in truth was only
meant by Mother Nature to give expression to all things kind and loving.

She has leant a little forward and a swift flush is dyeing her cheek.
She is of all women the youngest looking, for her years; as a matron
indeed she seems absurd. The delicate bloom of girlhood seems never to
have left her, but--as though in love of her beauty--has clung to her
day by day. So that now, when she has known eight years of married life
(and some of them deeply tinctured with care--the cruel care that want
of money brings), she still looks as though the morning of womanhood was
as yet but dawning for her.

And this is because love the beautifier went with her all the way! Hand
in hand he has traveled with her on the stony paths that those who marry
must undoubtedly pursue. Never once had he let go his hold, and so it
is, that her lovely face has defied Time (though after all that
obnoxious Ancient has not had yet much opportunity given him to spoil
it), and at twenty-five she looks but a little older than her sister,
who is just eighteen, and seven years younger than she is.

Her pretty soft grey Irish eyes, that are as nearly _not_ black as it is
possible for them to be, are still filled with the dews of youth. Her
mouth is red and happy. Her hair--so distinctly chestnut as to be almost
guilty of a shade of red in it here and there--covers her dainty head in
rippling masses, that fall lightly forward, and rest upon a brow,
snow-white, and low and broad as any Greek's might be.

She had spoken a little hurriedly, with some touch of anger. But quick
as the anger was born, so quickly does it die.

"I shouldn't have said that, perhaps," says she, sending a little
tremulous glance at her husband from behind the urn. "But I couldn't
help it. I can't _bear_ to hear you say you would like to be like him."

She smiles (a little, gentle, "don't-be-angry-with-me" smile, scarcely
to be resisted by any man, and certainly not by her husband, who adores
her). It is scarcely necessary to record this last fact, as all who run
may read it for themselves, but it saves time to put it in black and
white.

"But why not, my dear?" says Mr. Monkton, magisterially. "Surely,
considering all things, you have reason to be deeply grateful to Sir
George. Why, then, abuse him?"

"Grateful! To Sir George! To your father!" cries his wife, hotly and
quick, and----

"Freddy!" from his sister-in-law brings him to a full stop for a moment.