Her dress and ornaments were indeed black, her rich silk and heavy crape making her face fairer than ever; so through soup and fish she talked, to Barbara, oh, how drearily of wind and rain, friend and acquaintance, of a letter that she had received from Mr. Cradock's mother, &c.

There was a little lull while the fish was being removed. It was broken first by a sob, then by many wild and hysterical, one after another. Mr. Cradock sprang up, his wife was leaning back in her chair, sobbing as if her heart would break.

He recovered himself, went up to her, offered his arm, which she took as a matter of course, and led her up stairs. Barbara offered to follow them,-" No thank you, there will be no need," he replied,-in his blandest and coldest of tones, and Barbara turned back with the disagreeable consciousness of having been thought officious.

In a very few minutes her brother-in-law came down, apologized for his absence, and asked her to be so good as to take the head of the table. Barbara really had not courage to ask him how he had left his wife.

The dinner dragged wearily. Barbara felt sickened at the wanton superfluity of delicacies and good things before her, and at having to respond to Mr. Cradock's determination that conversation should never flag.

At last, the dessert handed round and menservants gone, she rose, saying something about Hetty, and prepared to take her departure.

"Pray do not trouble yourself-indeed, I think Mrs. Cradock-Henrietta-will be better left to herself."

"Thank you, it is very far from a trouble," and Barbara determinately went.

She found Hetty sitting up, watching the door nervously; not crying now, but most utterly miserable and upset. She let Barbara seat herself by her, ardly taking notice of her entrance, till suddenly

she turned round and whispered, "Is he still so angry ?"

Barbara was shocked. Never hitherto had Henrietta given her the slightest hint that she was not as happy in her wedded life as wife could be, though from what she had herself seen and heard, she could not but feel that they were little better assorted than she had at first feared. She made no answer, feeling this would be far better than saying one word that could make any such unhappiness an understood thing.

"Is he ?" Henrietta repeated piteously, "perhaps I am as silly and provoking as a child, but I could not help it."

Again Barbara did not answer. As far as she was concerned, it should be the first and last time that Henrietta ever so forgot herself. Nor would even this extremity of trouble and sorrow have betrayed the young wife into such want of self-restraint, if in her days of health and prosperity she had better controlled her fitful spirits.

"He cannot bear my being out of spirits; he cannot bear me to be sad, most of all for this one. He never liked her; he so wished for a son, and both our children have been girls. He can't forgive that, I

know he can't."

Hetty, dear, that is nonsense. Let us talk of something else, or lie down and let me read to you." 'No, I must be up; he may come. I daresay I do give way needlessly; but oh! he does not know what it is to lose a child! He did not care for the first, but it soon died, and it was over; but this, oh! he was so jealous of it, I could not have it in my arms or in my room if he were near, and-and so I was obliged to learn to do without it."

"No," said Barbara, firmly, " no one could oblige you to do without your child, and Mr. Cradock was only with you two hours out of the ten that baby was up."

"Go away!" cried Henrietta, springing up and stamping her foot, "you are as cold-hearted as you always were; you never were a comfort to me! All that went wrong at home was my fault, and so it is now, when you know how I am worried and worn out, and tried, till-till I am sick to death of life," she added, sitting down rigid and immoveable again. "I wish I were with Ida! Well, I may be soon; I was very ill last time, and this-I feel it will end it, and I thank GOD for it!"

"Oh, Hetty, do not talk so! I know you are often very much tried and aggravated; he is often very provoking, but—”

"He! who? George? no! It is all my fault. Oh, if I wish I were dead, it is that he might find a better wife!" And, to Barbara's great comfort, (however different Mr. Cradock's feelings might have been,) there came another torrent of passionate, heartbroken cries and sobs; sometimes for her babe, oftener for her husband, who, with a sadly disturbed mind, was trying to read Tennyson's new poem in the drawingroom, with every now and then a "pish" and "pshaw,' not at the poet's dreamy mistiness, but at the remembrance of the dinner scene," Kent in the room too," being a climax from which his reserved, fastidious mind could not recover.

All that week Henrietta was very poorly. A poor, jaded, wearied reflection of Henrietta Wynne she looked, as day by day, after her noon-day dressing, she sat at her fireside, too listless to care whether Barbara were with her or not. She would not see Dr. Matthews. Barbara entreated, hoping the physician would prescribe some kind of exercise to rouse her, or at least order her to the drawing-room, where she had never ventured since that fatal evening. She even tried to talk her brother-in-law into anxiety. He listened politely, "but he was quite accustomed to such fits of depression, and they must take their course," secretly determined that nothing should ever

entrap him into the risk of another scene, even in the drawing-room, and before Barbara alone.

On the fifth day after little Ida's death, Barbara was suddenly seized with a severe sore throat. Very vexed she was at first, for she felt how each hoarse word grated on Mr. Cradock's ears; and in mercy to him she consented to call in Dr. Matthews. She dared not press him upon her sister, for the only time she had been roused even to petulance was when Barbara had made a final attempt to persuade her into seeing him. But of course he inquired after Mrs. Cradock, and when she answered how depressed and inanimate she was, he volunteered at once to see her.

"I scarcely think I can allow you to go," began Barbara," it is very kind, and would be an inexpressible comfort to myself; but-no, it must not be."

"Excuse me, Miss Wynne, but it must. Mrs. Cradock is still too young a lady to have her own way entirely. But you can honestly say I would go, in spite of your prohibition."

The kind old man went up stairs, knocked, entered, was greeted with a sudden cry of joy, heard all Henrietta's ailments, and when Barbara rejoined her, half afraid of a flood of passionate reproaches, she found her comparatively well in both body and mind.

"I am glad that baby will be buried to-morrow," Henrietta began, in a voice neither hopelessly sad nor unnecessarily bright, "not that I wish her away, poor dear! but that I may be down and about again. It will be better for all, and I want so to earn my good character back: how you have all borne with me I can't think, but I don't mean to ask your pardon by words, but by deeds."

And so the next day little Ida Henrietta Cradock was laid by the still younger sister in the vault of the city church. Truly such a burial is burying our dead from us doubly.

And Henrietta came down to dinner so sweet, so

gentle, so unaffectedly anxious to think for others, and let no one think of her, that Barbara saw how an old wife may be lovelier than the young bride, even when the wife has grown thin, worn, and anxious.

The next day was Sunday, and passed very quietly; Henrietta was far too poorly to leave the house. The following Sunday morning the three went to church; in the afternoon Barbara saw Henrietta watching the clock nervously, and listening anxiously to the church bells. Mr. Cradock made some remark to her, she did not hear it; he repeated it, and with that eager timidity that made Barbara shudder, she begged his pardon, and asked him what he had said.

Nothing that is worth repeating a third time," he answered shortly, and returned to his book.

"I was thinking-shall you want me this afternoon?-I mean," said poor Henrietta, stammering and blushing, "if you do not, I should rather like to go to church."

"And why?" asked Mr. Cradock, with appalling composure, laying down his book.

"Because-because-I-I think I ought."
"And why ?"

"Because we always used at Ford House.'
"Ford House is not Aigburth Road."
"No!" thought Barbara.

"No," answered Henrietta; "and of course I will not go if you want me."

I do not want you more than usual ; go, if you wish it."

Henrietta was puzzled, as would have been many a clearer head and more earnest heart than hers. On one hand, if she gave up now, and did not make the effort when her conscience urged her to rouse herself, and her husband at least did not prohibit her doing so, how could she ever make it again? On the other hand, a wife's duty made her very perplexed and unhappy at the thought of leaving her husband to a solitary afternoon. Which duty stood foremost? was