Kate Marsden married Mr. Crane--there was a union! On the one side youth and beauty; intellect, lofty enough to have aimed at any achievement which the mind of woman has accomplished; energy, sufficient to have gained the object striven for; ambition, that when all was won would have despised the trophies at her feet, and sighed for more worlds to conquer; and a deep passionate nature, combining the fiery elements of a southern temperament with the steady perseverance and inflexible resolution characteristic of a daughter of the sturdy north: on the other side, advancing age, mental weakness, timidity, and its natural concomitant--suspicion, together with a general paucity of ideas, centred in a vulgar pride of wealth. All Kate’s friends congratulated her, and many envied her good fortune; and Horace D’Almayne smiled on his future victim, as he surely reckoned her; and Arthur Hazlehurst sat alone in his dusky chambers, with bitter thoughts busy at his heart, struggling, like a brave and good man, against the tempting fiend that bade him rise up and curse her who had thus rendered desolate his young existence; and the minister of religion stood before the altar, and pronounced his blessing over this hollow mockery of marriage, which no amount of blessing could hallow; and the happy pair drove off to some fool’s paradise to enjoy the honeymoon. Poor Mr. Crane! if he had dreamed of the volcano of feeling that smouldered at his side beneath that cold, calm exterior, he would assuredly have flung open the carriage-door, sprung out (albeit not accustomed to such feats of activity), and never ceased running until he had reached Manchester. Fortunately, however, his wife’s mind was a sealed book to him, and so he reached the end of his journey in peace and safety.