is efforts to render her comfortable and happy. But happy she was not,
nor was ever likely to be.

Noah was a solitary man--had been so from his youth. He had been
accustomed to live so many years with his old mother, and to mix so
little with his neighbours, that it had made him silent and unsociable.
After the first week of their marriage, he had particularly requested
his young wife to try and conform to his domestic habits, and she
endeavoured, for some time, to obey him. But, at her age, and with her
taste for show and gaiety, it was a difficult matter; yet after awhile,
she mechanically sunk into the same dull apathy, and neither went from
home, nor invited a guest into the house.

Twelve months passed away in this melancholy, joyless sort of existence,
when an old woman and her daughter came to reside in a cottage near
them. Mrs. Martin was a kind, gossiping old body; her daughter Sarah,
though some years older than Mrs. Cotton, was lively and very pretty,
and gained a tolerably comfortable living for herself and her mother by
dress-making. They had once or twice spoken to Sophy, on her way to the
Methodist chapel, but never when her husband was present, and she was
greatly taken by their manners and appearance.

"Noah, dear," she said, pressing his arm caressingly, as they were
coming home one Wednesday evening from the aforesaid chapel, "may I
invite Mrs. Martin and her daughter Sarah to drink tea with us? They
are strangers, and it would but be kind and neighbourly to show them
some little attention."

"By no means, Sophy," he cried, with a sudden start; "these people shall
not enter my house."

"But why?"

"I have my reasons. They are no friends of mine. They are no strangers
to me. They lived here long ago, and were forced to leave the place,
after her son, a mischievous, turbulent fellow, was hung."

"Mrs. Martin's son hung!--what for? I thought they had been decent,
respectable people!"

"There is no judging people by appearance," said Noah, bitterly. "I look
a decent fellow, yet I have been a great sinner in my early days; and,
with regard to these Martins, the less you have to do with them, Sophy,
the better. I tell you, once for all, I will have no intimacy with
them."

He spoke in a sterner voice than he had ever before used to his young
wife. Sophy was piqued and hurt by his look and manner; and though she
felt very curious to ask a thousand questions about these Martins, and
on what score