use, which seemed to Fru Beck
to have broken the thread of the conversation. She deliberated how she
should take it up again so as to get at what she wanted to say, and
taking Elizabeth's hand with sudden warmth, she said--

"If there is anything your aunt wants, you know, I hope, that she has
only to send to me." She would rather have made Elizabeth herself the
object of her interest instead of her aunt, but felt that there was much
in the relations in which they had stood to one another to make that
impossible; but her meaning was just as clear.

"And for yourself, Elizabeth?" she went on, looking searchingly into her
eyes, with an expression of deep sympathy. "All is not right with you: I
am afraid your marriage has not been a happy one."

These last words brought a sudden flush into Elizabeth's face, and she
involuntarily withdrew her hand.

She looked at Fru Beck with an expression of wounded pride, as if it was
a subject she declined to discuss.

"That is not the case, Fru Beck," she replied. "I am"--she was going to
say "happily," but preferred to say--"not unhappily married." She felt
that that sounded rather weak, and added--

"I have never loved, never wished for, any one but him who is now my
husband."

"I am overjoyed to hear it, Elizabeth, for I had heard otherwise," said
Fru Beck, with some embarrassment--and there was another pause. She felt
from Elizabeth's manner and bearing that she had wounded her
self-esteem; and this last unlucky speech, she was afraid, had made
matters worse.

There was a movement in the adjoining room, and Elizabeth was glad of an
occasion to break the rather painful silence, and went in to her aunt
for a moment.

Fru Beck looked after her with a rather surprised, but an unsatisfied,
expression; she must have been mistaken: but still, happy in her home
Elizabeth could scarcely be. And yet, she thought bitterly, what a gulf
there was between them! She, at all events, loved her husband.

When Elizabeth returned, Fru Beck, with the idea of effacing the
impression she had already produced, and to satisfy, at the same time,
her own longing to open her heart to somebody, said--

"You must not be offended at what I said, Elizabeth. I thought that
others might have sorrow too."

"We all have our burden, and often it is very hard to bear," rejoined
Elizabeth. She understood very well what Fru Beck's words had meant, and
looked at her compassionately; but she avoided answerin