s eyes followed
him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and
which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to
follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was
in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to
notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and
smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my
anxious, wounded feelings.

A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to
the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did
not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with
folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern
and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,--now he
knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.

"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to
others,--"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient
breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on
myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping
vigilance;--but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of
others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as
well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of
domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."

As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious.
The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it
attempted to imprison.

"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and
gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him
be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will
not be the slave of his mad caprices."

"No," whispered _the angel over my right shoulder_, "but you will be the
forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to _endure all_, knowing his
infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond
the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not
murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in
its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer
on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword,
and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."

As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around