d."

"They _mislead_ you, I fear."

He turned away and took up a book; so did I: it was the Bible;
and as I opened it, my eyes fell on the following passage:--
"Hadst thou know, even thou, in this thy day the things which
belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thy sight." How
long? my God, how long?

Upon our return to town, I found how much truth there had been
in Henry's remark, that for the present London would suit me
better than any other place. He had foreseen and calculated
upon what, in fact, did happen.

I felt an involuntary relief in the way in which Edward's time
was taken up, and his attention engrossed by a variety of
affairs relative to his estates, as well as by a diligent
attendance upon the House of Commons. When he came home to a
late dinner, or took a short ride with me in the park, there
was in those brief moments so much to talk about, so much to
interest us both, such intense enjoyment in each other's
society, that there was no opportunity for Edward to find
fault with me, or for me to show him anything of that wayward
and gloomy abstraction which irritated and displeased him. The
echo of his step, the sound of his voice, was like music in my
ears; and as I rushed to meet him, with a bright smile and an
eager welcome, he received me with a tenderness which was too
often changed to severity, when, in an hourly association, he
had to observe the thousand faults which marked the course of
my daily life.

There is no existence much more lonely than that of a woman
just married, whose husband is constantly engaged in business,
or in politics, and who happens to have no near relations or
intimate friends about her. This was the case with me; I had
formed none of those intimacies which fill up so large a
portion in a woman's life; and the love of reading and of
study; which had been strong in my girlish days, had latterly
completely given way to the necessity for constant stimulus
and excitement.

I found it, unfortunately, in Henry's society. As a matter of
course, he was admitted to me whenever he called, and he
assumed that the order, or the prayer, whichever it was, that
had prevented his leaving us, gave him an indisputable right
to maintain, in their fullest extent, those privileges of
intimacy, which the nearness of our connection, as well as the
ties that had bound us to each other, had established between
us.

I had so often vainly struggled to assert my independence,
th