grew pale, and over it swept a
smile so vivid with surprise, so eloquent of mournfulness, that she
seemed transfigured. Her hand dropped away from the chair, and walking
back to the window she sat down, uttering a faint sigh, as if some
slumbering pain had been sharpened into anguish by the few words that
had been spoken. Twenty years had she lived in the house with James
Harrington, and never before had the subject of her marriage with his
father been mentioned between them, save as it arose in the discussion
of household events.

Her marriage with his father, that was the subject of his gloomy
thoughts. Had she then failed to render him content in his home? Had she
in anything fallen short of those gentle duties he had received so
gratefully from the mother that was gone? Why was it that thoughts of
Spain and of events that had transpired there, should have seized upon
them both at the same time?

She arose again, pale and with a tremor of the limbs. The balmy air grew
sickening to her--his presence an oppression. For the first time she
began to doubt if she were not an object of dislike to her husband's
guest. He saw her pass from the room without turning a glance that way,
and followed her with a look of self-reproach. He felt pained and
humiliated. After a silence of so many years, why had he dared to utter
words to that woman--his best friend--which could never be explained?
Had all manhood forsaken him? Had he sunk to be a common-place carper in
the household which she had invested with so much beautiful happiness?
Stung with these thoughts he arose and sought the open air also.

CHAPTER II.

OLD MR. HARRINGTON.

An old man sat in a room above the one just deserted by its inmates. He
was watching the sunset also, with unusual interest, not because it
brought back loving or sad memories, but with an admiration of the sense
alone. With tastes cultivated to their extremest capacity, and a
philosophy of happiness essentially material, this old man permitted no
hour to pass by without gleaning some sensual enjoyment from it, that a
less egotistical person might never have discovered. An epicure in all
things, he had attained to a sort of self-worship, which would have been
sublime if applied to the First Cause of all that is beautiful. His
splendid person was held in reverence, not because it was made in the
image of his God, but for the powers of enjoyment it possessed--for the
symmetry it displayed, an