s arm, and, as they were
passing out, Edith caught her father looking grimly on them, and said
quickly, "Do you mind our going to church, papa? We will stay at home if
you wish."

"No, go along!" said he. "I'll not thwart you in so small a matter, and
hope I may never have occasion to in a greater!" Edith looked up in his
face as he uttered these last words. There was a dark shade flitting over
it. It haunted her all the while she was walking to church; but so many
things occupied her attention, after entering, it passed from her mind.

CHAPTER VII.

"I fain would know why woman is outraged,
And trampled in the very dust by man,
Who vaunts himself the lord of all the earth,
And e'en the mighty realms of sea and air."

Winter was passing away, and Wimbledon was making but slow progress
toward the better knowledge of the new family that had come among them.
The silver plate on the hall door announced the master's name as Col. J.
Corydon Malcome, a sounding appellation enough; and he was often seen
walking up and down the streets in his rich, fur-lined overcoat and laced
velvet cap, placed with a courtly air over his cloud of ebon curls. He
was known to be a widower, and the woful extravagancies into which Mary
Madeline Mumbles cajoled her doting mother, were enough to make one
shudder in relating. Wimbledon was ransacked for the gayest taffetas, the
jauntiest bonnets, and broadest Dutch lace, till, at length, poor Mr.
Salsify went to his wife with a doleful countenance, and told her he
could never "rise in his profession" as long as she upheld Madeline in
such whimsical extravagance. Mrs. Salsify looked lofty, and tossed her
carroty head; but her husband had waxed bold in his distress, and could
not be intimidated by ireful brows, or pursed-up lips. So he proceeded to
free his mind on this wise: "As for Mary Madeline's ever catching that
haughty, black-headed Col. Malcome, I know better; she can't do it, and I
would much rather have her marry Theophilus Shaw, who is a steady, modest
shoemaker. He makes good wages, and can maintain a wife comfortably, and
would treat her well; which is more than I would trust that
murderous-looking colonel to do."

"Well, you will have your own way, I suppose," said Mrs. S., putting on
an injured expression. "I see it is about as Mrs. Pimble and the
sisterhood tell me. Men are all a set of tyrant