Exeter, and belonged to rather common people; but,
of course, I didn't care for that. Her own manners and style were
refined enough. She had been sent by her father to a very fashionable
boarding-school, where she had been run through the same mould as that
in which her superiors had been formed, and so she might have passed
muster any where. Her father was awfully fond of her, and proud of
her. She tyrannized over him completely. I soon found out that she had
been utterly spoiled by his excessive indulgence, and that she was the
most whimsical, nonsensical, headstrong, little spoiled beauty that
ever lived. But, of course, all that, instead of deterring me, only
increased the fascination which she exercised, and made me more madly
in love than ever.

"Her name was not a particularly attractive one; but what are names!
It was Arethusa Wiggins. Now the old man always called her "Arry,"
which sounded like the vulgar pronunciation of "Harry." Of course I
couldn't call her that, and Arethusa was too infernally long, for a
fellow doesn't want to be all day in pronouncing his wife's name.
Besides, it isn't a bad name in itself, of course; it's poetic,
classic, and does to name a ship of war, but isn't quite the thing for
one's home and hearth.

"After our marriage we spent the honeymoon in Switzerland, and then
came home. I had a very nice estate, and have it yet. You've never
heard of Dacres Grange, perhaps--well, there's where we began life,
and a devil of a life she began to lead me. It was all very well at
first. During the honey-moon there were only a few outbursts, and
after we came to the Grange she repressed herself for about a
fortnight; but finally she broke out in the most furious fashion; and
I began to find that she had a devil of a temper, and in her fits she
was but a small remove from a mad woman. You see she had been humored
and indulged and petted and coddled by her old fool of a father, until
at last she had grown to be the most whimsical, conceited, tetchy,
suspicious, imperious, domineering, selfish, cruel, hard-hearted, and
malignant young vixen that ever lived; yet this evil nature dwelt in a
form as beautiful as ever lived. She was a beautiful demon, and I soon
found it out.

"It began out of nothing at all. I had been her adoring slave for
three weeks, until I began to be conscious of the most abominable
tyranny on her part. I began to resist this, and we were on the verge
of an outbreak when we