ove Beatrice as I ought to love my wife. I do love
Josephine Hart, and she is to be my wife to-morrow morning."

"Josephine Hart!" repeated Mrs. Bertram. She looked round at Beatrice,
and a smile played all over her face--a fearful smile.

"My son says he loves Josephine Hart--Josephine--_and he will marry her_!"

She gave a laugh, which was worse than any cry, and fell insensible on
the floor.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING.

Mrs. Meadowsweet wondered why Beatrice did not come home. It was the
night before the wedding. Surely on that night the bride ought to come
early to sleep under her mother's roof.

Mrs. Meadowsweet had a good deal to say to her girl. She had made up her
mind to give her a nice little domestic lecture. She thought it her duty
to reveal to her innocent Beatrice some of the pitfalls into which young
married girls are so apt to fall.

"Jane," she said to her handmaid, "Miss Beatrice is late."

"Eh, so she is," responded Jane. Jane was a woman of very few words. Her
remarks generally took the form of an echo. Mrs. Meadowsweet thought her
a very comfortable kind of body to confide in. Jane was taking away the
supper things.

"We were married ourselves, Jane, and we know what it means," continued
Mrs. Meadowsweet.

Jane was a widow--her husband had been a drunkard, and she had gone
through a terrible time with him.

She shook her head now with awful solemnity.

"We do that," she said. "It's an awful responsibility, is marriage--it's
not meant for the young."

"I don't agree with you there, Jane. How could elderly people bring up
their families?"

"It's not meant for the young," repeated Jane. "It's a careful thing,
and a troubling thing and a worreting thing is marriage, and it's not
meant for the young. Shall I leave the peaches on the table, ma'am, and
shall I make fresh cocoa for Miss Beatrice when she comes in?"

"Make the cocoa with all milk, Jane, it's more supporting. I always made
it a rule to sustain Beatrice a good deal. She wears herself out--she's
a great girl for wearing herself out, and it's my duty in life to repair
her. I used to repair her poor father, and now I repair her. It seems to
me that a woman's province in life is to repair--first the husband, and
then the children. Jane, I was thinking of giving Beatrice a little
lecture to-night on the duties that lie before her."

"Good sakes, ma'am, I'd leave her alone. She'll find out her worrits