and are in question;" saying which, and looking archly at her
spouse, she quitted the room.

"Ah! she's up to some little game now;" exclaimed that victim
laughingly, as his wife left the apartment: "depend upon it she intends
backing up that soft soap, with some little scheme of personal
aggrandizement. You can't think, my dear sir," he continued, addressing
John Ferguson, "how these women manage to get round us, when they take
it into their little heads to flatter our vanity. If ever you submit to
the thraldom of a marital character, you must be proof against that
weakness."

"I have no idea of the nature of the bondage to be borne by you
self-constituted slaves," replied John; "but judging from what I have
witnessed in this house, I should imagine the allegiance required from
you was not exacting, nor the servitude of a crushing nature. What do
you think, Miss Rainsfield," said he, turning to the young lady; "is
your cousin's case a specimen of the general rule or a solitary
exception?"

"Well, sir, I can hardly say," she replied; "but would think the
happiness of a married life depended in a great measure upon a
congeniality of temper, mutual forbearance, and reciprocity of kindly
feeling, existing between the parties concerned; and that if amiability
is allied to impetuosity, or petulance to generosity, the result must
necessarily prove disastrous."

"Well done, my little oracle," ejaculated her cousin; "there now, sir,
you have a dissertation on matrimony, and a moral, the truth of which I
doubt if you'll ever dispute. But my cousin has surely turned
philosopher, and is moralizing in expectancy on her own engagement; but
forgive me, Nell" (he continued, as the young lady cast a reproachful
look at him that made him regret the allusion), "I did not intend to
pain you by any reference to your _affair d'amour_; I had no idea it was
an unpleasant subject with you." So, after making what he thought the
_amende honorable_ to his cousin; but in reality only doing, as all men
do who attempt to explain away some pain-giving remark; that is, adding
poignancy to the wounding shaft; he led off his visitor to accompany him
round the station.

In accepting the invitation to sojourn with this family for a few days,
we suspect it was something more than the mere desire to wait for his
brother, that influenced John Ferguson. It had been his intention, when
he left his own place, to proceed on the road to meet William, and le