clothes."

"I will take them off." And her foot was on the stairs.

"Stay; don't you see your husband looking at you. Let me look too--we
are never likely to see you dressed as a bride again."

Agatha paused, but Mr. Harper had already turned away. His gaze--would
she had seen it! but she did not--was ended.

She ran up-stairs, she looked in the glass once more at the vision
which, from the age of childhood, almost every girl beholds herself in
fancy--the dazzling white silk, orange-flowers, and lace, trappings
of a day, never to be again worn. Then she tore them off,
wildly--desperately; wishing one minute that she could bury them in the
earth out of her sight, and again wrapping them up tenderly, as we wrap
up clothes that are now nothing but empty garments, from which the form
that-filled them has vanished evermore.

Afterwards she dressed herself in ordinary matronly garb, and came down
with matronly aspect to Harry and the little boys.

A mid-day country dinner, eaten in peace and quietness, where people
keep Sunday in Christian fashion--at least externally--where no visitors
come in, and no gay evening reunions put an unholy close to the holy
day; when the father of the family gathers his children round him in
the long, sleepy afternoons, or takes a walk with them in the
summer-twilight while all the neighbours are safe in church; after
which, as a great treat, the elder ones sit up to supper, and the little
ones are put to bed by mamma's own hands; then pleasant weariness,
perhaps some brief evening prayer, sincere without cant--the household
separates--the house darkens--and the day of rest ends.

This was the way they kept Sunday at the Dugdales'. It was something new
to Agatha, and she liked it much. She threw herself into the domestic
ways as if she had been used to them all her life, and specially made
herself popular with the father and the little ones. Marmaduke looked
benevolently upon his sister-in-law, seemed quite to forget she was "a
young lady," and even was heard to call her "my child" four times,--at
which she was very pleased and proud. Over and over again, with youth's
wild thirst to be happy, she tried to forget the weight on her life,
and plunge into a temporary gaiety. Sometimes she even caught herself
laughing outright, as she played with the children; for no one can be
miserable always, especially at nineteen. But whenever she looked up,
or was silent, or paused to think, the image o