What is the use of dying?--the
very thing they want. I will not die;" but my mother had laid her fair
head back on the velvet pillow, and her eyes lingered on the clear blue
sky. Was she looking for the angels who must have heard her voice?

"I am not as strong as you, Isabel," she said, gently, "and I love Sir
Roland with my whole heart."

"I loved my husband with my whole heart," sobbed the beautiful woman,
"and I have done nothing in this world to deserve what I have suffered.
I loved him with a pure, great affection--what became of it? Three days
after we were married I saw him myself patting one of the maids--a
good-looking one, you may be sure--on the cheek."

"Perhaps he meant no harm," said my mother, consolingly; "you know that
gentlemen do not attach so much importance as we do to these little
trifles."

"You try, Beatrice, how you would like it; you have been married ten
years, and even at this date you would not like Sir Roland to do such a
thing?"

"I am sure I should not; but then, you know, there are men and men. Sir
Roland is graver in character than Lord Conyngham. What would mean much
from one, means little from the other."

So, with sweet, wise words, she strove to console and comfort this poor
lady, who had evidently been stricken to the heart in some way or
another. I often thought of my mother's words, "I should die," long
after Lady Conyngham had made some kind of reconciliation with her
husband, and had gone back to him. I thought of my mother's face, as she
leaned back to watch the sky, crying out, "I should die."

I knew that I ought not to have sat still; my conscience reproached me
very much; but when I did get up to go away mamma did not notice me.
From that time it was wonderful how much I thought of "husbands." They
were to me the most mysterious people in the world--a race quite apart
from other men. When they spoke of any one as being Mrs. or Lady S----'s
husband, to me he became a wicked man at once. Some were good; some bad.
Some seemed to trust their wives; others to be rather frightened than
otherwise at them. I studied intently all the different varieties of
husbands. I heard my father laugh often, and say:

"Bless the child, how intently she looks and listens."

He little knew that I was trying to find out for myself, and by my
mother's wit, which were good husbands and which were bad. I did not
like to address any questions to my parents on the subject, lest they
should