Dr. Delano found his father very ill, and his few days of absence lengthened into two weeks. He wrote occasionally to his wife, but every day brought a letter, or a book or magazine, to Ella, which she never read, being engaged in a flirtation that demanded too much dressing and general attention to leave any time for reading. Clara sometimes thought her husband must be crazy. He knew how fond she was of reading. As a school-girl, he had constantly sent her magazines and periodicals, with passages or articles marked which he wished her to notice particularly, and he had told her afterward that he had loved her even then, and thought of her as his future wife. She often watched Ella in her display of feminine wiles, but could not discover what there was to fascinate men. The subtle mystery escaped all analysis in that case, as it ever does; but Clara, in her generosity, believed there must be something beneath the surface-some hidden wealth of sensibility, perhaps—which women could not discover. If Albert had only trusted her as a perfect friend, and had not tried in any way to deceive her when he became absorbed in his passion for Ella, she would have met him nobly and suffered far less; but her pain had been tenfold increased by his want of confidence in her sympathy. He did not and could not understand her, and this discovery of his weakness was a blow to her self-pride hardly less endurable than his submitting her to the mortifying position of the neglected wife. One evening, when he had been gone two weeks, Clara sat in her room watching the rosy sunset haze on the old mountains, and thinking over the events of her life. She had just re-read Albert’s last letter. The words were there, but the soul was lacking. Later in the evening she recognized Ella’s voice proceeding from a balcony beneath. A gentleman was with her, and there could be no doubt that Ella was drawing him on to make the greatest possible fool of himself. Clara heard her own name mentioned by Ella in no flattering terms. Her companion opposed her criticism quite generously, considering his position with regard to Ella. Clara could not sit there without hearing everything, and there was a temptation to do so, as any one can believe who has ever been placed in a similar position. She, however, closed her window with a little noise, and when she opened it again, all was silent. What she had heard Ella say, was, that Dr. Delano’s marriage was a “veritable _mésalliance_”—that there could “never be any real sympathy between them.” Once Clara would have written all her thoughts freely to Albert; now a seal was on her lips. Whatever she might say of Ella would be attributed at once to her inability to comprehend Ella’s “childlike” nature. Oh, it was hard to be forced to brood in silence over thoughts and feelings that he, of all the world, should share with her.