Hush_, mother! I hope you put a stop to any such rumors. I would not
have Yanna hear about Cora for the world. Yanna is not very strong
lately."

"She will nurse her child, and she goes on about it as if it were the
only child in the universe. People say all kinds of things about her
secluding herself because she has a baby. Her behavior is a tacit
reproach on every mother who condescends to do her duty to society."

"She is as foolish about little Harry as you are about me."

"She is quite incapable of feeling as I feel. She is a mere marble
woman. I wish she could feel, for then she might understand what I
suffer in your desertion. Oh, dear! If in anything she would act like
other women! Every one pities you!--you, that have always been the
very flower of courtesy and of all that is socially charming!"

"No one need pity me, mother. I consider myself the most fortunate
husband in New York. And you ought not to permit people to talk in
that way. It is a great wrong to me."

"I do not, Harry. You may be sure I stand up for you."

And such conversations, even if Harry did not repeat them, were
divined, either from his manner or from some unguarded remark he let
fall. It required all the strength of Adriana's broad character to
prevent her divinations from finding a voice--to bear patiently wrongs
she could not permit herself to right--and to wait with unabated love
for that justification sure to come to those who leave it to the
wisdom of their angels behind them.

On this December morning Mrs. Filmer's visit was unexpectedly early.
She met Adriana with a worried face, and barely touching the fingers
of her outstretched hand, said, "I have a letter this morning, and I
think you ought to know about it, Adriana. It concerns your brother. I
am sure it has been the most wretched thing for my poor Rose that she
ever met the man."

"That statement would be hard to prove," answered Adriana.

"You need not draw yourself up like a tragedy queen because I feel so
bitterly the mistake my daughter has made. Rose has been a miserable
wife from the first day of her marriage, and there is no use in
denying the fact. And if her misery has led her to unwise ways of
seeking relief, she is hardly to be blamed. She says, too, that she
has never had a day's health since the birth of her baby. And you know
what a stern, unsympathetic man her husband is."

"I know that Antony has a heart of infinite love and forbearance. Few
men wo