l I not enter? The common air is too thick for me. I
must perish or rise into purer atmospheres."

Mrs. Dexter paused, conscious that her husband did not appreciate
her meanings. He was listening intently, and striving apparently
after them; but to him only the things of sense were real; and he
was not able to comprehend how lasting pleasure was to flow from the
intellectual and spiritual. He did not answer, and she lapsed into
silence; all the fine enthusiasm that had filled her countenance so
full of a living beauty giving place to a cold, calm exterior. She
had hoped to quicken her husband's sluggish perceptions, and to
create in his mind an incipient love for the pure and beautiful
things after which her own mind was beginning to aspire.

In her intercourse with refined and intellectual persons, Mrs.
Dexter had made the acquaintance of a lady named Mrs. De Lisle. Her
residence was not far from Mrs. Dexter's and they met often for
pleasant and profitable conversation. In Mrs. De Lisle, Mrs. Dexter
found a woman of not only superior attainments, but one possessing
great purity of mind, and a high religious sense of duty. What
struck her in the very beginning was a new mode of weighing human
actions, and a quiet looking beneath the surface of things, and
estimating all she saw by the quality within instead of by the
appearance without. From the first, Mrs. Dexter was strongly
attracted by this lady; and it was a little remarkable that her
husband was as strongly repelled. He did not like her; and often
spoke of her sneeringly as using an unknown tongue. His wife
contended with him slightly at first in regard to Mrs. De Lisle; but
soon ceased to notice his captious remarks.

In Mrs. De Lisle, the struggling and suffering young creature had
found a true friend--not true in the sense of a weakly, sympathizing
friend, but more really true; one who could lift her soul up into
purer regions, and help it to acquire strength for duty.

There was another lady named Mrs. Anthony who had insinuated herself
into the good opinion of Mrs. Dexter, and partially, also, into her
confidence.

It does not take a quick-sighted woman long to comprehend the true
marital standing of the friend in whom she feels an interest. Both
Mrs. De Lisle and Mrs. Anthony soon discovered that no love was in
the heart of Mrs. Dexter, and that consequently, no interior
marriage existed. They saw also that Mr. Dexter was inferior,
selfish, captious a