hich that old man
labored. The book trembled in his grasp, his lips clung more and more
firmly together, his blue eyes shone vividly from under his bent brows,
yet from beneath all, there stole out a gleam of triumph, as if he were
weaving some crafty web of underthought out from the angry tumult with
which his soul labored. There was no sorrow in his look, no feeling of
sadness or regret for the greatest loss man ever experienced, that of a
good woman's love. With him vanity was the grand passion. Touch that and
he became sensitive as a boy of fifteen. In all things else he was
invulnerable.

And yet Mabel's Journal might have touched deeper feelings than her
husband was capable of knowing. Another man would have been roused to
compassion by the fragments of thought, sometimes artless, sometimes
passionate, that seemed to have dropped fresh from her heart upon the
pages he was reading.

He opened the vellum book at the beginning, for with all his impatience,
the methodical habits of his life prevailed even then, and at first,
there was little to excite more than a strong curiosity. But as he read
on, the perturbation we have described in his countenance, became
evident. He turned over the leaves violently, glancing here and there,
as if eager to devour his mortification at a single dash. The cleft
heart, whose breaking had given him access to poor Mabel's secrets,
struck against his hand as he closed the book, and opened it again at
random. He tore the pretty trinket away, and dashed it into the grate,
and a curse broke from his shut teeth, as he saw it fall glowing among
the hot embers. Then he turned back to the beginning, and began to read
more deliberately, allowing his anger to cool and harden, like lava,
above his smouldering wrath.

Thus it was that Mabel commenced her journal.

* * * * *

"A letter from my guardian. This is indeed an event. A year ago he wrote
me a long letter of advice, touching my studies, and giving a world of
counsel regarding my deportment. That cold, half-dictatorial,
half-fatherly letter, seemed forced from his heart by a sense of duty.
This is brief, elegant and kind. He is satisfied with my progress at
school, and hears with pleasure, of the improvement in my person--this
means, probably, that I am not near so plain as he fancied me. They tell
him I have a sort of fire and animation of the countenance, more
effective than perfection of outline could