Mrs. Morton was a submissive wife; early and late she toiled in her husband’s service; their house was a rallying point for his party. On certain occasions the great drawing-rooms were flung open to strangers; meetings were held on behalf of the charities in which Mr. Morton was interested; there were speeches made, in which he largely distinguished himself, while his wife hovered on the outskirts of the crowd and listened to him. He kept no secretary, and his correspondence was immense. Mrs. Morton had a clear, characteristic handwriting, and could write rapidly to dictation, and many an hour was spent in her husband’s study. This was at first no weariness to her—she loved to be beside him and share his labours. What wife begrudges time and work for her husband? But she soon found that other labours supervened that were less congenial to her. Mr. Morton was overworked; the demands on his time were unceasing. Violet must visit the wards of his favourite hospitals, and help him in keeping the accounts. She must represent him in society, and keep up constant intercourse with the wives of the members of their party during the season. She worked harder even than he did. Her bloom faded under the withering influence of late hours and hot rooms. Night after night she bore, with sweet graciousness, the weary round of pleasures that palled on her. It was a martyrdom of human love, for, alas! in the hurry of this unsatisfactory life, the Divine voice had grown dim and far off to the weary ear of Violet Morton; the clanging metallic earth bells had deadened the heavenly harmonies. Sometimes a sad, pathetic look would come into her eyes. Was she thinking, I wonder, of the slim, bright-eyed girl budding roses in the old-fashioned garden, while the brown bees hummed round her? Was the fragrance of the lilies—those tall, white lilies of which she so often spoke to me—blotting out the perfume of hothouse flowers, and the heavy scents of the crowded ball-room? It was a matter of intense surprise to me that Mr. Morton seemed perfectly unconscious of this immense self-sacrifice. He could not be ignorant, surely, that a mother desires to be with her children, and that a woman’s tender frame is susceptible to fatigue. Selfish as he was, he loved her too well to impose such intolerable burthens on her strength, if he had only known them to be burthens. But her cheerfulness blinded him. How could he know she was overtasked, and often sad at heart, when she never complained, when she sealed her lips so generously? If she had once said, “I am so tired, Alick; I cannot write for you,” he would at once have pressed her to rest; but men are so dense, as Aunt Agatha says. Their great minds overlook little details. They take in wide vistas of landscape, and never see the little nettles that are choking up the field path. Women would have noticed the nettles at once, and spied out the gap in the hedge beside.