“Their destination was New York, where Anna had never been, and where they were to spend a week or two before sailing for Europe. At the hotel where they stopped, Anna met with an old school friend, who, like herself, was a bride taking her wedding trip. As was natural, the two young girls talked together freely of their future prospects and the husbands they had chosen, and Anna could not help showing her elation at being the wife of a man like Mr. Haverleigh. “‘But tell me honestly, do you love him?’ Mrs. Fleming, said to her one day. ‘He is not at all the person I should have selected for you. Why, do you know I feel a kind of terror stealing over me every time he speaks to me, there is such a hard ring in his voice, and it seems to me a cruel look in his eyes. Then I always thought you would eventually marry Hal Morton.’ “This was a great deal to say to a bride concerning her husband, but Lucy Fleming was just the one to take liberties, and Anna did not resent it in the least, but answered laughingly: ‘Oh, _Hal_ is quite _too_ poor. He took it hard, and looked like a goosey at the wedding. I fancy he did not like Mr. Haverleigh, and I see you think him a kind of Blue Beard, too, and so I confess do I, but then I never intend to _peek_, and lose my life as did his silly wives. Honestly, though, Lucy, I do not love him, and I experience that same fear of him which you describe, and actually shrink from him when he kisses me; but he is very kind to me, and I believe loves me truly, and I shall make him think that I love him. I married him for money, for fine dresses, and jewelry, and handsome furniture, and servants, and horses and carriages, and that Chateau d’Or, which did more toward influencing me than anything else. Only think of living in a house almost as large as a castle, with a French maid, and troops of servants, and a housekeeper to take every care from me; one could endure almost any man for the sake of all that.’