When Mr. Lewis came, the conversation turned on other subjects; but it was quite late at night before we were willing to part with our friends. The shadow of misgiving which hangs over even short separations was deeper than usual with me from the thought of the voyage. Lulu had been so many times across the sea that she had no fear of it; and she went up-stairs with me to say last words and give last commissions with her usual cheerfulness. Notwithstanding the relief which I had felt during the evening from her expressions of a moral and religious kind, I yet had a brooding fear of the effect of association with a mind so lively and so full of error as Remington's. What help or what sustaining power for her there might be in her husband I could not tell; but be it more or less, I feared she would not avail herself of it. Indeed, I feared that she was daily becoming more alienated from him, as she pursued onward and upward the bright mental track on which she had entered. And it was seeing that she had not yet begun to con the alphabet of true knowledge, that disturbed me most. If I could have seen her thoughtful for others, humble in her endeavor after duty, I should have hailed, rejoicingly, her intellectual illumination. As it was, I could not help saying to her, anxiously, before we went downstairs,-- "I don't like Mr. Remington's notions at all, my dear!--I don't mean merely his theological notions, but his ideas of life and duty seem to me wrong and poor. You will forgive me, if I say, you cannot be too careful how you allow his views to act on your own sense of right and wrong." "What!--George? Oh, dear friend, it is only his nonsense! He will take any side for the time, only to hear himself talk. But he _is_ the best fellow that ever breathed. Oh, if you only knew his excellence as well as I do!" "My dear Lulu!" I expostulated, greatly pained to see her glowing face and the almost tearful sparkle of her eyes, as she defended her cousin, "your husband is a great deal the best guide for you,--in action, and I presume in opinion. At all events, you are safest under the shadow of his wing. There is the truest peace for a wife." Whether she guessed what was in my mind I don't know; I did not try much to conceal it. But she shook her curls away from her face as if irritated, and answered in a tone from which all the animation had been quenched,-- "No. I have been a child. I am one no longer. Don't ask me to go back. I am a living, feeling, understanding woman! George himself allows it is perfectly shocking to be treated as I am,--a mere toy! a plaything!" George again! I could scarcely restrain my impatience. Yet how to make her understand?