escribed this encounter with Dr.
Maclure.

"This is a complete change of front," said Angelica; "what does it
mean?"

"When a man of that kind tells his wife to make the most of her life
in her own way and be independent, he means '_Don't bother me; another
woman is the delight of my senses!_' When he says to the other woman
'_Be free!_' he means '_Throw yourself into my arms!_'"

Angelica sighed. "Poor Beth!" she said, "what a fate to be tied to
that plausible hog!"

* * * * *

From having been so much shut up in herself, Beth showed very little
of the contrasts of her temperament on the surface,--her joy in life,
her moments of exaltation, of devotion, of confidence, of harshness,
of tenderness; her awful fits of depression, her doubts, her fears,
her self-distrust; her gusts of passion, and the disconnected impulses
wedged into the well-disciplined routine of a consistent life, ordered
for the most part by principle, reason, and reflection. Few people,
meeting her casually, would have suspected any contrasts at all; and
even of those who knew her best, only one now and then appreciated the
rate at which the busy mind was working, and the changes wrought by
the growth which was continually in progress beneath her equable
demeanour. Those about her, for want of discernment, expected nothing
of her, and suffered shocks of surprise in consequence, which they
resented, blaming her for their own defects.

But it was of much more importance to Beth that she should be able to
pass on with ease from one thing to another than that she should have
the approval of people who would have had her stay where they found
her, not for her benefit, but for their own convenience in classifying
her. Beth made stepping-stones of her knowledge of other people rather
than of her own dead self. She picked to pieces the griefs they
brought upon her, dissected them, and moralised upon them; and, in so
doing, forgot the personal application. While in the midst of what
might have been her own life tragedy, she compared herself with those
who had been through theirs and did not seem a bit the worse or the
better, which observation stimulated her fortitude; when she
contemplated the march of events, that mighty army of atoms, any one
of which may be in command of us for a time, none remaining so for
ever under healthy conditions, she perceived that life is lived in
detail, not in the abstract. The kind of thin