that I was
constantly looking for more than there was in her, and as constantly
disappointed. The face suggested, and so did the conversation, far more
both of native sensibility and of culture than she had of either. This
was apparent during the first twenty-four hours.

It may seem strange that I should cultivate such a disappointing
acquaintance as Mrs. Lewis. But, first, I liked Mr. Lewis, and he was
much of the time in their parlor; and, secondly, Mrs. Lewis took a
decided fancy to me, and that had its effect. I could not deem her
insensible to excellence of some sort; besides, she was a curious study
to me, and besides, I had occasion, as the time wore on, to think more
of her. Our lives are threaded with black and gold, not of our own
selecting, and we feel that we are guided by an Unseen Hand in many of
our associations.

There was a want of arrangement of material in her mind, which prevented
her from using what she knew, to any advantage; and what she knew,
though it had the originality of first observation, and a grace of
expression so great that more met the ear than was meant, was still so
wanting, either in insight or reflection, as to be poor and vapid as
small-beer after the first sparkle is gone. The manner was all in Mrs.
Lewis, but that was ever varying and charming.

One day she had been wrapping some green and gold gauzes about her, and
draping herself so that you could think of nothing but sunsets and
tulip-beds, when, in pulling over her finery, she came across a
miniature of herself. She handed it to me.

"This was what made William dead in love with me, before he saw me. I
used to wear my hair so for years after I married him; he liked me to."

It was a very delicately painted miniature, by Staigg, I think. Still a
very good likeness, and with the perpetual childhood of the large brown
eyes, and the clusters of chestnut curls over brow and neck, that gave
an added expression of extreme youth to the face.

"Will she never mature?" I thought.

But always there was the same promise, the same expectation, and the
same disappointment. I used to think I would as soon marry Hoffman's
machine, who looked so beautiful, and said, "Ah! ah!" and the husband
thought her very sensible. But Hoffman's husband thought he had an
admiring wife, and her "ah! ah-s!" were appreciative, whereas Mr. Lewis
could be under no such delusion. Once I heard him say, "he cared only
for love in a wife: intellect he coul