“My old friend and teacher, Miss Marston, passed through here with some friends, and stopped several days. I begged Albert to let me play while she was here, the rôle of the happy wife. I think he regrets the change in him, though he cannot resist the power that is leading him from me. He seemed impressed by my stony, tearless face. In answer to Miss Marston’s anxiety about my changed looks, I said I had been quite ill, which, heaven knows, is true enough. I manœuvred in every way to prevent her seeing the state of things. We actually rode and walked several times without Ella. This made her pout and flirt with Colonel Murdock, one of her admirers, which so alarmed Albert that he completely unmasked all my beautiful acting. Miss Marston soon penetrated beneath the surface. ‘Who is this Miss Wills?’ she asked. I told her the ward of Mr. Delano, and an old and dear friend of my husband. ‘Is it possible’ she asked, ‘that you do not see the nature of the attachment between your husband and her?’ Still I played my part. I was the proud, happy wife, confident of my husband’s affection. I know I made a pitiful figure. Miss Marston divined the truth, and I expected every moment she would burst out upon me, as she used to do upon her pupils, when guilty of deceiving—an unpardonable offence in her eyes; but I think something in my face alarmed her, and kept her silent. She was very tender to me, and it was good to have her here. She was struck with the beauty of Albert. He impresses every one the same way. His lithe, fine form, his handsome, regular face, and long, dark moustaches, make him greatly admired by women.” Under a later date, Clara wrote in the same letter: “This morning Albert received a telegram from Boston, demanding his presence immediately, for his father is again very ill. I wished to go with him. There was not time for Ella to get her half dozen ‘Saratogas’ ready. That was the secret cause of his objection. She would not like him to take his wife and not her! I cannot tell you how keenly I felt his willingness to leave me behind—me, his once adored Clara, whose absence he could not endure.