him, was a Miss M----, a scion of one of those extensive families, not
now so common as formerly, which by repeated intermarriage and always
settling together develop a spirit of clanship, so exclusive as to make
them almost incapable of any feeling of interest outside of their own
name and connection, and render them liable to regard any person
of different blood, who may happen to intermarry among them, as an
intruder. In some parts of the Union these clans may still be found
flourishing in considerable purity and vigor,--the same name sometimes
prevailing over a district of many miles,--a fact which an observant
traveller would surmise from a certain prevailing cast of form and
feature.

It was with a family of this kind that Captain Wilde was, in an evil
hour, induced to ally himself,--a step which soon proved to be the first
in a long career of misfortune. The lady possessed that worst of
all tempers, a quick and irritable, but at the same time hard and
unforgiving one. And she soon showed, that, in her estimation, the
feelings and interests of her husband were as nothing in comparison with
those of her family, and that, in any variance, she would leave the
former and cleave to the latter. Such variances were, unfortunately,
almost inevitable; for the family of Mrs. Wilde differed both in
politics and religion from her husband,--a fact, it may here be
remarked, which had no small influence on his subsequent fate,--and the
narrow, bigoted exclusiveness of the wife was utterly incompatible with
the free and open-hearted fellowship with which the husband received
his acquaintances, of whatever sect or party. In a very few months,
therefore, it began to be whispered abroad that the hitherto happy and
joyous bachelor's-hall had become a scene of constant bickerings and
heartburnings.