“Well! At the very time that I was so insane on the subject of my first and most ill-placed love, I had a schoolmate, a young medical student, who was madder than I was. He loved to frenzy the beautiful daughter of a poor, ignorant workingman. She _was_ beautiful, but beauty was her only attraction. Her intelligence was very low and her temper unhappy. But notwithstanding this, my young friend, ensnared by her beauty and his own eyes, and in defiance of all his family and friends, married her. I do not know how much or how little of happiness they enjoyed in the first years of their marriage, for I was at sea, and our paths lay apart. But in after time, when they had a growing family around them, they had gone so far apart that they were completely estranged. They hated each other with a deep and grievous hatred. They often reproached each other with great bitterness and venom. She was a ‘millstone around his neck,’ pulling him down and keeping him down in the social scale. She could not, perhaps, help being so. But he blamed and despised her for this, and she hated and upbraided him because he blamed and despised her. The children of that wretched household were both in temperament and in position very unhappy. They left home as soon as through marriage or employment they could escape from it. Not one of them has succeeded in life. Much of this family misery might have been hidden from the world, for the man, in _this_ respect, was wise and reticent, but the woman was silly and blatant, and flaunted her domestic troubles in the face of every friend who came near her. The worst was——” “Oh, please, _please_ tell me no more!” exclaimed Em., instinctively putting her hands to her ears. The commodore looked at her and smiled. “Oh, I beg pardon, sir; but it was so dreadful,” said the girl apologetically, as she took down her hands. “My child, if this state of things is so dreadful to _hear_, what must it be to _bear_? inquired the old man with incisive earnestness. “Oh, why do you tell me these sad stories?” said Em., almost on the verge of tears. “For an example and a warning, my child. Listen, little girl. My nephew, Ronald, loves you, or fancies that he does.” Em.’s complexion, that had been marble white before, now suddenly flushed scarlet all over face, neck and bosom. The old man noticed it, but continued ruthlessly: “Ronald is of age, is his own master, and has a profession that will enable him to support a wife in decent competency. He can therefore marry whom he will, and in open defiance of his family and friends, if he pleases. He will probably ask you to marry him, Em. If so, what will be your reply?” “I will wait until he does ask me, sir, and then I will give _him_ my reply,” said Em. with gentle dignity.