to blemish.

"Let him be as cold and stern as he will," said she to herself in her
patient affliction, "he is my husband--the husband of my free
choice--and by that I must abide. He may have crosses and
sorrows of which I know not; and is it fitting that I should pry
into the secrets of a mind devoted to pursuits and studies in which
I am incapable of sharing? There was a time when I fondly trusted
he would seek to qualify me for his companion and friend; but the
enchantment which sealed my eyes is over, and I must meet the common
fate of woman, distrust and neglect, as best I may."

Anxious to escape the observation of her family, she earnestly
requested Lord Greville's permission to accompany him with her son,
when he suddenly announced his intention of visiting Greville Cross.
Her petition was at first met with a cold negative; but when she
ventured to plead the advice she had received recently from several
physicians, to remove to the sea coast, and reminded him of her
frequent indispositions, and present feebleness of constitution, he
looked at her for a time with astonishment at the circumstance of
her thus exhibiting so unusual an opposition to his will, and
afterwards with sincere and evident distress at the confirmation
borne by her faded countenance to the truth of her representation.

"Thou art so patient a sufferer," he replied "that I am somewhat
too prone to forget the weakness of thy frame--but be content--I
must be alone in this long and tedious journey."

The tears which rose in her eyes were her only remonstrance, and
her husband stood regarding her for some minutes in silence, but with