ean
anything of the sort, could be twisted into some reflection upon
England, and made it a handle, first of vulgar sarcasm, and then, upon
my mother's defending herself with some surprise and gentle dignity,
hurled upon her a volley of abuse, beyond Billingsgate.

"My mother, confounded by scenes and ideas presented to her mind
equally new and painful, sat trembling; she knew not what to do; tears
rushed into her eyes. My father, no less distressed, yet unwilling
to outrage the feelings of his friend by doing or saying what his
indignation prompted, turned an appealing look on P.

"Never, as he often said, was the painful expression of that sight
effaced from his mind. It haunted his dreams and disturbed his waking
thoughts. P. sat with his head bent forward, and his eyes cast down,
pale, but calm, with a fixed expression, not merely of patient woe,
but of patient shame, which it would not have been thought possible
for that noble countenance to wear. 'Yet,' said my father, 'it became
him. At other times he was handsome, but then beautiful, though of a
beauty saddened and abashed. For a spiritual light borrowed from the
worldly perfection of his mien that illustration by contrast, which
the penitence of the Magdalen does from the glowing earthliness of her
charms.'

"Seeing that he preserved silence, while Mrs. P. grew still more
exasperated, my father rose and led his wife to her own room. Half
an hour had passed, in painful and wondering surmises, when a gentle
knock was heard at the door, and P. entered equipped for a journey.
'We are just going,' he said, and holding out his hand, but without
looking at them, 'Forgive.'

"They each took his hand, and silently pressed it; then he went
without a word more.

"Some time passed, and they heard now and then of P., as he passed
from one army station to another, with his uncongenial companion,
who became, it was said, constantly more degraded. Whoever mentioned
having seen them wondered at the chance which had yoked him to such
a woman, but yet more at the silent fortitude with which he bore it.
Many blamed him for enduring it, apparently without efforts to check
her; others answered that he had probably made such at an earlier
period, and, finding them unavailing, had resigned himself to despair,
and was too delicate to meet the scandal that, with such resistance as
such a woman could offer, must attend a formal separation.

"But my father, who was not in such has