shortly and crossly; but when she found that he
treated her offended air as the whim of a spoilt child, and was rather
the more amused by it, she determined that he should not be entertained
by her humours. Perilous entertainment as it was, Leslie could not have
afforded it; her wilderness tamed her so that she welcomed Hector Garret
eagerly, submitted to be treated as a child, exerted herself to prattle
away gaily and foolishly when her heart was a little heavy and her
spirits languid.

Leslie saw so little of her husband--perhaps it was the case with all
wives; her father and mother were as much apart--but Leslie did not
understand the necessity. She did not like her life to be selfish,
smooth, and aimless, except for her own fancies, as it had been from
the first. She wanted to share Hector Garret's cares and his work which
he transacted so faithfully. She wished he thought her half as worth
consulting as his steward. She had faith in woman's wit. She had a
notion that she herself was quick and could become painstaking. She
tried entering his room once or twice uninvited, but he always looked so
discontented, and when she withdrew so relieved, that she could not
persevere in the attempt.

When Hector Garret went shooting or fishing, Leslie would have
accompanied him gladly, would have delighted in his trophies, and
carried his bag or his basket, like any gillie or callant of the
Highlands or Lowlands, if he would have allowed it; but his excursions
were too remote and fatiguing, and beyond the strength that was supposed
consistent with her sex and nurture.

Little fool! to assail another's responsibilities and avocations when
her own were embarrassing her sufficiently. Her household web had got
warped and entangled in her careless, inexperienced hands, and vexed and
mortified her with a sense of incapacity and failure--an oppression
which she could not own to Hector Garret, because there was no common
ground, and no mutual understanding between them. When Leslie came to
Otter she found the housekeeping in the hands of an Irish follower of
the Garrets--themselves of Irish origin; and Hector Garret presented
Bridget Kennedy to his wife as his faithful and honoured servant, whom
he recommended to a high place in her regard. Bridget Kennedy displayed
more marked traces of race than her master, but it was the Celtic
nature under its least attractive aspect to strangers, proud,
passionate, fanciful, and vindictive. She