decrees in life are executed,
there are always secret previsions and warning omens. When everything yet
seems calm, we are aware that the storm is coming. Ere the happy days were
over, two at least of that home-party felt that they were drawing to a
close; and were uneasy, and on the look-out for the cloud which was to
obscure their calm.

'Twas easy for Harry to see, however much his lady persisted in obedience
and admiration for her husband, that my lord tired of his quiet life, and
grew weary, and then testy, at those gentle bonds with which his wife
would have held him. As they say the Grand Lama of Thibet is very much
fatigued by his character of divinity, and yawns on his altar as his
bonzes kneel and worship him, many a home-god grows heartily sick of the
reverence with which his family devotees pursue him, and sighs for freedom
and for his old life, and to be off the pedestal on which his dependants
would have him sit for ever, whilst they adore him, and ply him with
flowers, and hymns, and incense, and flattery;--so, after a few years of
his marriage, my honest Lord Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown
raptures and devotional ceremonies with which his wife, his chief
priestess, treated him, first sent him to sleep, and then drove him out of
doors; for the truth must be told, that my lord was a jolly gentleman,
with very little of the august or divine in his nature, though his fond
wife persisted in revering it--and, besides, he had to pay a penalty for
this love, which persons of his disposition seldom like to defray: and, in
a word, if he had a loving wife, had a very jealous and exacting one. Then
he wearied of this jealousy: then he broke away from it; then came, no
doubt, complaints and recriminations; then, perhaps, promises of amendment
not fulfilled; then upbraidings not the more pleasant because they were
silent, and only sad looks and tearful eyes conveyed them. Then, perhaps,
the pair reached that other stage which is not uncommon in married life,
when the woman perceives that the god of the honeymoon is a god no more;
only a mortal like the rest of us--and so she looks into her heart, and lo!
_vacuae sedes et inania arcana_. And now, supposing our lady to have a
fine genius and a brilliant wit of her own, and the magic spell and
infatuation removed from her which had led her to worship as a god a very
ordinary mortal--and what follows? They live together, and they dine
together, and they say