There were two stings in this speech, which was a long one for Mr. Agnew. The selfish woman who heard it bit her lip in vexation, and all the jealousy in her nature rose up at the words "My Margaret"; jealous of that other wife who had been in her heavenly home for five years; whose husband, albeit, was more to be pitied now than when she first left him desolate; because he was that phenomenon—over which men and angels might weep—a true, noble man, joined for life to a selfish, heartless, coarse-grained woman, and that of his own deliberate choice. If some men should shut their eyes and marry the first woman they happened to open them on, they could not make more fatal mistakes than they do. When Margaret Agnew selected this particular room for her mother it was because it was large and convenient and sunny; because one window looked off to distant hills, and another one to the busy street, while from another you stepped into the flower garden. It was, it is true, in many respects the best room in the house, and into it was gathered whatever of comfort and beauty the loving daughter could devise. As soon as the second Mrs. Agnew stepped into the house she set covetous eyes on this room and resolved, to use her own elegant language,—"that she would oust the old lady from that." Whatever such women resolve to have, they usually get. After the rebuff on the part of her husband she did not again approach him on the subject, but planned the attack differently. By means of hints and disagreeable thrusts she managed to make the sensitive old lady feel quite ill at ease until she was established in one of the back chambers. It was a dreary room. She missed the cheerful outlook, and it was not easy, with a slight lameness, to get up and down stairs, but, for peace's sake, she forebore to complain. So skillfully was everything managed that it was several days before her son-in-law knew of her removal; then he was indignant, and insisted that she must return, but this she would not consent to do. She even displayed so much cheerfulness that he was deceived into thinking she preferred the change. It was a hardened nature that could not be won by her sweet spirit. She was like her Master; she followed her copy closely; "when she suffered she threatened not," and she had much to bear: a system of petty annoyances that only female ingenuity could devise. After she had passed through this furnace and suffered loneliness and desolation, another crisis in her life arrived. Mr. Agnew fell suddenly ill. While his life hung in the balance and reason was shaken, his wife induced him to make his will, leaving to herself the whole of his property. Then he died, and the chief emotion that throbbed in the heart of his widow and hid behind the blackest and deepest crape was—triumph!