We drew our chairs closer together as I read the letter. It was addressed to the merchant's wife, in the handwriting of the party with whom the prior attachment of her heart had been contracted,--from whom it had never been severed. She had in vain sought to wean her affections from him as soon as she received the proposal from her present husband; but it was useless. Cold, cynical, calculating, as she had been rendered by stern experience, there was yet in her breast sufficient of that element of human love to bind the attachment of her purer days. She did not muster courage for a long while to apprise the lover of her intended marriage. When she did so, he received it with what he called "philosophical resignation." He professed to resign her, and no doubt did resign her, to what he said and conceived would be "a more satisfactory marriage." It was, however, agreed between the lovers that their acquaintance should continue on the basis of friendship; but neither of them being led by high and lofty sentiment, being indeed both of a somewhat inferior nature, they were incapable of maintaining that cold relationship which even better minds might have found it no easy task to preserve in its frigid integrity. The attachment of friendship ripened into criminal love before the merchant took the lady to the altar. That criminal relationship continued after marriage. Misfortune fell upon the lover nearly as soon as good fortune was realised by the woman intended for his wife, who had become the wife of another. He applied to her to assist him with her purse. She did this with all she could obtain from her husband--saved from domestic outlay. The demands upon the wife from this source, however, increased with her freedom or desire to satisfy them. Money, easily and ill-gotten by the paramour from his mistress, was lightly spent. What had been asked for in the first instance in tones of humble supplication, was ere long demanded under threats of exposure.