ousehold, she would have her own way;
and scolded her master with as little ceremony as if she had been united
to him by matrimonial bonds.

To this Forster quietly submitted: he had lived long enough to be aware
that people are not the happiest who are not under control, and was
philosopher sufficient to submit to the penal code of matrimony without
tasting its enjoyments, The arrival of the infant made him more than
ever feel as if he were a married man; for he had all the delights of
the nursery in addition to his previous discipline. But, although bound
by no ties, he found himself happier. He soon played with the infant,
and submitted to his housekeeper with all the docility of a well-trained
married man.

The Newfoundland dog, who, although (like some of his betters) he did
not change his name _for_ a fortune, did, in all probability, change it
_with_ his fortune, soon answered to the deserved epithet of Faithful,
and slept at the foot of the crib of his little mistress, who also was
to be rechristened. "She is a treasure, which has been thrown up by the
ocean," said Forster, kissing the lovely infant. "Let her name be
_Amber_."

But we must leave her to bud forth in her innocence and her purity,
while we direct the attention of the reader to other scenes, which are
contemporary with those we have described.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while 'tis so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it.
SHAKESPEARE.

A man may purchase an estate, a tenement, or a horse because they have
pleased his fancy, and eventually find out that he has not exactly
suited himself; and it sometimes will occur that a man is placed in a
similar situation relative to his choice of a wife: a more serious evil;
as, although the prime cost may be nothing, there is no chance of
getting rid of this latter speculation by re-vending, as you may the
former. Now it happened that Nicholas Forster, of whom we have already
made slight mention, although he considered at the time of his marriage
that the person he had selected would _exactly suit his focus_, did
eventually discover that he was more short-sighted in his choice than an
optician ought to have been.

Whatever may have been the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at
the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but
few to boas