o softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's
affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these
small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time
she vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to
take Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him. Since
according to that wise speech of Harriet--which even Anne Valery smiled
at and did not deny--the best of men were very disagreeable at times,
and no man's good qualities ever came out thoroughly until he had been
married for at least a year.

With a tear in her eye and a quiver on her lip, Agatha held up her young
face to her husband. He kissed her, and there was peace.

But though he had made this concession, and made many others in the
course of the next hour, to remove from her mind every thought of pain,
still he showed not the slightest change of will regarding the cause of
dispute. And perhaps in her secret heart this only caused his wife to
respect him the more. It is usually the weak and erring who vacillate.
Firmness of purpose, mildly carried out, implies a true motive at the
root. Agatha began to think whether her husband might not have some
reason for his conduct; probably the very simple one of disliking to see
his name or her own paraded in a subscription-list, or mixed up with a
political clique.

Nevertheless, he puzzled her. She could not think why, with all his
tenderness, he so often put his will in opposition to her own, and
prevented her pleasure; why he was so slow in giving her his confidence;
why he more than once plainly stated that there was "a reason" for
various disagreeable whims, yet had not told her what that reason was.
All these were trivial things--yet in the early sunrise of married life
the least molehill throws a long black shadow.

"I will be a wise woman. I will not disquiet myself in vain," said the
little wife to herself, as her husband left her, in answer to repeated
calls from some feminine voice which had just entered the house, and
was immediately audible half over it. Harriet Dugdale's, of course. To
her--sharp-sighted and merry-tongued woman that she was--Agatha would
not for worlds have betrayed anything; so, dashing cold water on her
forehead to hide the very near approach to tears, she quickly descended.

Harrie was in a state of considerable indignation, mixed with laughter.
"I never knew such people as you are! and certainly never was there t