nk that the pecuniary losses which had visited
him and his father afflicted him near so sorely as the state of his
home. In a pique with the woman he loved, and from that generous
weakness which formed part of his character, and which led him to
acquiesce in most wishes of his good father, the young man had gratified
the darling desire of the Colonel's heart, and taken the wife whom his
two old friends brought to him. Rosey, who was also, as we have shown,
of a very obedient and ductile nature, had acquiesced gladly enough in
her mamma's opinion, that she was in love with the rich and handsome
young Clive, and accepted him for better or worse. So undoubtedly would
this good child have accepted Captain Hoby, her previous adorer, have
smilingly promised fidelity to the Captain at church, and have made a
very good, happy, and sufficient little wife for that officer,--had not
mamma commanded her to jilt him. What wonder that these elders should
wish to see their two dear young ones united? They began with suitable
age, money, good temper, and parents' blessings. It is not the first
time that, with all these excellent helps to prosperity and happiness,
a marriage has turned out unfortunately--a pretty, tight ship gone to
wreck that set forth on its voyage with cheers from the shore, and every
prospect of fair wind and fine weather.

We have before quoted poor Clive's simile of the shoes with which his
good old father provided him--as pretty a little pair of shoes as need
be--only they did not fit the wearer. If they pinched him at first,
how they blistered and tortured him now! If Clive was gloomy and
discontented even when the honeymoon had scarce waned, and he and his
family sat at home in state and splendour under the boughs of the
famous silver cocoa-nut tree, what was the young man's condition now in
poverty, when they had no love along with a scant dinner of herbs;
when his mother-in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father
ate--when a vulgar, coarse-minded woman pursued with brutal sarcasm
and deadly rancour one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the
world--when an ailing wife, always under some one's domination, received
him with helpless hysterical cries and reproaches--when a coarse female
tyrant, stupid, obstinate, utterly unable to comprehend the son's kindly
genius, or the father's gentle spirit, bullied over both, using the
intolerable undeniable advantage which her actual wrongs gave her to
tyr