_I married her._ It was but three weeks after this conversation. I was in haste, and Eudora herself seemed desirous that the day should be an early one. My cousin was amazed. I enjoyed her discomfiture; for she did not relish the thought that I should thus set at nought her advice and overturn her theory. She shook her head,--she attempted a protest,--and then began zealously the preparations for the wedding. I wish I could give you some clear idea of the wife I had gained, some slight notion of the happiness and delight and bliss in which I revelled,--that is, if a man purely and unutterably selfish has a right to call that happiness--which he enjoys. Eudora lived only for me. She rose, she sat, she came, she went only to pleasure me. She had one thought, one idea: it was for me. And what was my return? Nothing,--absolutely and literally nothing. I accepted every service, every sweet, loving token, every delicate act of devotion, as something to which I was entitled,--as my right. Forty-four years old, a life with one idea, a narrow, selfish, overbearing nature, ministered to by such a creature, noble, lovely, true, with eighteen years of life! Three years thus passed,--three years which ate slowly into Eudora's heart,--teaching her she _had_ a heart, and bringing forth such fruit as such experiences would produce. Yet she had not lost faith in me. She might have felt that perfection did not belong to man, and therefore I was not perfect; but she cheated herself as to all the rest. If she were not perfectly happy with a husband who took no pains to sympathize with her, who repressed instead of encouraging the natural vivacity of her nature, who never went abroad with her to places where every one was accustomed to go, still she did not lay the cause at my door.