The spirit of fault-finding once begun, waxed stronger and stronger upon the food it generated by its own powers of production. Almost everything either of them did appeared to be wrong in the eyes of the other; and though for a time they tried to repress the sharp feelings, which were wonders even to themselves, yet the check would come, the taunt would follow, and the flash of the eye--an organ once so expressive of love--succeeded within the passing minute. People who merely meet may be supposed to seek for objects of disagreement. In the room in Burnet’s Close the occasions were the very actions of natural life; the movements of the body, the words of the mouth, the glances of the eye, the thoughts of the mind, the misconstrued feelings of the heart. Nor could they, as in most cases people who disagree may, get away from each other. The repulsion which they felt towards a world which offered them only reminiscences of past joys, was as a wall enclosing the arena where these gladiatorial displays of feeling went on from day to day, scarcely even interrupted by the holy Sabbath any more than if they had come within the excepted category of necessity and mercy. According to my information, which descended to the minutest particulars, this domestic disease went on for years, without any other alteration than changes consistent with the laws of bodily ailment. There were exasperations which, expending themselves in gratuitous vituperations, receded into silent sullennesses, which lasted for days. If it happened that no grievance could be discovered by the microscopic vision, there was recourse to the grievance of yesterday, which was called up to occupy the greedy vacuum; and then the changes of aspect, of which, to the jaundiced eye, it was capable, were rung upon it till they were physically wearied of the strife: while the weariness only lasted till a renewed energy became ripe for another onset. But however high the exasperation ever reached, they never came to any violence. All the energy expended lay in the tongue, and the eye, and the contorted muscles of irascible expression. It might have been doubted whether, if any third party interfered, the one would not have defended the other; but only to retain her as valuable property for the onset of her peculiar privilege. And what is not less strange, their religion, which was still maintained with the old Calvinistic dogmatism, in place of overcoming the domestic demon, became subjected to it, and changed its aspect according to the wish. Though incapable of inflicting any bodily pain upon each other, they felt no compunction in fostering the opinion that, while each was among the elect and predestinated to everlasting glory, the other was in the scroll of the reprobate, and ordained to eternal punishment in the brimstone fires, and the howling horrors of the pit which is so peculiarly constituted as to have no bottom. Each would read her Bible in her own chair, and