“Oh, that is very nice and kind of you!” returned Alice, delighted at getting her way so easily; “I thought you were going to be cross and disagreeable, as--as you sometimes are.” “As usual, you were going to say,” rejoined Harry; “speak your thoughts honestly, whatever injustice they may do me. But if, in future, instead of condemning me unheard, you were to admit the possibility--nothing more--of my being willing occasionally to sacrifice my wishes to yours, it might save us both considerable pain and misconception; recollect this, and reflect upon it quietly and calmly.” So saying, he placed his wife’s writing-table before her, found her a footstool, and left the room. As the sound of his retreating footsteps died away in the distance, Alice felt decidedly penitent, and wished she could unsay all the sharp things she had uttered at the beginning of the conversation; but this was a frame of mind too uncomfortable to last long, and so she consoled herself by the reflection that if, on this particular occasion, she had done her husband an injustice, it was his conduct at other times which had led her to do so. It was unfair to blame herself for the natural effect his selfishness and unkindness had produced upon her mind; she was sure there had been a period, before she was so rudely awakened from her “love’s young dream,” when she had given him credit for possessing every noble, heroic, and tender quality under the sun: it was not her fault that she could think so no longer--people must take the consequences of their own misdeeds. And so, consoling herself with these and many like arguments, and magnifying the mote in her husband’s eye, and ignoring the beam in her own, Alice talked herself into her former frame of mind, and sat down to write her acceptance of Kate’s invitation, convinced that if her husband had said “Yes” on this occasion, he would say “No” on every other. CHAPTER XXX.--INTRODUCES A LORDLY GALLANT.