what the
matter was with her brother, that women always have who have grown up
in intimacy with a man. These fine female eyes see farther between
the rough cracks and ridges of the oak bark of manhood than men
themselves. Nothing would have been easier, had Grace been a jealous
_exigeante_ woman, than to have passed a fine probe of sisterly
inquiry into the weak places where the ties between John and Lillie
were growing slack, and untied and loosened them more and more.
She could have done it so tenderly, so conscientiously, so
pityingly,--encouraging John to talk and to complain, and taking part
with him,--till there should come to be two parties in the family, the
brother and sister against the wife.

How strong the temptation was, those may feel who reflect that this
one subject caused an almost total eclipse of the life-long habit of
confidence which had existed between Grace and her brother, and that
her brother was her life and her world.

But Grace was one of those women formed under the kindly severe
discipline of Puritan New England, to act not from blind impulse or
instinct, but from high principle. The habit of self-examination and
self-inspection, for which the religious teaching of New England has
been peculiar, produced a race of women who rose superior to those
mere feminine caprices and impulses which often hurry very generous
and kindly-natured persons into ungenerous and dishonorable conduct.
Grace had been trained, by a father and mother whose marriage union
was an ideal of mutual love, honor, and respect, to feel that marriage
was the holiest and most awful of obligations. To her, the idea of
a husband or a wife betraying each other's weaknesses or faults by
complaints to a third party seemed something sacrilegious; and she
used all her womanly tact and skill to prevent any conversation that
might lead to such a result.

"Lillie is entirely knocked up by the affair yesterday; she had a
terrible headache this morning," said John.

"Poor child! She is a delicate little thing," said Grace.

"She couldn't have had any labor," continued John, "for I saw to every
thing and provided every thing myself; and Bridget and Rosa and all
the girls entered into it with real spirit, and Lillie did the best
she could, poor girl! but I could see all the time she was worrying
about her new fizgigs and folderols in the house. Hang it! I wish they
were all in the Red Sea!" burst out John, glad to find something to