this offence--will you?'

'Yes.'

'Yes! but that is coldly spoken. Give me your hand and I'll believe you.
You won't? Then, Mrs. Huntingdon, you do not forgive me!'

'Yes; here it is, and my forgiveness with it: only, _sin no more_.'

He pressed my cold hand with sentimental fervour, but said nothing, and
stood aside to let me pass into the room, where all the company were now
assembled. Mr. Grimsby was seated near the door: on seeing me enter,
almost immediately followed by Hargrave, he leered at me with a glance of
intolerable significance, as I passed. I looked him in the face, till he
sullenly turned away, if not ashamed, at least confounded for the moment.
Meantime Hattersley had seized Hargrave by the arm, and was whispering
something in his ear--some coarse joke, no doubt, for the latter neither
laughed nor spoke in answer, but, turning from him with a slight curl of
the lip, disengaged himself and went to his mother, who was telling Lord
Lowborough how many reasons she had to be proud of her son.

Thank heaven, they are all going to-morrow.

CHAPTER XXXVI

December 20th, 1824.--This is the third anniversary of our felicitous
union. It is now two months since our guests left us to the enjoyment of
each other's society; and I have had nine weeks' experience of this new
phase of conjugal life--two persons living together, as master and
mistress of the house, and father and mother of a winsome, merry little
child, with the mutual understanding that there is no love, friendship,
or sympathy between them. As far as in me lies, I endeavour to live
peaceably with him: I treat him with unimpeachable civility, give up my
convenience to his, wherever it may reasonably be done, and consult him
in a business-like way on household affairs, deferring to his pleasure
and judgment, even when I know the latter to be inferior to my own.

As for him, for the first week or two, he was peevish and low, fretting,
I suppose, over his dear Annabella's departure, and particularly
ill-tempered to me: everything I did was wrong; I was cold-hearted, hard,
insensate; my sour, pale face was perfectly repulsive; my voice made him
shudder; he knew not how he could live through the winter with me; I
should kill him by inches. Again I proposed a separation, but it would
not do: he was not going to be the talk of all the old gossips in the
neighbourhood: he would not have it said that he was such a brute his
wife could not