He was her slave--her own. He loved her with an idolatrous devotion which she could rarely think of without smiling at his exaggerated estimate of her charms and graces. He was hers--so entirely that no possibility of losing him ever entered into her mind. He was hers, and we are apt to be just a little indifferent about the possessions we hold most securely. It had become a matter of course that her husband should scatter all the treasures of his affection at her feet, and hold himself richly repaid by any waif or stray of tenderness she might choose to bestow upon him. She had no uneasiness about him,--none of those sharp twinges of jealousy--those chilling pangs of doubt--those foolish and morbid fears, which are apt to disturb the peace of even the happiest wife. She knew that he had loved her from the very hour of their first meeting, against his will, in despite of his better reason. She knew that he had been content to stand afar and worship her in utter hopelessness; and having now rewarded his fidelity, she fancied that she had no more to do, except to receive his idolatry, and smile upon him now and then when it pleased her to be gracious. There was neither pride nor presumption in her nature; but she had lived all her life in one narrow circle, and she could not help being unconsciously patronizing in her treatment of the man who had taken her Majesty’s shilling, and blacked Harcourt Lowther’s boots. Francis Tredethlyn might perhaps have been entirely satisfied by brightly patronizing smiles, and gentle pattings on the head, if he had not been blessed with a friend and adviser, always at his elbow, always ready to step in with an intellectual lantern held gracefully aloft, and a mocking finger pointed, when the simple Cornishman’s perception failed to show him the uncomfortable side of the subject. “What a darling she is!” exclaimed Mr. Tredethlyn, as he left the house with Harcourt Lowther, after Maude had parted from him on the staircase all in a flutter of silk and lace, and with a feathery bush of golden hair framed in the last Parisian absurdity in the way of bonnets. “Mrs. Tredethlyn is just the sort of wife for a man of the world,” Harcourt answered, with a slight shrug of his well-shaped shoulders. “But I can’t help fancying sometimes that you’re too good a fellow to be thrown away upon the loveliest creature who ever isolated herself from the rest of the human race in the remote centre of a continent of moiré antique. Of course I can’t for a moment deny that you are the most fortunate of created beings--but--there is always a ‘but,’ you know, even if one has a beautiful wife and thirty thousand a year. I suppose it is the habit of my mind to quarrel with perfection. I think if I were a fresh-hearted, simple-minded fellow like you, Tredethlyn, I should yearn for something nearer and dearer to me than a fashionable wife.”