o an end. Surely she must be deep, and know some secret!

For the other lady, Helen Lingard that was, she had since her marriage
altered considerably in the right direction. She used to be a little
dry, a little stiff, and a little stately. To the last I should be far
from objecting, were it not that her stateliness was of the mechanical
sort, belonging to the spine, and not to a soul uplift. Now it had left
her spine and settled in a soul that scorned the low and loved the
lowly. Her step was lighter, her voice more flexible, her laugh much
merrier and more frequent, for now her heart was gay. Her husband
praised God when he heard her laugh; the laugh suggested the praise, for
itself rang like praises. She would pull up her ponies in the middle of
the street, and at word or sign, the carriage would be full of children.
Whoever could might scramble in till it was full. At the least rudeness,
the offender would be ordered to the pavement, and would always obey,
generally weeping. She would drive two or three times up and down the
street with her load, then turn it out, and take another, and another,
until as many as she judged fit had had a taste of the pleasure. This
she had learned from seeing a costermonger fill his cart with children,
and push behind, while the donkey in front pulled them along the street,
to the praise and glory of God.

She was overbearing in one thing, and that was submission. Once, when I
was in her husband's study, she made a remark on something he had said
or written, I forget what, for which her conscience of love immediately
smote her. She threw herself on the floor, crept under the writing table
at which he sat, and clasped his knees.

"I beg your pardon, husband," she said sorrowfully.

"Helen," he cried, laughing rather oddly, "you will make a consummate
idiot of me before you have done."

"Forgive me," she pleaded.

"I can't forgive you. How can I forgive where there is positively
nothing to be forgiven?"

"I don't care what you say; I know better; you _must_ forgive me."

"Nonsense!"

"Forgive me."

"Do get up. Don't be silly."

"Forgive me. I will lie here till you do."

"But your remark was perfectly true."

"It makes no difference. I ought not to have said it like that. Forgive
me, or I will cry."

I will tell no more of it. Perhaps it is silly of me to tell any, but it
moved me strangely.

I have said enough to show there was a contrast between the two ladies.
As