grave, and
old, in spite of her own efforts to the contrary. The cloud had been
so black with her that it had nearly lost for her the prize which was
now her own. But she told herself that that blackness was an injury
to her, and not a benefit, and that it had now become a duty to
her,--for his sake, if not for her own,--to dispel its shadows rather
than encourage them. She would go down to him full of joy, though not
full of mirth, and would confess to him frankly, that in receiving
the assurance of his love, she had received everything that had
seemed to have any value for her in the world. Hitherto she had been
independent;--she had specially been careful to show to him her
resolve to be independent of him. Now she would put aside all that,
and let him know that she recognised in him her lord and master as
well as husband. To her father had been left no strength on which
she could lean, and she had been forced therefore to trust to her
own strength. Now she would be dependent on him who was to be her
husband. As heretofore she had rejected his offers of assistance
almost with disdain, so now would she accept them without scruple,
looking to him to be her guide in all things, putting from her that
carping spirit in which she had been wont to judge of his actions,
and believing in him,--as a wife should believe in her husband.

Such were the resolutions which Clara made in the first hour of
solitude which came to her after her engagement; and they would
have been wise resolutions but for this flaw--that the stronger was
submitting itself to the weaker, the greater to the less, the more
honest to the less honest, that which was nearly true to that which
was in great part false. The theory of man and wife--that special
theory in accordance with which the wife is to bend herself in loving
submission before her husband, is very beautiful; and would be good
altogether if it could only be arranged that the husband should be
the stronger and the greater of the two. The theory is based upon
that hypothesis;--and the hypothesis sometimes fails of confirmation.
In ordinary marriages the vessel rights itself, and the stronger and
the greater takes the lead, whether clothed in petticoats, or in
coat, waistcoat, and trousers; but there sometimes comes a terrible
shipwreck, when the woman before marriage has filled herself full
with ideas of submission, and then finds that her golden-headed god
has got an iron body and feet of clay