"Well, I suppose I am; but what can I do? I must keep up, as I said; and it is the only thing which gives me any ease. Don't talk of it now, Letty: it is of no use. You cannot judge for me, any more than I can for you."
"This is just such a room as you used to plan for yourself when we were little girls together, Agnes," said Letty, looking around her. "Do you remember how we used to sit under the trees in our back-yard, and talk about what we would have when we grew up? I recollect your saying that you would have plenty of pretty little bottles with sweet things in them, and a bed with worked-muslin curtains lined with pink. It is not often that a castle in the air is so literally built."
"Yes; I have been filled with the fruit of my own desires," said Agnes. "'He has given me my heart's desire, and sent leanness withal into my soul.' I have learned several things since then:—among others, the fact that beds with worked curtains are just as disagreeable to lie awake in, as beds with patchwork coverlets, and that something more is necessary to one's happiness than the mere having no sewing to do,—which I remember used to be your idea of perfect felicity."
"What do you do, Agnes?" asked Letty, anxious to get at some particulars of her cousin's life. "How do you employ your time?"
"Oh, one day is very much like another. We rise late to a late breakfast, and I go out and do shopping, or order things for dinner and supper, as the case may be, or make some calls; though my calling acquaintance has grown very small since you went away. Joseph never comes home till dinner, and not always then unless we have company; and I take a nap in the afternoon, whenever the pain in my chest will let me sleep. We always have company in the evening, and then Joe expects me to entertain them. You would be surprised, Letty, to see how well I look when I am up for the evening."
"But what company do you have?"
"No one that you would care about meeting," said Agnes, with a strange laugh. "They are men and women who come to play cards and eat game-suppers and drink wine and brandy punch,—women whom your friend Mrs. Trescott would not admit within her doors or see in the street, but who are very merry and jolly nevertheless.
"I wish you could see my husband when the people are gone and he has lost money, or has not won quite as much as he expected. Would you like a specimen of his language at such times? Look here!" Agnes turned back her loose sleeve as she spoke, and showed her arm, black and bruised from the shoulder to the elbow. "That is his parting gift to me," she said. "I expect he will kill me, some time. What do you say? Will you change places with me?"
"God forbid!" said Letty, shuddering. "But I always thought Joseph was kind-hearted and fond of you, whatever else he might be."
"So he was," said Agnes: "I will do him that justice, at least. He was naturally amiable and easily influenced; and if I had been any thing else than the fool I was, I might have done any thing with him. But it is too late now. Brandy and remorse together have made a devil of him. I dare not cross him in the least, and do not know when to fear him most,—at night, when he is drunk, or in the morning, when he is sober.