Elsies Kith and Kin | Page 7

feel all the more delighted
with my comfortable quarters here,--all the more grateful to you, Mr.
Travilla, for saving me from a long detention in one of those miserable
little country taverns, where I should have died of ennui."
"You seem kindly disposed, my dear madam, to make a great deal of a
small service," returned Edward gallantly.

But Zoe said not a word. She stood gazing into the fire, apparently lost
in thought; but the color deepened on her cheek, and a slight frown
contracted her brows.
Presently she turned to her guest, saying courteously, "You must be
weary with your journey, Miss Deane: would you like to retire?"
"Thank you, I should," was the reply; and thereupon the good-nights
were said, and they sought their respective rooms.
"You are not displeased with me, dear?" Zoe asked, lifting her eyes
inquiringly to her husband's face as she stood before their
dressing-room fire with his arm about her waist: "you are looking so
very grave."
"No, dearest, I am not disposed to find fault with you," he said, softly
caressing her hair and cheek with his disengaged hand; "though I
should be glad if you could be a trifle more cordial to our uninvited
guest."
"It's my nature to act just as I feel; and, if there's a creature on earth I
thoroughly detest, it is she!" returned the child-wife with almost
passionate vehemence. "I know she hates me,--for all her purring
manner and sweet tones and words,--and that she likes nothing better
than to make trouble between my husband and me."
"My dear child, you really must try not to be so uncharitable and
suspicious," Edward said in a slightly reproving tone. "I do not perceive
any such designs or any hypocrisy in her conduct toward you."
"No: men are as blind as a bat in their intercourse with such women;
never can see through their designs; always take them to be as sweet
and amiable as they pretend to be. It takes a woman to understand her
own sex."
"Maybe so," he said soothingly; "but we will leave the disagreeable
subject for to-night at least, shall we not?"

"Yes; and, oh, I do hope the weather to-morrow will not be such as to
afford her an excuse for prolonging her stay!"
"I hope not, indeed, love," he responded; "but let us resolve, that, if it
does, we will try to bear the infliction patiently, and give our
self-invited guest no right to accuse us of a lack of hospitality toward
her. Let us not forget or disobey the Bible injunction, to 'use hospitality
one to another without grudging.'"
"I'll try not to. I'll be as good to her as I can, without feeling that I am
acting insincerely."
"And that is all I ask, love. Your perfect freedom from any thing
approaching to deceit is one of your greatest charms, in your husband's
eyes," he said, tenderly caressing her. "It would, I am sure, be quite
impossible for me to love a wife in whose absolute truth and sincerity I
had not entire confidence."
"And you do love me, your foolish, faulty little wife?" she said, in a
tone that was a mixture of assertion and inquiry, while her lovely eyes
gazed searchingly into his.
"Dearly, dearly, my sweet!" he said, smiling fondly down upon her.
"And now to bed, lest these bright eyes and rosy cheeks should lose
something of their brilliance and beauty."
"Suppose they should," she said, turning slightly pale, as with sudden
pain. "O Ned! if I live, I must some day grow old and gray and
wrinkled, my eyes dim and sunken: shall you love me then, darling?"
"Better than ever, love," he whispered, holding her closer to his heart;
"for how long we shall have lived and loved together! We shall have
come to be as one indeed, each with hardly a thought or feeling
unshared by the other."
CHAPTER III.
"One woman reads another's character, without the tedious trouble of

deciphering."--JONSON.
Zoe's sleep that night was profound and refreshing, and she woke in
perfect health and vigor of body and mind; but the first sound that
smote upon her ear--the dashing of sleet against the window-pane--sent
a pang of disappointment and dismay to her heart.
She sprang from her bed, and, running to the window, drew aside the
curtain, and looked out.
"O Ned!" she groaned, "the ground is covered with sleet and
snow,--about a foot deep, I should think,--and just hear how the wind
shrieks and howls round the house!"
"Well, love," he answered in a cheery tone, "we are well sheltered, and
supplied with all needful things for comfort and enjoyment."
"And one that will destroy every bit of my enjoyment in any or all the
others," she sighed; "but," eagerly and