Alice alone was unchanged; her spirits and pursuits were always the same. Judging by herself, if she judged at all, she perceived no change in us. Her theory regarding Charles was too firm to be shaken, and all his oddity was a matter of course. As long as I ate, and drank, and slept as usual, I too must be the same. He was not at home much. Business, kept him at the mills, where he often slept, or out of town. But the home machinery was still under his controlling hand. Not a leaf dropped in the conservatory that he did not see; not a meal was served whose slightest detail was not according to his desire. The horses were exercised, the servants managed, the children kept within bounds; nothing in the formula of our daily life was ever dropped, and yet I scarcely ever saw him! When we met, I shared his attentions. He gave me flowers; noticed my dress; spoke of the affairs of the day; but all in so public and matter-of-fact a way that I thought I must be the victim of a vicious sentimentality, or that he had amused himself with me. Either way, the sooner I cured myself of my vice the better. But my dreams continued. "I miss something in your letters," father complained. "What is it? Would you like to come home? Your mother is failing in health--she may need you, though she says not." I wrote him that I should come home. "Are you prepared," he asked in return, "to remain at home for the future? Have you laid the foundation of anything by which you can abide contented, and employed? Veronica has been spending two months in New York, with the family of one of my business friends. All that she brings back serves to embellish her quiet life, not to change it. Will it be so with you?" I wrote back, "No; but I am coming." He wrote again of changes in Surrey. Dr. Snell had gone, library and all, and a new minister, red hot from Andover, had taken his place. An ugly new church was building. His best ship, the _Locke Morgeson_, was at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, he had just heard. Her loss bothered him, but his letters were kinder than ever.