Could domestic happiness be expected with such a parent? Alas, for the answer which would come from Mrs. Pendarrel's children! The angry passions which raged in her breast gave an unmotherly hardness to her love of rule. And why were they daughters? _He_ had a son. _She_, the wretched peasant, was the mother of a son. Thus did the effects of Esther's blighted affection fall even upon her offspring. But Gertrude rebelled from early childhood against the capricious rigour with which she was treated. She succumbed at last, however, and that in the most important event of her life. In obeying the maternal command to marry Mr. Winston, she thought she stooped to conquer. Gertrude Winston would be her own mistress. And so she was; but at what a price! Ay, what an account must they render, who degrade marriage into a convenience! who banish the household deities, so dear even to ancient paganism, from their place beside the hearth, and fill it with furies and fiends! who know not the meaning of our sweet English name of home! Five years had not reconciled Gertrude to a union in which her heart had no share. Her husband seemed to her cold, prudent, and dull. She was enthusiastic, generous, and clever. He was easy and good-natured, and his very submissiveness fretted her. He was, or pretended to be, fond of metaphysics, and was always engaged upon some terribly ponderous tome, while she participated in the popular fury for Byron and Scott. He liked a level road, and a good inn: she delighted in romantic scenery, and was half careless about the accommodation. They continually pulled against each other; but the husband was insensible to the chain which galled the wife to the quick. Yet Mr. Winston possessed qualities, which only required to be known to be beloved, and if Gertrude was ignorant of them, it was in no small degree her own fault. And she had not, like Mrs. Pendarrel, to contend with the memory of a previous attachment. But, however bitter might be the feelings with which she contemplated her own position, there was one dear affection which she cherished with the utmost fondness. Nothing could exceed her solicitude to preserve her sister from the snares into which she had fallen herself. She kept a watchful eye upon all the society especially favoured by her mother, and observed Mildred's feelings with the warmest interest. And she was met in the same spirit. Sisterly love was the one humanizing tie in that broken family.