My wife allowed herself to say, "Isn't it rather cruel of her?" "Why, no, not altogether; or not so much so as it might be in different circumstances. I make every allowance for her. In the first place, she is a great sufferer." "Yes, I know," my wife relented. "She suffers terribly from asthma. I don't suppose she has lain down in bed for ten years. She sleeps in an easy-chair, and she's never quite free from her trouble; when there's a paroxysm of the disease, her anguish is frightful. I've never seen it, of course, but I have heard it; you hear it all through the house. Edith has the constant care of her. Her mother has to be perpetually moved and shifted in her chair, and Edith does this for her; she will let no one else come near her; Edith must look to the ventilation, and burn the pastilles which help her to breathe. She depends upon her every instant." He had grown very solemn in voice and face, and he now said, "When I think of what she endures, it seems to me that it is I who am cruel even to dream of taking her daughter from her." "Yes," my wife assented. "But there is really no present question of that We are very happy as it is. We can wait, and wait willingly till Mrs. Bentley wishes us to wait no longer; or--" He stopped, and we were both aware of something in his mind which he put from him. He became a little pale, and sat looking very grave. Then he rose. "I don't know whether to say how welcome you would be at St. Michael's to-morrow, for you may not be--" "_We_ are Unitarians, too," said Mrs. March. "But we are coming to hear _you_." "I am glad you are coming _to church_," said Glendenning, putting away the personal tribute implied with a gentle dignity that became him. VII. We waited a discreet time before returning the call of the Bentley ladies, but not so long as to seem conscious. In fact, we had been softened towards Mrs. Bentley by what Glendenning told us of her suffering, and we were disposed to forgive a great deal of patronage and superiority to her asthma; they were not part of the disease, but still they were somehow to be considered with reference to it in her case. We were admitted by the maid, who came running down the hall stairway, with a preoccupied air, to the open door where we stood waiting. There were two great syringa-bushes on each hand close to the portal, which were in full flower, and which flung their sweetness through the doorway and the windows; but when we found ourselves in the dim old-fashioned parlor, we were aware of this odor meeting and mixing with another which descended from the floor above--the smell of some medicated pastille. There was a sound of anxious steps overhead, and a hurried closing of doors, with the mechanical sound of labored breathing. "We have come at a bad time," I suggested.