ke.

Sir Hugh stood and watched them once, and they came skimming across
the ice to meet him, hand in hand, Fay looking like a bright-eyed bird
in her furs.

It was delicious, Fay said, and would not Hugh join them? but her
husband shook his head. When other people came to skate too, and Fay
poured out tea for her friends in the damask drawing-room, he always
kept near her, as in duty bound; but he took no active part in the
festivities, and people wondered why Sir Hugh seemed so grave and
unlike himself, and then they glanced at Fay's happy face and seemed
mystified.

Erle in his heart was mystified too. He had always liked his cousin
and had looked up to him, thinking him a fine fellow; but he noticed a
great change in him when he came down to the old Hall to pay his
respects to the little bride. He thought Hugh looked moody and ill;
that he was often irritable about trifles. He had never noticed that
sharp tone in his voice before. His cheerfulness, too, seemed forced,
and he had grown strangely unsociable in his habits. Of course he was
very busy, with his own estate and his wife's to look after; but he
wondered why Fay did not accompany him when he rode to some distant
farm, and why he shut himself up so much in his study. The old Hugh,
he remembered, had been the most genial of companions, with a hearty
laugh and a fund of humor; but he had never heard him laugh once in
all these ten days.

Erle felt vaguely troubled in his kind-hearted way when he watched
Hugh and his little wife together. Hugh's manners did not satisfy
Erle's chivalrous enthusiasm. He thought he treated Fay too much like
a child. He was gentle with her, he humored her, and petted her; but
he never asked her opinion, or seemed to take pleasure in her society.

"Why on earth has he married her?" he said once to himself as he paced
his comfortable room rather indignantly. "He is not a bit in love with
her--one sees that in a moment, and yet the poor little thing adores
him. It makes one feel miserable to see her gazing at him as though
she were worshiping him; and he hardly looks at her, and yet she is
the prettiest little creature I have seen for a long time. How Percy
would rave about her if he saw her; but I forgot, Percy's idol is a
dark-eyed goddess."

"All the same," went on Erle, restlessly; "no man has any right to
treat his wife as a child. Hugh never seems to want to know what Fay
wishes about anything. He settles everything off-h