"I do wish you would never again throw out one of your wild and foolish 'perhaps so's!" exclaimed the wife pettishly. "I should not be surprised if your cousin should bring you before the courts for slander."
The husband threw up his broad hands high above his head while a merry peal of laughter rang through the apartment.
"Only to think, wife! Slander! I tell you there are chapters in that woman's life that she would not like to have me or any one else be fumbling over, and there is not much danger that she will ever turn the leaves for my especial benefit."
"You are too bad; the mother of Lillian Belmont ought to be above such insinuations, Mr. St. Clair!"
"That is a fact, but she is not, and there is where the too bad comes in;" and the merry laugh again resounded.
Mrs. Gaylord reached her home in safety. It was a fine old residence, standing back from the highway, nearly hidden from the passer by because of the large wide-spreading trees with which it was surrounded; yet the broadly-paved walks that branched off in every direction as they wound around among the cool shadows of the overhanging branches were delightfully inviting to the weary traveler who looked in upon them. The mistress of that pleasant retreat now, however, walked with languid step up the winding path to the house with a heavy heart. The darker shades of an overhanging gloom oppressed her. On the portico the servants were collected to give her welcome, and as she took the tawny hand of each in her own, said, "You too will miss your young mistress. You loved her, Jenny,—she will make no more turbans for you, Phebe—and poor little Pegs! who will fix his kite or teach him how to spin his top?"
"Whar is she Missus?" asked Phebe, with the great tears rolling down her ebony cheeks, and several other voices chimed in "Dar—dar—Missus, whar is she?"
"Dead! Swallowed up by the big sea, and we shall see her no more!" She passed on, for Mr. Gaylord had taken her arm and was leading her into the long drawing-room, where he bade her stop her prating and making a simpleton of herself.
"It might as well be she as any one," he continued, noticing the look of distress on the pale face; "Seldom could there be found a young lady of her attractions who would break fewer hearts by disappearing than would she. But I am sorry for you. There was a little more color in your face, and a slight return of the former sprightliness in your manner while she was with you. But she is gone, Mrs. Gaylord, and what is the use of throwing misery over every one who crosses your path because of it? If you must pine away the few attractions you have left out of your life, why, do it silently and alone."
Her tears ceased at the commencement of this little sympathetic(?) speech and she now stood before her husband cold and chilling. Servants came and went with little acts of attention and considerable bustle of ceremony, yet, with her arm resting upon the marble mantel, she moved not, for her thoughts had driven away her weariness. A visitor was announced and she turned to see that her husband had seated himself by the window with his paper, and was deep in the perplexing problems it had brought to him.