in his wife's temper. She no longer acquiesced
in every suggestion, nor yielded when he opposed argument to an
assumed position. The pleasure of thinking and acting for herself
had been restored, and the delight appertaining to its indulgence
was no more to be suppressed. Her husband's reaction on this state
put her in greater freedom; for it made more distinctly manifest the
quality of his ruling affection, and awoke in her mind a more
determined spirit of resistance.

Up to this time, even in the most trifling matters of domestic and
social life, Lane's will had been the law. This was to be so no
longer. A new will had come into activity; and that will a woman's
will. Passive it had been for a long time under a pressure that
partial love and a yielding temper permitted to remain; but its
inward life was unimpaired; and when its motions became earnest, it
was strong and enduring. The effort made by Lane to subdue these
motions the moment he perceived them, only gave them a stronger
impulse. The hand laid upon her heart to quiet its pulsations only
made it beat with a quicker effort, while it communicated its
disturbance to his own.

The causes leading to the result we are to describe have been fully
enough set forth; they steadily progressed until the husband and
wife were in positions of direct antagonism. Lane could not give up
his love of controlling every thing around him, and his wife, fairly
roused to opposition, followed the promptings of her own will, in
matters where right was clearly on her side, with a quiet
perseverance that always succeeded. Of course, they were often made
unhappy; yet enough forbearance existed on both sides to prevent an
open rupture--at least, for a time. That, however, came at last, and
was the more violent from the long accumulation of reactive forces.

The particulars of this rupture we need not give; it arose in a
dispute about the child when she was two years old. As usual, Lane
had attempted to set aside the judgment of his wife in something
pertaining to the child, as inferior to his own, and she had not
submitted. Warm words ensued, in which he said a good deal about a
wife's knowing her place and keeping it.

"I am not your slave!" said Amanda, indignantly; the cutting words
of her husband throwing her off her guard.

"You are my wife," he calmly and half contemptuously replied; "and,
as such, are bound to submit yourself to your husband."

"To my husband's intelligence