er teeth her old, often-repeated assertions, that she
was not prone to be in love,--that it was not her nature to feel any
ardent affection for a man, and that, therefore, she would probably
remain unmarried. "You begrudge me my little bits of pleasure,"
Violet said, in answer to one such attack. "No;--but it is so odd to
see you, of all women, become so love-lorn," "I am not love-lorn,"
said Violet, "but I like the freedom of telling him everything and
of hearing everything from him, and of having him for my own best
friend. He might go away for twelve months, and I should not be
unhappy, believing, as I do, that he would be true to me." All of
which set Lady Laura thinking whether her friend had not been wiser
than she had been. She had never known anything of that sort of
friendship with her husband which already seemed to be quite
established between these two.

In her misery one day Lady Laura told the whole story of her own
unhappiness to her brother, saying nothing of Phineas Finn,--thinking
nothing of him as she told her story, but speaking more strongly
perhaps than she should have done, of the terrible dreariness of her
life at Loughlinter, and of her inability to induce her husband to
alter it for her sake.

"Do you mean that he,--ill-treats you?" said the brother, with a
scowl on his face which seemed to indicate that he would like no task
better than that of resenting such ill-treatment.

"He does not beat me, if you mean that."

"Is he cruel to you? Does he use harsh language?"

"He never said a word in his life either to me or, as I believe, to
any other human being, that he would think himself bound to regret."

"What is it then?"

"He simply chooses to have his own way, and his way cannot be my way.
He is hard, and dry, and just, and dispassionate, and he wishes me to
be the same. That is all."

"I tell you fairly, Laura, as far as I am concerned, I never could
speak to him. He is antipathetic to me. But then I am not his wife."

"I am;--and I suppose I must bear it."

"Have you spoken to my father?"

"No."

"Or to Violet?"

"Yes."

"And what does she say?"

"What can she say? She has nothing to say. Nor have you. Nor, if I am
driven to leave him, can I make the world understand why I do so. To
be simply miserable, as I am, is nothing to the world."

"I could never understand why you married him."

"Do not be cruel to me, Oswald."

"Cruel! I will stick by you in any way that you