Mrs. Harrington, satisfied of having gained her point, never stopped to question herself as to the means. She never paused to inquire as to whether she had done her part, as woman and wife, when she roused her husband’s weakness to take advantage of the failing. She never asked whether it was womanly or wise—if she could only “put her finger on fortune’s pipe, and sound what stop she pleased,” she did not look much higher. And yet Mrs. Harrington was a woman of fine theories, exalted views, rather a transcendentalist—till it came to action, and then what she wanted she must have—if she could get it. With some imagination, considerable enthusiasm, and a something mixed of the two, that she called romance, she had yet married Mr. Harrington, who was the opposite of every thing to her taste. And why? Because, though she would have been glad to have united the ideal with the real in her choice, she had yet no idea of sacrificing luxury to feeling. And with all her poetry she had an intense appreciation of _well being_. She found she could not gratify romance, ambition, and ease, too, and so between the body and soul she preferred the body. But the love and ambition she had sacrificed in her marriage she now centered in her son. The wife was nothing, the mother all in all. CHAPTER II. Ah! poor youth! in pitiful truth, Thy pride must feel a fall, poor youth! What thou shalt be well have I seen— Thou shalt be only what others have been. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The commonest drudge of men and things, Instead of your—conquering heroes and kings! Martin Tupper.