mind composed to encounter the struggles of
the day. Mr. Venables did not wake till some hours after; and then he
came to me half-dressed, yawning and stretching, with haggard eyes, as
if he scarcely recollected what had passed the preceding evening. He
fixed his eyes on me for a moment, then, calling me a fool, asked 'How
long I intended to continue this pretty farce? For his part, he was
devilish sick of it; but this was the plague of marrying women who
pretended to know something.'

"I made no other reply to this harangue, than to say, 'That he ought to
be glad to get rid of a woman so unfit to be his companion--and that any
change in my conduct would be mean dissimulation; for maturer reflection
only gave the sacred seal of reason to my first resolution.'

"He looked as if he could have stamped with impatience, at being obliged
to stifle his rage; but, conquering his anger (for weak people, whose
passions seem the most ungovernable, restrain them with the greatest
ease, when they have a sufficient motive), he exclaimed, 'Very pretty,
upon my soul! very pretty, theatrical flourishes! Pray, fair Roxana,
stoop from your altitudes, and remember that you are acting a part in
real life.'

"He uttered this speech with a self-satisfied air, and went down stairs
to dress.

"In about an hour he came to me again; and in the same tone said, 'That
he came as my gentleman-usher to hand me down to breakfast.

"'Of the black rod?' asked I.

"This question, and the tone in which I asked it, a little disconcerted
him. To say the truth, I now felt no resentment; my firm resolution to
free myself from my ignoble thraldom, had absorbed the various emotions
which, during six years, had racked my soul. The duty pointed out by my
principles seemed clear; and not one tender feeling intruded to make
me swerve: The dislike which my husband had inspired was strong; but it
only led me to wish to avoid, to wish to let him drop out of my memory;
there was no misery, no torture that I would not deliberately have
chosen, rather than renew my lease of servitude.

"During the breakfast, he attempted to reason with me on the folly of
romantic sentiments; for this was the indiscriminate epithet he gave
to every mode of conduct or thinking superior to his own. He asserted,
'that all the world were governed by their own interest; those who
pretended to be actuated by different motives, were only deeper knaves,
or fools crazed by books, who took