ing. I thought you'd have known that beforehand, | asked to go at once, Captain. You are not to take perhaps," said Rob, rubbing his hands, and getting away my character again, because you send me off up. "If you could be so good as provide yourself of your own accord. And you're not to stop any soon, Captain, it would be a great convenience to of my wages, Captain!" me. You couldn't provide yourself by to-morrow morning, I am afraid, Captain; could you, do you think?" "And you're a going to desert your colours are you, my lad?" said the Captain, after a long examination of his face. "Oh, it's very hard upon a cove, Captain," cried the tender Rob, injured and indignant in a moment, "that he can't give lawful warning, without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You haven't any right to call a poor cove names, Cap. tain. It an't because I'm a servant and you're a master, that you're to go and libel me. What wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, will you?" The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye. "Come, Captain," cried the injured youth," give my crime a name! What have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? Have I set the house a-fire? If I have, why don't you give me in charge, and try it? But to take away the character of a lad that's been a good servant to you, because he can't afford to stand in his own light for your good, what a injury it is, and what a bad return for faithful service! This is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I wonder at you, Captain, I do." All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and backing carefully towards the door. "And so you've got another berth, have you, my lad?" said the Captain, eyeing him intently. 66 Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another berth," cried Rob, backing more and more; "a better berth than I've got here, and one where I don't so much as want your good word, Captain, which is fort'nate for me, after all the dirt you've throw'd at me, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn't for leaving you unprovided, Captain, I'd go to it now, sooner than I'd take them names from you, because I'm poor, and can't afford to stand in my own light for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not standing in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean yourself?" "Look ye here, my boy," replied the peaceful Captain, "Don't you pay out no more of them words." "Well, then, don't you pay any more of your words, Captain," retorted the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the shop. "I'd sooner you took my blood than my -character." "Because," pursued the Captain calmly, "you have heerd, may be, of such a thing as a rope's end." "Oh, have I though, Captain ?" cried the taunting Grinder. "No I haven't. I never heerd of any such a article!" "Well," said the Captain, "it's my belief as you'll know more about it pretty soon, if you don't keep a bright look-out. I can read your signals, my lad. You may go." "Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain ?" cried Rob, exulting in his success. "But mind! I never His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and telling the Grinder's money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces one by one, with a sob and a suivel for each, and tied them up separately in knots in his pocket. handkerchief; then he ascended to the roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with pigeons; then, came down to his bed under the counter and made up his bundle, snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart by old associations; then he whined, "Good night, Captain. I leave you without malice!" and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little Midshipman's nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street grinning triumph. The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand, though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one column and down another all through the newspaper. It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart's Delight were lost to him indeed, and now Mr. Carker deceived and jeered him cruelly. They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had held forth many a time on the recollections that were warm within him; he had believed in the false Rob, and had been glad to believe in him; he had made a companion of him as the last of the old ship's company; he had taken the command of the little Midshipman with him at his right hand; he had meant to do his duty by him, and had felt almost as kindly towards the boy as if they had been shipwrecked and cast upon a desert place together. And now, that the false Rob had brought distrust, treachery, and meanness into the very parlour, which was a kind of sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour might have gone down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking, or given him any very great concern. Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention and no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing whatever about Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was thinking about him, or would recognise in the most distant manner that Rob had anything to do with his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe. In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over to Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a private watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the shutters of the Wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then called in at the cating-house to diminish by one half the daily rations theretofore supplied to the Midshipman, and at the public-house to stop the traitor's beer. " young man," said the Captain, in explanation to the young lady at the bar, "iny young man having bettered himself, Miss." Lastly, the Captain resolved to take possession of the bed under the counter, and to turn-in there o' nights instead of up stairs, as sole guardian of the property. My From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on his glazed hat at six o'cloc 204 in the morning, with the solitary air of Crusoe finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his fears of a visitation from the savage tribe, Mac Stinger, were somewhat cooled, as similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used to be by the lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the cannibals, he still observed a regular routine of defensive operations, and never encountered a bonnet without previous survey from his castle of retreat. In the mean time (during which he received no call from Mr. Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own voice began to have a strange sound in his ears; and he acquired such habits of profound meditation from much polishing and stowing away of the stock, and from much sitting behind the counter reading, or looking out of window, that the red rim made on his forehead by the hard glazed hat, sometimes ached again with excess of reflection. "For why?" growled Bunsby, looking at his Captain Cuttle, imitating his visiter in the matter of these particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great Commander was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the fireside observing him respectfully, and as if of curiosity on Bunsby's part which should lead he waited for some encouragement or expression The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle him to his own affairs. But as the mahogany phideemed it expedient to open the packet; but as he losopher gave no evidence of being sentient of any. had always designed doing this in the presence of thing but warmth and tobacco, except once, when Rob the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and taking his pipe from his lips to make room for his as he had an idea that it would be regular and glass, he incidentally remarked with exceeding ship-shape to open it in the presence of somebody, gruffness, that his name was Jack Bunsby he was sadly put to it for want of a witness. In claration that presented but small opening for conthis difficulty, he hailed one day with unusual de-versation-the Captain bespeaking his attention in light the announcement in the Shipping Intelligence of the arrival of the Cautious Clara, Captain John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage; and to that philosopher immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining inviolable secrecy as to his place of residence, and requesting to be favoured with an early visit, in the evening season. Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took some days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had received a letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the fact, and mastered it, he promptly sent his boy with the message, "He's a coming to-night." Who being instructed to deliver those words and disappear, fulfilled his mission like a tarry spirit, charged with a mysterious warning. The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes and rum and water, and awaited his visiter in the back parlour. At the hour of eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the shop-door, succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel, announced to the listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was along side; whom he instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his stolid mahogany visage, as usual, appearing to have no consciousness of anything before it, but to be attentively observing something that was taking place in quite another part of the world. Bunsby," said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, "What cheer my lad, what cheer?" "Shipmet," replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any sign on the part of the Commander himself, "Hearty, hearty." "Bunsby!" said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his genius, "here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter than di'monds -and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me like di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the Stanfell's Budget, and when found make a note. Here you are, a man as gave an opinion in this here very place, that has come true, every letter on it," which the Captain sincerely believed. Aye, aye?" growled Bunsby. Every letter," said the Captain. -a de a short complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol's departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and fortunes; and concluded by placing the packet on the table. After a long pause, Mr. Bunsby nodded his head. The Captain accordingly broke the seal and dis- Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and read the seemed to listen for the contents. The Captain letter aloud. ་་· My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at the West Indies"Bunsby, who looked fixedly at the coast of Green. land. -"in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear If you ever read boy, I knew that if you were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me; and therefore I kept it secret. easily forgive an old friend's folly then, and will this letter, Ned, I am likely to be dead. You will he wandered away on such a wild voyage. So no feel for the restlessness and uncertainty in which more of that. I have little hope that my poor boy with the sight of his frank face any more.' No, will ever read these words, or gladden your eyes There he lays, all his no; no more," said Captain Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating; days-" 46 no more. Mr. Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, "In the Bays of Biscay, O!" which so to departed worth, that he shook him by the hand affected the good Captain, as an appropriate tribute in acknowledgment, and was fain to wipe his eyes. "Well, well!" said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby ceased to ring and vibrate in the skylight. "Affliction sore, long time he bore, and let us overhaul the wollume, and there | and the sweet child's brother, Charles Mac Stinger, find it." "Physicians," observed Bunsby," was in vain." "Aye, aye, to be sure," said the Captain, "what's the good o' them in two or three hundred fathoms o' water!" Then, returning to the letter, he read on:-"But if he should be by, when it is opened ;'" the Captain involuntarily looked round, and shook his head; "or should know of it at any other time;" the Captain shook his head again; "my blessing on him! In case the accompanying paper is not legally written, it matters very little, for there is no one interested but you and he, and my plain wish is, that if he is living he should have what little there may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you should have it, Ned. You will respect my wish, I know. God bless you for it, and for all your friendliness besides, to SOLOMON GILLS.' Buns by!" said the Captain, appealing to him solemnly, "what do you make of this? There you sit, a man as has had his head broke from infancy up'ards, and has got a new opinion into it at every seam as has been opened. Now, what do you make o' this?" "If so be," returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude," as he's dead, my opinion is he won't come back no more. If so be as he's alive, my opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because the bearings of this obserwation lays in the application on it." "Bunsby !" said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the value of his distinguished friend's opinions in proportion to the immensity of the difficulty he experienced in making anything out of them; "Bunsby," said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, "you carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon. But in regard o' this here will, I don't mean to take no steps towards the property-Lord forbid-except to keep it for a more rightful owner; and I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living and 'll come back, strange as it is that he an't forwarded no dispatches. Now, what is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these here papers away again, and marking outside as they was opened, such a day, in presence of John Bunsby and Ed'ard Cuttle?" popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley) in her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that Cap. tain Cuttle found himself in the very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face with which he had been meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay. But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his misfortune, self-preservation dic. tated an attempt at flight. Darting at the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little range of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter, like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions of Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs-one of those dear children holding on to each-claimed hith as their friend, with lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs. Mac Stinger, who never entered upon any action of importance without previously in. verting Alexander Mac Stinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps, and then sitting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him, performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at the Cap. tain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten scratches to the interposing Bunsby. The cries of the two elder Mac Stingers, and the wailing of young Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood, forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy period of existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful. But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs. Mac Stinger, its terrors were at their height. "Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle!" said Mrs. Mac Stinger, making her chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of her sex, might be described as her fist. "Oh, Cap'en Cuttle, Cap'en Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in the herth!" Bunshy, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or elsewhere, to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that great man, bring-feebly muttered "Stand by!" ing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his sign-manual to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic modesty, from the use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having attached his own left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in the iron safe, entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke another pipe; and doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire on the possible fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker. The Captain, who looked anything but daring, And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that Captain Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk beneath it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour. How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest, could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny. But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did the fell Mac Stinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander Mac Stinger in her parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to mention Juliana Mac Stinger. "Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof, Cap'en Cuttle, I was!" cried Mrs. Mac Stinger. "To think of the benefits I've showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children up to love and honour him as if he was a father to 'em, when there an't a 'ousekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don't know that I lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings"-Mrs. Mac Stinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea-" and when they cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an industrious woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, and keeping her poor place so clean that individual might have ate his dinner, yes, and his tea too, if he was so disposed, off any one of the floors or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his muzzlings, such was the care and pains bestowed upon him!" Mrs. Mac Stinger stopped to fetch her breath and her face flushed with triumph in this secon hanny introduction of Cantain Battlalali 66 And he runs awa-a-a-ay!" cried Mrs. Mac | ister, and stealthily convey some money into the Stinger, with a lengthening-out of the last syllable hands of Juliana Mac Stinger, his former favourite, that made the unfortunate Captain regard himself and Chowley, who had the claim upon him that he as the meanest of men; "and keeps away a twelve- was naturally of a maritime build, before the Midmonth! From a woman! Sitch is his conscience! shipman was abandoned by them all; and Bunsby, He hasn't the courage to meet her hi-i-i-igh ;" long whispering that he'd carry on smart, and hail Ned syllable again; "but steals away like a felion. Cuttle again before he went aboard, shut the door Why, if that baby of mine," said Mrs. Mac Stinger, upon himself, as the last member of the party. with sudden rapidity, " was to offer to go and steal away, I'd do my duty as a mother by him, till he was covered with wales." mander of the Cautious Clara, succeeded, and threw the Captain into a wondering trance. Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he had been troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood, beset the The young Alexander, interpreting this into a Captain at first, when he went back to the little positive promise, to be shortly redeemed, tumbled parlour, and found himself alone. Illimitable faith over with fear and grief, and lay upon the floor ex-in, and immeasurable admiration of, the Comhibiting the soles of his shoes, and making such a deafening outcry, that Mrs. Mac Stinger found it necessary to take him up in her arms, where she Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reap quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out again, pear, the Captain began to entertain uncomfortable by a shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth. doubts of another kind. Whether Bunsby had "A pretty sort of a man is Cap'en Cuttle," said been artfully decoyed to Brig Place, and was there Mrs. Mac Stinger, with a sharp stress on the first detained in safe custody as hostage for his friend; syllable of the Captain's name, "to take on for-in which case it would become the Captain, as a and to lose sleep for-and to faint along of-and to think dead forsooth-and to go up and down the blessed town like a mad woman, asking questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha ha! He's worth all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more. That's nothing, bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap'en Cuttle," said Mrs. Mac Stinger, with severe re-action in her voice and manner, "I wish to know if you're a-coming home." The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing for it but to put it on, and give himself up. "Cap'en Cuttle," repeated Mrs. Mac Stinger, in the same determined manner, "I wish to know if you 're a-coming home, Sir." The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something to the effect of "not making so much noise about it." 'Aye, aye, aye," said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. "Awast, my lass, awast!" "And who may You be, if you please!" retorted Mrs. Mac Stinger, with chaste loftiness. "Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir? My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs. Jollson lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you're mistaking me for her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity, Sir." "Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!" said Bunsby. Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, though he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing boldly, put his shaggy blue arm round Mrs. Mac Stinger, and so softened her by his magic way of doing it, and by these few words-he said no more-1 - that she melted into tears, after looking upon him for a few moments, and observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so low in her courage. Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually persuade this inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water and a candle, take them to her, and pacify her without appearing to utter one word. Presently he looked in with his pilot-coat on, ard said, "Cuttle, I'm a-going to act as convoy home;" and Captain Cuttle, more to his confusion than if he had been put in irons himself, r safe transport to Brig Place, saw the family paSically filing off, with Mrs. Mac Stinger at their ad. He had scarcely time to take down his can man of honour, to release him, by the sacrifice of his own liberty. Whether he had been attacked and defeated by Mrs. Mac Stinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his discomfiture. Whether Mrs. Mac Stinger, thinking better of it, in the uncertainty of her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman again, and Bunsby, pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was endeavouring to lose the family amid the wilds and savage places of the city. Above all, what it would behove hin, Captain Cuttle, to do, in case of his hearing no more, either of the Mac Stingers, or of Bunsby, which, in these wonderful and unforeseen conjunctions of events, might possibly happen. He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He made up his bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still no Bunsby. At length, when the Captain had given him up, for that night at least, and had begun to undress, the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and, stopping at the door, was succeeded by Bunsby's hail. The Captain trembled to think that Mrs. Mac Stinger was not to be got rid of, and had been brought back in a coach. But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he hauled into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled in, sat upon. Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs. Mac Stinger's house, and looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more attentively, believed that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be sure of this; the Commander having no trace of expression in his face when sober. "Cuttle," said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening the lid, "are these here your traps?" Captain Cuttle looked in, and identified his pro the Cautious Clara with all speed-supposed to be his invariable custom, whenever he considered he had made a point. As it was not his humour to be often sought, Captain Cuttle decided not to go or send to him next day, or until he should make his gracious pleasure known in such wise, or, failing that, until some little time should have elapsed. The Captain, therefore, renewed his solitary life next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings, noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby's sentiments concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle's hopes; and he humoured them and himself by watching for the Instrument-Maker at the door-as he ventured to do now, in his strange liberty-and setting his chair in its place, and arranging the little parlour as it used to be, in case he should come home unexpectedly. He likewise, in his thoughtfulness, took down a certain little miniature of Walter as a schoolboy, from its accus. tomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on his return. The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would come on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did not; and still the neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening, looking up and down the street. CHAPTER XL. DOMESTIC RELATIONS. Ir was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr. Dombey's mood, opposed to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be softened in the imperious asperity of his temper; or that the cold, hard armour of pride in which he lived encased, should be made more flexible by constant collision with haughty scorn and defiance. It is the curse of such a nature-it is a main part of the heavy retribution on itself it bears within itself that while deference and concession swell its evil qualities, and are the food it grows upon, resistance, and a questioning of its enacting claims, foster it, too, no less. The evil that is in it finds equally its means of growth and propagation in opposites. It draws support and life from sweets and bitters; bowed down before, or unacknowledged, it still enslaves the breast in which it has its throne; and, worshipped or rejected, is as hard a master as the Devil in dark fables. Towards his first wife, Mr. Dombey, in his cold and lofty arrogance, had borne himself like the removed Being he almost conceived himself to be. He had been "Mr. Dombey" with her when she first saw him, and he was "Mr. Dombey" when she died. He had asserted his greatness during their whole married life, and she had meekly recognised it. He had kept his distant seat of state on the top of his throne, and she her humble station on its lowest step: and much good it had done him, so to live in solitary bondage to his one idea. He had imagined that the proud character of his second wife would have been added to his own-would nave merged into it, and exalted his greatness. He had pictured himself haughtier than ever, with Edith's haughtiness subservient to his. He had never entertained the possibility of its arraying itself against him. And now, when he found it rising in his path at every step and turn of his daily life, fixing its cold, defiant, and contemptuous face upon him, this pride of his, instead of withering, or hanging down its head beneath the shock, put forth new shoots, became more concentrated and intense, more gloomy, sullen, irksome and unyielding, than it had ever been before. Who wears such armour, too, bears with him ever another heavy retribution. It is of proof against conciliation, love, and confidence; against all gentle sympathy from without, all trust, all tenderness, all soft emotion; but to deep stabs in the self-love, it is as vulnerable as the bare breast to steel; and such tormenting festers rankle there, as follow on no other wounds, no, though dealt with the mailed hand of Pride itself, on weaker pride, disarmed and thrown down. Such wounds were his. He felt them sharply, in the solitude of his old rooms; whither he now began often to retire again, and pass long solitary hours. It seemed his fate to be ever proud and powerful; ever humbled and powerless where he would be most strong. Who seemed fated to work out that doom? Who? Who was it who could win his wife as she had won his boy? Who was it who had shown him that new victory, as he sat in the dark corner? Who was it, whose least word did what his utmost means could not? Who was it who, unaided by his love, regard, or notice, thrived and grew beautiful when those so aided died? Who could it be, but the same child at whom he had often glanced uneasily in her motherless infancy, with a kind of dread, lest he might come to hate her; and of whom his foreboding was fulfilled, for he DID hate her in his heart. Yes, and he would have it hatred, and he made it hatred, though some sparkles of the light in which she had appeared before him on the memorable night of his return home with his bride, occasionally hung about her still. He knew now that she was beautiful; he did not dispute that she was graceful and winning, and that in the bright dawn of her womanhood she had come upon him, a surprise. But he turned even this against her. In his sullen and unwholesome brooding, the unhappy man, with a dull perception of his alienation from all hearts, and a vague yearning for what he had all his life repelled, made a distorted picture of his rights and wrongs, and justified himself with it against her. The worthier she promised to be of him, the greater claim he was disposed to ante-date upon her duty and submission. When had she ever shown him duty and submission? Did she grace his life-or Edith's? Had her attraction been manifested first to him-or Edith? Why, and she had never been, from her birth, like fat |