Elsies Kith and Kin | Page 7

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 half hopefully, "do you think it is quite certain to be too bad for her to go?"
"Quite, I am afraid. If she should offer to go," he added mischievously, "we will not be more urgent against it than politeness demands, and, if she persists, will not refuse the use of the close carriage as far as the depot."
"She offer to go!" exclaimed Zoe scornfully: "you may depend, she'll stay as long as she has the least vestige of an excuse for doing so."
"Oh, now, little woman! don't begin the day with being quite so hard and uncharitable," Edward said, half seriously, half laughingly.
Zoe was not far wrong in her estimate of her guest. Miss Deane was both insincere and a thoroughly selfish person, caring nothing for the comfort or happiness of others. She had perceived Zoe's antipathy from the first day of their acquaintance, and took a revengeful, malicious delight in tormenting her; and she had