy-home and connubial comforts wore a jaundiced
and sickly aspect. He ceased to recall the days when his heart was
linked unto Marie's as a rosebud is linked to its stem.

Mrs. Hazard possessed some letters, written to her by her whilom amorous
husband, which will enable the reader to form a pretty correct idea of
the estimation in which, until quite recently, the captain held his
pretty wife. For example, one Fourth of July, he writes from "On board
the U. S. Steamer John Rice," from Fortress Monroe to "My own dear and
precious wife," informing her that the ship has been landing troops,
that he feels rather seedy and low-spirited, and wishes he was at home
to spend "the glorious Fourth" in her company. In a postscript he blazes
into amorous enthusiasm and exclaims, "Write your dear Olly!" and in the
bottom left-hand corner, within a sort of fairy circle, about the size
of the orifice of a quart-bottle neck, appeared the gushing invitation,
("Kiss me.")

Nearly a year afterward he writes from Havana, "On board the steamer
Liberty, May 6, 1865," to "My own dear precious wife,