Let me pass briefly over the events of the next few years. Four or five weeks of solemn merry-making, dull dinners, and duller evening parties, completed the wedding festivities of the minister. An agreeable change had passed over the appearance of the minister—his countenance had lost somewhat of its gloom—his manners of their austerity, and his tones their hard curtness. Sophie’s demeanor revealed the sober cheerfulness befitting a clergyman’s bride. Raymond accompanied them everywhere, and everywhere was the delicate beauty, and gentle grace, and pensive air of the boy admired. Little Hagar also accompanied them. Sophie and Hagar had been so united—her care and attention had been so exclusively devoted to Hagar, that now that another claimed a larger share of her time and thoughts, and now that she felt the keen eyes of the sprite-like child jealously following her every motion closely, she loved Hagar with a remorseful tenderness—strange but natural. Mothers sometimes feel the same for the children to whom they have given even a good and beloved step-father. This is an illusion, and grows out of the false idea that our love is like any material and mortal thing, limited in quantity, and that what is given to one is necessarily withdrawn from another. Sophie took Hagar with her wherever they went, even to evening parties, where the child, with the obstinacy of spoiled children in general and her own nature in particular, refused to go to bed as long as Sophie sat up. There she would sit—the only child in a room crowded with grown people—alone, in a corner, quite neglected, her glittering eyes glancing around the room, and springing off in aversion when they fell upon the figure of Mr. Withers. She was beginning to hate him intensely, merely because he occupied so much of the time and attention of Sophie, whom she passionately loved. Her first interview with Raymond Withers is worthy of relation as characteristic of both. It was the night after the wedding, and a large party were crowded in the sober-hued parlor of Emily May. Hagar had been staying at the cottage for the last few days—and this night she first rejoined Sophie after her marriage. Here she was sitting, as I have described, neglected and apparently forgotten in a corner. Sophie could not well approach her, and Emily, ever thoughtful as she was, this evening had overlooked her, in her attention to her guests. The child’s wild eyes were gleaming brightly, fiercely, under her sharply projecting brows; her preternaturally developed perceptive faculties were at work. Refreshments had been carried around twice or thrice by the servants, and they had overlooked her. At last she saw, it was the first time she had seen him, a delicate, golden-haired youth, in deep mourning, enter the room. He went directly up to Sophie and remained by her side. The keen eyes of the child were immediately riveted upon him. There was a pensiveness, a thoughtfulness