eceived yours,--but too late. I believed all I heard. I was
desperate. _I am married_, and all is over. Only forget,--it is all that
remains for either of us."

And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St.
Clare. But the _real_ remained,--the _real_, like the flat, bare, oozy
tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding
boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has
gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,--exceedingly real.

Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is
the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life
we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a
most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking,
visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up
what is commonly called _living_, yet to be gone through; and this yet
remained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman, she might yet
have done something--as woman can--to mend the broken threads of life,
and weave again into a tissue of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could
not even see that they had been broken. As before stated, she consisted
of a fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand
dollars; and none of these items were precisely the ones to minister to
a mind diseased.

When Augustine, pale as death, was found lying on the sofa, and pleaded
sudden sick-headache as the cause of his distress, she recommended to
him to smell of hartshorn; and when the paleness and headache came on
week after week, she only said that she never thought Mr. St. Clare was
sickly; but it seems he was very liable to sick-headaches, and that it
was a very unfortunate thing for her, because he didn't enjoy going into
company with her, and it seemed odd to go so much alone, when they were
just married. Augustine was glad in his heart that he had married so
undiscerning a woman; but as the glosses and civilities of the honeymoon
wore away, he discovered that a beautiful young woman, who has lived all
her life to be caressed and waited on, might prove quite a hard
mistress in domestic life. Marie never had possessed much capability of
affection, or much sensibility, and the little that she had, had been
merged into a most intense and unconscious selfishness; a selfishness
the more hopeless, from its quiet obtuseness, its utter ignorance of
any claims but her own. Fr