ieve that Providence will ever desert a great and
pious line!'

CHAPTER VI.

_Containing Another Domestic Scene_.

LADY ARMINE and Glastonbury were both too much interested in the welfare
of Sir Ratcliffe not to observe with deep concern that a great, although
gradual, change had occurred in his character during the last five
years. He had become moody and querulous, and occasionally even
irritable. His constitutional melancholy, long diverted by the
influence of a vigorous youth, the society of a charming woman, and
the interesting feelings of a father, began to reassert its ancient and
essential sway, and at times even to deepen into gloom. Sometimes whole
days elapsed without his ever indulging in conversation; his nights,
once tranquil, were now remarkable for their restlessness; his wife was
alarmed at the sighs and agitation of his dreams. He abandoned also his
field sports, and none of those innocent sources of amusement, in which
it was once his boast their retirement was so rich, now interested him.
In vain Lady Armine sought his society in her walks, or consulted him
about her flowers. His frigid and monosyllabic replies discouraged
all her efforts. No longer did he lean over her easel, or call for a
repetition of his favourite song. At times these dark fits passed away,
and if not cheerful, he was at least serene. But on the whole he was
an altered man; and his wife could no longer resist the miserable
conviction that he was an unhappy one.

She, however, was at least spared the mortification, the bitterest that
a wife can experience, of feeling that this change in his conduct was
occasioned by any indifference towards her; for, averse as Sir Ratcliffe
was to converse on a subject so hopeless and ungrateful as the state of
his fortune, still there were times in which he could not refrain from
communicating to the partner of his bosom all the causes of his misery,
and these, indeed, too truly had she divined.

'Alas!' she would sometimes say as she tried to compose his restless
pillow; 'what is this pride to which you men sacrifice everything? For
me, who am a woman, love is sufficient. Oh! my Ratcliffe, why do you not
feel like your Constance? What if these estates be sold, still we are
Armines! and still our dear Ferdinand is spared to us! Believe me, love,
that if deference to your feelings has prompted my silence, I have long
felt that it would be wiser for us at once to meet a necessary ev