I shall pass lightly and rapidly over the next few months.--My husband gradually resumed his intercourse at the Lodge; while I, to conceal as much as possible his neglect, paid and received visits; and Mrs. Ridley and my aunt were by turns my guests, for I had now lost my dread of the latter. She had nothing to tell but what I knew already, except that she believed my husband more criminal than I did or could think him, and that I positively forbade her ever to name him to me again. I also visited you, and did all I could to fly from that feeling of conscious desolation which was ever present to me since I lost my mother. In all other afflictions I had her to rely upon; I had her to sooth and to comfort me: but who had I to console me for the loss of her? on whose never-to-be-abated tenderness could I rely? Other ties, if destroyed, may be formed again; but we can have parents only once; and I had lost my mother, my sole surviving parent, at a moment when I wanted her most. Still, I roused myself from my lethargy of grief, and 'sorrowed' not like 'one without hope.' But the misery of disappointed and wounded affections preyed on me while tenderer woes slumbered, and my health continued to fade, my youth to decay. My kind aunt and Mrs. Ridley were both just come on a visit to me, when Pendarves signified his intention of accompanying his friends on a tour to the Lakes. He said his health had suffered much from his anxiety during my illness, and he thought the journey would do him good. "Then take your wife a journey," cried my aunt bluntly: "she wants it more than you do." "She will not accompany my friends," replied he; "and my word is pledged to go with them." "Is a pledge given to friends more sacred than duty to a wife, Mr. Seymour Pendarves?" "Is it a husband's duty never to stir without his wife, madam?" "My dear aunt, you forget," said I, "how unfit I am to travel: quiet and home suit me best." "It is well they do," said my aunt; and Seymour left the room. I will pass over the time that intervened before Seymour's departure: suffice that I tried to attribute his still frequent absences from home to his dislike of his aunt's society; and in the meanwhile I masked an aching heart in smiles, that no one might have the authority of my dejected spirits to found an accusation of my husband upon.