She was an excellent scholar, attractive in person and in manner, gifted in conversation and opulent in purse. Her hand had been sought in marriage by more than one, and in early womanhood she had made choice among her suitors of a man whose plausible exterior was the screen of a black heart and infamous life. Convinced of her mistake barely in time to escape copartnership in his stained name and ruined fortunes, she set up the history of her deadly peril as a beacon to others as ardent and unwary as her old-time self. Either to put a double point upon the moral, or to insure herself against similar mishap in the future, she wedded an amiable and correct fool, a mere incidental in the work of human creation, who was as incapable of making his mark upon the age that produced him as an angle-worm is of lettering solid granite. Mabel's husband was not a simpleton, or characterless; but if he had been, his prospects of success would not have been materially damaged by her knowledge of his deficiencies. A union with him was a safe investment, and must be several degrees more supportable than was her position at Ridgeley, banned by its owner and patronized by his wife. I neither excuse nor blame her for thus deciding and transacting. Should I censure, a majority of my readers--nearly all of the masculine portion--would pick holes in my unpractical philosophy, scout my reasoning as illogical, brand my conclusions as pernicious--winding up their protest with the sigh of the mazed disciples, when stunned by the great Teacher's deliverance upon the subject of divorce, “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry!” Which dogma I likewise decline to dispute--falling back thankfully upon the blessed stronghold of unambitious story-tellers--namely, that my vocation is to describe what IS--not make fancy-sketches of millennial days, when rectitude shall be the best, because most remunerative policy; when sincerity shall be wisdom--proven and indisputable, and consistency the rule of human faith and practice the world over, instead of being, as it now is, one of the lost (or never invented) fine arts. CHAPTER XIII. -- JULIUS LENNOX. -- “You are puttin' your eyes out, workin' so stiddy, honey, and it's gettin' dark.” Mabel aroused herself from her intent attitude, and looked at the window. There was a brassy glimmer in the cloudy west; the rest of the sky was covered by thick vapors. “The days are still very short,” she said, folding her work, and becoming aware that her eyes ached from long and close study of the intricate pattern. It was Mammy Phillis who had interrupted her reverie, and she now laid an armful of seasoned hickory wood upon the hearth, and set herself about mending the fire, taking up the ashes which had accumulated since morning, putting the charred sticks together, and collecting the embers into a compact bed.