to divine the cause of my altered demeanour. When he asked me why I was so silent, or so sad, I pleaded indisposition, lassitude--anything but the truth. I blamed him for his want of penetration, for I felt as if my soul were bare, and that the eye of affection could read the tidings revealed by my changing cheek and troubled brow. In justice to myself, let me say, that Alice, by her manner, justified my emotions. Enlightened by the sentiment in my own bosom, I could not but mark that the hectic flush always became brighter when Clinton approached, that her glance, kindling as it moved, followed his steps with a kind of idolatry. Then she hung upon his words with an attention so flattering. Was she reading, reclining on the sofa, apparently languid and uninterested, the moment he spoke she would close her book, or lean forward, as if fearful of losing the faintest sound of that voice, which was the music of my life. I could have borne this for a day, a week, a month--but to be doomed to endure it for an indefinite term, perhaps for life, it was unendurable. A hundred times I was on the point of going to my father, and, telling him the secret of my unhappiness, entreat him to recall my too encroaching guest, but shame and pride restrained me. Chilled and wounded by my coldness, my husband gradually learned to copy it, and no longer sought the smiles and caresses my foolish, too exciting heart, deemed he no longer valued. Oh! blissful days of early confidence and love! were ye for ever flown? Was no beam of tenderness permitted to penetrate the cold frost-work of ceremony deepening between us? It is in vain to cherish love with the memory of what has been. It must be fed with daily living offerings, or the vestal fire will wax dim and perish--then fearful is the penalty that ensues. The doom denounced upon the virgins of the temple, when they suffered the holy flame to become extinct, was less terrible. Alice, when the mildness of the weather allowed, almost made her home in the garden. She must have felt that I shrunk from her society, and I knew she could not love the wife of Clinton. She carried her books and pencil there--she watched the opening blossoms, and gathered the sweetest, to make her offering at the shrine she loved. My husband was evidently pleased with these attentions, flowing, as he thought, from a gentle and grateful heart, and his glance and voice grew softer when he turned to address the invalid.