A chill like that of mid-winter came over the heart of the wife as she listened to the grave rebuke.
There was truth in the words. Our duties should be performed from higher motives than the approbation of our fellow men; but that little word of praise from those we love—surely, surely it cannot be hurtful. It is one of life's brightest sunbeams, encouraging the weak, soothing the long-suffering, bringing rest to the weary and hope to the desponding.
Something of this Mary longed to urge, but her husband had already turned away, and the words died on her lips.
Time passed on. Another and another child had been added to the number, until four bright little faces were seen around the family table. The father seemed unchanged. Increasing years had altered neither the outer nor the inner man, but in the wife and mother few would have recognized the warm-hearted, impulsive girl, who ten years before had left her fathers home, with bright visions of the future floating before her youthful mind.
Whence came that perfect calmness of demeanour, that almost stoical indifference to all that was passing around her? To husband, children, and servants she was the same. Their comfort was cared for, the routine of daily duties strictly performed, but always with that cold, lifeless manner, strangely at variance with her natural disposition.
But the change had come gradually, and the husband noticed it not. To him, Mary had only grown more matronly, and, wisely laying aside the frivolity of girlhood, had acquired the sedateness of riper years. True, there were moments when his indifference was somewhat annoying. Although he never praised, he often blamed, and his lightest word of rebuke was at first always met with a gush of tears, but now there was no sign of emotion; the placid countenance remained unchanged, and quietly he was told that his wishes should be attended to. Certainly this was all that he could desire, but he would have liked to feel that his pleasure or displeasure was a matter of more consequence than it now appeared to be.
And yet the warm affections of the heart were not all dead. They slumbered—were chilled, paralyzed, starving for want of their proper and natural nourishment, but there was still life, and there were times when the spirit again thrilled with rapture, as the loving arms of childhood were twined around the mother's neck, or the curly head rested upon her bosom.
But to the little ones, as to others, there was the same cold uniformity of manner, a want of that endearing tenderness which forms so close a tie between mother and child. Their health, and the cultivation of their minds, were never neglected, but the education of the heart remained uncared for, and the spot which should have bloomed with good and true affection, was but a wilderness of weeds.
The two eldest children were promising boys of seven and nine years old. Full of health, and buoyant, although constantly repressed spirits, they thought not and cared not for aught save the supply of their bodily wants; but with the third child, the gentle Eva, it was far otherwise. From infancy her little frame had been so frail and delicate, that it seemed as if the spirit was constantly struggling to leave its earthly tenement; but her fifth year was rapidly approaching, and still she lingered a blessed minister of love in that cheerless home.
How wistfully she gazed upon the mother's face as she unweariedly performed the many little offices necessary for her comfort, but ever with the same frigid, unchanging manner! How earnestly she longed for that manifestation of tenderness which she had never felt! Even the stern father spoke to her in gentler and more subdued tones than was his wont, and would sometimes stroke the silky hair from her white forehead, and call her his "poor child."