"As I do—yes!" an unclouded eye answering hers.
"Mrs. Morris had a party in honour of her nephew's marriage; and a series of events succeeded, which occasioned me vexation and trouble; but I was not the principal actor."
"And the secret of another, you are not empowered to reveal. Right! The next?"
"Is this!"
"Out of three of the five you have mentioned, disaster and sorrow have arisen. The proportion of joy in this woeful life is variously estimated, from two-fifths to two-thirds. So we do no violence to natural laws, in assuming this to be a white mile-stone."
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
The stability of wedded happiness may be fairly tested in six years; and that number has elapsed since the wedding-eve at Sunnybank;—a month or two more—for hickory logs are heaped upon the carved andirons, and the arrowy blaze sheds a red glare upon a group of familiar faces:—Charley, unaltered, save that the benign lustre of his eye—formerly seen only by his best friends, has become habitual;—Morton Lacy, handsomer in the prime of manhood than as the slender student; and, her elbow resting on his knee, sits upon a low divan, his wife. If Time has dealt leniently with the others, he has acted repentantly towards her. She is younger, in face and manner, at twenty-seven, than she was at seventeen. Her husband's equal in many respects, and treated by him as such—she has never endured the servile subjugation of soul, which transforms intelligent women into inane, mindless machines. In yielding to his superior judgment, when in contrariety to hers, her will has parted with none of its strength in the bend which proved its pliancy. Submission is a pleasure, not a cross.
"I read to-day of a Mr. Latham, called to the —— street Church, Baltimore," says Charley. "Is it Emma's husband?"