ts
about men who spent a life of idleness while others worked. Lewis
opened his blue eyes in astonishment, and his frank, open countenance
wore a hurt and puzzled look; but he did not go. He bore my insults,
and yet haunted the house, and lingered round the west parlour, now
shut up, but where your mother always sat. I found it impossible to
hide entirely from Agnes my doubts of her love, and I soon saw that my
involuntarily altered manner had made a corresponding change in hers.
The proud spirit within her was roused, and instead of endeavouring to
soothe my suspicions, and show me my mistake, she went on her way
apparently unheeding, holding her head high, and letting me form my own
opinion of her actions. I ought to have told you that her uncle had
been so annoyed at her marriage with me that he had forbidden her to
enter his doors again; and of this I was not sorry, though it roused my
anger so much that I added my injunctions to the effect that if she
wished to please me she would break off all acquaintance with her
cousin, Ellen Vaughan. This, however, she would not promise to do, and
it was the first beginning of the rift, which afterwards widened into a
chasm between us. Her cousin also was too much attached to her to be
easily alienated from her, and the two girls met more frequently than
either her uncle or I were aware of. There was another girl, too--I
forget her name--but she was a sister of Essec Powell's. Agnes and she
had been schoolmates and bosom friends, and they were delighted to meet
here by accident, and I soon found that my wife continually resorted to
Essec Powell's house to pour out her sorrows into the bosom of her
friend; but this I could not allow. To visit the house of my bitterest
enemy--to make a friend of his sister, was a glaring impropriety in a
clergyman's wife, and I cannot even now feel any compunction at having
put a stop to their intercourse--if, indeed, I succeeded in doing so.
A cold cloud seemed to have fallen between me and your mother; and as
for my brother, we scarcely spoke to each other at meals, and avoided
each other at all other times. Still Lewis stayed on, with that
puzzled look on his face, and still Agnes went through her daily duties
with a proud look and a constrained manner.

"Poor Betto looked anxiously from one to the other of us, and I kept my
still and silent watch. My heart was breaking with distrust of my
wife, and hatred of my brother; but I neve