e on the following
day, with that self-command which, while the heart is aching,
teaches the tongue to utter some common-place remark in an
indifferent voice and careless manner, I turned to Edward and
asked him some trifling question, while at that very moment
burning tears stood in my eyes, and a passionate farewell was
uttered in my soul.

One of the strangest feelings in life, is that of gliding into
a new state of things with a kind of matter-of-course facility
which we do not beforehand imagine to be possible. This struck
me much, when, on the day of our arrival at Elmsley, I found
myself once more seated at dinner in that well-known
dining-room, in which every bit of furniture, from the picture
of a certain Admiral Middleton, which stood over the
chimney-piece with a heap of blue cannon-balls by his side, to
the heavy, sweeping, red curtains in which I had often hid
myself in a game of hide-and-seek, was as familiar to me as the
face of a friend. Here, in the house where in despair I had once
refused Edward, I was sitting as his bride, and bowing in return
for the healths which were drunk in honour of my marriage; and
Henry--Henry, who had so often threatened, upbraided, once
almost cursed me--greeted me now with a smile, and the bridal
nosegay of white camellias and jessamine which I held in my
hand was gathered and given by him. Alice, also, the child of
Bridman cottage, the tradesman's daughter, was sitting by Mr.
Middleton in all the quiet dignity of her natural manner. For
the first time she was dressed in an evening gown of white
muslin, and a wreath of shining holly was in her hair. Mr.
Middleton seemed particularly happy; he had obtained the great
object of all his wishes; he had married me to Edward.
Edward's return for the county was next to certain; and such
was the softening influence of this state of things that he
asked Henry to drink wine with him, and nodded to him
good-humouredly as he did so. Mrs. Middleton, on the contrary,
looked anxious and careworn, and once or twice I saw her eyes
filled with tears, as she turned them alternately upon Alice
and me.

In the evening Henry spoke to me but little, and nothing could
be more amiable and gentle than his manner. He carefully
avoided every subject that could have been painful to me, and
whatever he said was soothing. He was out of spirits, but
there was no bitterness in his depression. In trifles which
will not bear recital, by some scarcely