“In the garden with Frederick! and you tell me so with that bold face! What was he doing? what was he saying? oh, I know him, and his false ways,” said the excited wife; “making you think all sorts of things, you little fool--and then sending you to me with your innocent face. Innocent, indeed! Oh, no; I didn’t call--I don’t want you. Innocent, to be sure! You are a pretty Innocent for the nunnery; just the sort of creature to go there if all tales be true--to learn to deceive--as if you wanted teaching! You never thought of me lying up here, while you went wandering about the garden with Frederick--nor he didn’t, neither. Who cares for me? I was everything that was sweet before I married, but now much he cares. Oh, if I just had him here to tell him what I think of him! Call him to tell him what I think of him--both him and you!” Innocent had never been thrown upon her own resources before. She was not prepared for the emergency, and had those who loved her best foreseen the possibility of such a trial for her she never would have been allowed to risk it; but in the meantime it did her good. A certain curious practical faculty had been developed in her by the life of rule and order at the High Lodge. She went forward to the bedside with her visionary look, but the most serious matter-of-fact meaning, ignoring the passion as completely as if it did not exist; which, indeed, to her it did not, being a thing beyond her range of perception. “You make yourself ill when you are angry,” she said, seriously, looking down upon Amanda’s worn and flushed countenance; “it makes you very ill; it would be far better not to be angry. When you scold me I am sorry; but it does not make me ill. It hurts you most. You should stop yourself when you feel it coming on; because, perhaps, when you are scolding you might die--and it would be better to live and not to scold. I have thought about it, and that is what I think.”