"You may guess how thankful I was to see at last, as we turned homeward, the tears slowly falling over her face and dropping on her dress, as she walked on, evidently unconscious of the blessed relief. 'Like music on my heart' sunk these tears, for I knew that with them would come the coolness, 'like a welcoming' over her burning pulse, and I carefully abstained from saying a word that would interrupt the feelings rather than thoughts which now agitated her. We returned to the house; tea was served silently, for even the domestics hardly spoke above a whisper; and then we sat in the soft moonlight and looked on the sleeping scene before us. The summer sounds of rural life had long died away, and nothing but the untiring chirp of the tree-toad was to be heard. The melancholy monotony of the scene hushed Mary's spirit to a quiet she had not for a long time known, and at last she became conscious of having wept freely.
"'I have wept, thank God! that shows I am human. Now ask me all about what you want to know. I think I can talk about it. Mr. Gardner? Oh, he is gone—he is gone a great deal, you know; his business leads him continually away from home, and that leaves me, of course, very dull—very. Shouldn't you think it ought to, Susan dear?'
"Thus incoherently she began; but the first step taken, and secure of sympathy in her hearer, she went on, and you will believe me when I tell you we talked till midnight, and that then Mary sunk, like a weary child, into my arms in a sound sleep.
"I cannot give you her precise words, but the import of her relation I shall never forget. A few words will suffice to tell you what it took her hours of emotion and tears to reveal.
"You remember I told you she looked determined to do her duty, and be as happy a wife as she could. Did ever a wife succeed in being happy with duty for the material? Perhaps if Mr. Gardner had been an ardent lover, somewhat impulsive, and eager to commend himself to her grateful affection, he would have succeeded in doing so; indeed, I am sure of it, in time it must have been so; but, alas! Mr. Gardner was a calm, gentlemanly, sensible, phlegmatic person, who thought his wife's impulsive and hasty nature should be occasionally checked, and who had no toleration for, nor sympathy with, her excitable spirit. Consequently, she soon learned to have a calm exterior when he was at home, which his frequent absences made it easy to assume. They had been married something like three years, and Mary was the delighted mother of a healthy and lovely daughter. Her heart, which had almost closed in the chilly atmosphere of her husband's manners, expanded and flowered luxuriantly in the warmth of maternity. In her happiness she reflected a part of its exuberance on her husband, and smiled with much of her old gayety. 'I felt my young days coming back to me,' she said.
"One day the post brought a letter for her, which she opened, and then left the room to read. The letter was from young Randolph. The writer apologized for his year's silence to her, by an account of a long illness, &c. He knew of her happiness, of her child; in short, he seemed to be informed of every thing about her. He asked to be permitted to correspond with her. The letter expressed the strongest and deepest interest, but couched in such respectful and friendly terms as were difficult to resist. Mary struggled long with her sense of what was due to herself and her husband; but right at last conquered, and she re-entered the room with the letter in her hand. Tremblingly she gave it to her husband, who read a part of it, and then said, with much kindness of manner,
"'Correspond with any of your friends, male or female, my dear. I have not the slightest objection.'
"Mary's good spirit was still at her ear, and she said with some difficulty,
"'Mr. Gardner, the writer of this letter was once much interested in me.'
"'And you in him, eh? Well, my love, those things are all gone by; I can fully trust you. So again, I say, correspond with any body you like, provided you don't ask me to read the letters.'