ich made her feel--was it anger? No not anger,
though her cheeks glowed and her breast heaved. Why was it, that as
Nathanael walked onward towards the house, his wife looked after him
with such a mingling of attraction and repulsion? What could it be, this
strange power which gave him the preeminence over her--which taught her,
without her knowing it, the mystery that causes man to rule and woman
to obey; Very thoughtful--even unmoved by Harrie's loud laughter at
the "excellent joke"--Mrs. Harper suffered herself to be led on by her
sister-in-law.

"Nonsense, child, don't look so serious. Men will have their
way--especially husbands. Mine gets obeyed as little as any one; but now
and then, when it comes to the point"--here Harrie looked astonishingly
grave, for her--"I'm obliged to give in to Pa; and somehow Pa's always
right, bless him!"

How every word of one happy wife went like a dagger into the other
wife's heart! But there was no shield. Here they were in Anne Valery's
house, obliged to appear as cheerful guests, especially the newest
guest, the bride. Agatha tried, and tried successfully, to play her
part:--misery makes such capital hypocrites!

"Isn't this a large house for a single woman?" said Mrs. Dugdale, as the
two ladies passed up-stairs. "Yet Anne constantly manages to fill it,
especially in summer-time. The dozens of sick friends she has staying
here to be cured by sea-breezes! the scores of young people that come
and make love in those green alleys down the garden! But then in the
lulls of company the house is dull and silent--as now."

It was very silent, though not with the desolation which often broods
over a large house thinly inhabited. The room--Anne's bedroom--lay
westward, and a good deal of sunshine was still glinting in. A few late
bees were buzzing about the open window, cheated perhaps by the feathery
seeds of the clematis, which had long ceased flowering. There was no
other sound. But many fine prints, a few painted portraits, and several
white-gleaming statuettes, seemed as the sunlight struck them to burst
the silence, with mute speech.

"Oh, you are looking at Anne's 'odds and ends' as I call them. Rather a
contrast, her walls and ours. I don't see the use of prints and plaster
images--always in the way where there are children. But Anne is so
dreadfully fond of pretty things. She says they're company. No wonder! A
solitary old maid must find herself very dull at times."

"Must sh