“Oh!” she said, tossing the book from her, “the stupidest thing you ever read. Mr. Gilmer insisted on my reading it. He wants me to ‘cultivate my mind,’ to read and think, but I won’t think for him,” she said, pettishly pushing the book from her, “he can’t make me do that, do what he will. Now is it not hard,” she said, appealing to her mother, “that just as I have left school, I should be surrounded by masters and forced to study? He insisted on engaging Signor F. to give me Italian lessons, as he says that time will hang heavy on my hands if I have nothing to do when he is absent. Not nearly as heavy, I can tell him, as when I have something to do I don’t like. And, then, these stupid dinners he _will_ give, where he has only grave, sensible old men. If I had thought I was to lead such a life as this, I would have married a young man at once;” and thus she poured out her complaints, which were “as fresh from a warm young heart,” as Mr. Gilmer himself could have desired in his most enthusiastic mood. In fact, he was beginning to find that this “cultivating a wife’s mind” was not the easy delightful task he had once promised himself; and the _naïveté_ that had so charmed him before his marriage, annoyed him now not a little, as he saw it amuse his friends, particularly Mr. Lowndes, whose quick eye would involuntarily glance at him as his wife let forth most unconsciously some of the little _disagrémens_ of their _ménage_. That same _naïveté_ is the most unmanageable quality in an establishment where all does not run smoothly, and for that very reason, perhaps, often more amusing to strangers. But we pity the proud reserved man who is to be tortured with the “simplicity” by which he was once captivated. And if she was weary of the “grave sensible men” that surrounded his table, he was not less so of her young companions, who chattered and gossiped till his ears fairly ached with their nonsense.