own in the
right direction. She had wholly abandoned that tasteful reading through
which intellectual refinement comes; and to all appearance, no longer
cared for anything beyond the mere sensuous. Nothing in S----had
any interest for her; and she scarcely took the pains to conceal her
contempt for certain sincere and worthy people, who felt called upon,
for the sake of her parents, to show her some attention. She was not
happy, of course. When in repose; I noticed a discontented look on her
face. Her eyes had lost that clear, innocent, almost child-like beauty
of expression, that once made you gaze into them; and now had a cold,
absent, or eagerly longing expression, as if her thought were straining
itself forward towards some coveted good.

Her conversation was almost always within the range of New York
fashionable themes; and barren of any food upon which the mind could
grow. There was not even the pretence of affection between her and her
husband. The fairest specimen of well bred indifference I had yet seen
was exhibited in their conduct to each other. Their babe did not seem
to be a matter of much account either. Delia took no personal care of it
whatever--leaving all this to the nurse.

It happened one day that I was called in to see the child. I found it
suffering from some of the ill effects of difficult dentition, and
did what the case required. There was an old friend of Delia's at the
house--a young lady who had been much attached to her, and who still
retained a degree of her old friendship. They were talking together in
a pleasant, familiar way, when I came down stairs from my visit to the
sick child--the mother had not shown sufficient interest in the little
sufferer to attend me to the nurse's room. A word or two of almost
careless inquiry was made;--I had scarcely answered the mother's
queries, when her friend said, in a laughing way, looking from the
window at the same time,

"There, Delia! see what you escaped."

I turned my eyes in the same direction, and saw Mr. Wallingford walking
past, on the opposite side of the street, with his head bent down. His
step was slow, but firm, and his air and carriage manly.

Delia shrugged her shoulders, and drew up the corners of her lips. There
was an expression very much like contempt on her face.--But she did
not make any reply. I saw this expression gradually fade away, and her
countenance grow sober. Her friend did not pursue the banter, and the
subject