consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her
into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness. He
only seemed to drive her love away still more.

If any one had known all that was passing in that household, while
yet the story of it was not ended, nor, indeed, come to its crisis,
their hearts would have been sorry for the man who lingered long at
the door of the room in which his wife sate cooing and talking to
her baby, and sometimes laughing back to it, or who was soothing the
querulousness of failing age with every possible patience of love;
sorry for the poor listener who was hungering for the profusion of
tenderness thus scattered on the senseless air, yet only by stealth
caught the echoes of what ought to have been his.

It was so difficult to complain, too; impossible, in fact.
Everything that a wife could do from duty she did; but the love
seemed to have fled, and, in such cases, no reproaches or complaints
can avail to bring it back. So reason outsiders, and are convinced
of the result before the experiment is made. But Philip could not
reason, or could not yield to reason; and so he complained and
reproached. She did not much answer him; but he thought that her
eyes expressed the old words,--

'It's not in me to forgive; I sometimes think it's not in me to
forget.'

However, it is an old story, an ascertained fact, that, even in the
most tender and stable masculine natures, at the supremest season of
their lives, there is room for other thoughts and passions than such
as are connected with love. Even with the most domestic and
affectionate men, their emotions seem to be kept in a cell distinct
and away from their actual lives. Philip had other thoughts and
other occupations than those connected with his wife during all this
time.

An uncle of his mother's, a Cumberland 'statesman', of whose
existence he was barely conscious, died about this time, leaving to
his unknown great-nephew four or five hundred pounds, which put him
at once in a different position with regard to his business.
Henceforward his ambition was roused,--such humble ambition as
befitted a shop-keeper in a country town sixty or seventy years ago.
To be respected by the men around him had always been an object with
him, and was, perhaps, becoming more so than ever now, as a sort of
refuge from his deep, sorrowful mortification in other directions.
He was greatly pleased at being made a sidesman; and, in preparation