It was wrong, undoubtedly. She had chosen her course, and must run it; as the Mesopotamians would have expressed themselves, she had made her bed, and must lie upon it. She had her husband to think of, and should have struggled womanfully to bear up against all these small crosses and disquietudes for his sake; she should have met her fate with a brave heart, and striven to prevent his having any suspicion of the longings and disappointments by which she was racked. Barbara should have done all this, as we in our different way should have done so much, which we have resolutely omitted,--paid that bill, for instance; avoided that woman; not bought that horse; helped that old friend; denied ourselves that fling in print at Jones. She should have done; but, like us, she didn't. Her character was any thing but perfect; and the very pride on which she so much prided herself, and which should have left her straight, now turned against herself, and, "like a hedgehog rolled the wrong way," pricked her mercilessly. She did indeed struggle to contend with the feelings which were conquering her, and which were the "little low" sensations renewed with tenfold force; but without success. A dead dull despair, a loathing and detestation of all the circumstances of her life, a horror of the people round her, and a wild regret for what had gone before never to return,--these were the demons which beset Barbara's daily path. And with them at one time came the first threatenings of another feeling which would have been more destructive to all chance of present or future happiness than any other, had not Providence in its mercy counteracted its effect by a passion, bad indeed, torturing, and hurtful, but nothing like so deadly as the other. Weighed down by her real or fancied misery, constantly repining in secret, and comparing her present with her past life, Barbara might have been tempted to think of Frank as the agent of her wretchedness, as the primary mover in the chain of events which had made her exchange Tyburnia for Great Adullam Street, luxury for comparative poverty, and happiness for despair; she might have done this, but she became jealous. She noticed that lately Frank's manner had been strange and preoccupied; that he was away from home very much more frequently than when they were first married; that from what she gathered when she heard him talking with his friends, he evidently sought work which took him out, and on two or three occasions had gone on country trips in the interest of the journal--duty which did not fall to his lot, and which he had never undertaken before. His manner to her, she thought, was certainly very much changed, and she did not like the alteration. He was courteous always, and gentle; but he had gradually lost all that petting fondness which, from its very rarity in a man of his stamp, was so winning at first; and with his courtesy was mingled a grave sad air,