Two or three months have passed since these conversations. Sir John Daventry’s manner has changed to his bride: he is no longer the lover, but the severe, exacting husband. It may be that he is annoyed at all his long-confirmed bachelor habits being broken in upon, and that, in time, he will become used to the change, and settle down contentedly in his new capacity; but yet something more than this seems to be at the bottom of his discontent. Since a confidential conversation, held over their wine between him and Charles Mardyn, his manner had been unusually captious. Mardyn had, after submitting some time, taken umbrage at a marked insult, and set off for London. On Lady Alice, in especial, her husband spent his fits of ill-humor. With Clara he was more than ever friendly; her position was now the most enviable in that house. But she strove to alleviate her stepmother’s discomforts by every attention a daughter could be supposed to show, and these proofs of amiable feeling seemed to touch Sir John, and as the alienation between him and his wife increased, to cement an attachment between Clara and her father. Lady Alice had lately imparted to her husband a secret that might be supposed calculated to fill him with joyous expectations, and raise hopes of an heir to his vast possessions; but the communication had been received in sullen silence, and seemed almost to increase his savage sternness—treatment which stung Lady Alice to the quick; and when she retired to her room, and wept long and bitterly over this unkind reception of news she had hoped would have restored his fondness, in those tears mingled a feeling of hate and loathing to the author of her grief. Long and dreary did the next four months appear to the beautiful Lady of Daventry, who, accustomed to the flattery and adulation of the London world, could ill-endure the seclusion and harsh treatment of the Hall.