After the birth of my little god-daughter, coldness and indifference became actual dislike. Evelyn and her husband scarcely ever spoke, and a virtual separation took place between them. I remained some time at the Abbey, being loth to leave my friend under such trying circumstances. Evelyn endeavored to beguile the time by cultivating her taste for music; we also studied together various volumes, both of ancient and modern history, and even sounded the depths of natural philosophy and astronomy. Poetry and light literature, she said, made her melancholy, as they portrayed untrue pictures of life—especially with regard to love and marriage. She never would be persuaded to peruse any tale which finished happily; but stories of misfortune, ending in separation or death, she read with avidity. This was a most unhealthy state of mind. Evelyn’s feelings were exceedingly embittered towards her mother and stepfather, whom she considered to have occasioned the terrible mistake of her life. Her husband she pitied with a feeling akin to contempt, knowing that, with a common-place wife, he might have become a better and a happier man, but confessing herself totally unsuited to him. She would not, however, attempt in any way to brighten his path; neither would she endeavor to wean him from his intemperate habits, which, unhappily, became daily more confirmed. I could not but blame, though my heart bled for poor Evelyn; for I felt that, sooner or later, she would learn how that for each and all of our wrong doings, and even for our sins of omission, a just retribution awaits us, either here or hereafter. [Illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII. +PRESENTATION TO THE QUEEN+ THE drama of real life, like that represented nightly on the mimic stages of our theatres, naturally divides itself into acts and scenes. Will our kind and gracious readers be pleased to imagine themselves now sitting before the drop-curtain, which has just closed over the first act of our piece? In order to put them into an indulgent humor, let fancy place them in the best and most commodious of private boxes, where, ensconced in the most luxurious of lounges, and (if a lady) looking most charming in an opposite mirror, they may placidly and patiently await the rising of the curtain. Then let my fair and friendly reader turn, in imagination, to the play book, and find that a period of some ten years is supposed to have elapsed between the first and second acts of our drama; let her point this out to her companion, whom we will suppose to be _the_ gentleman without whom even the most interesting plot would prove insipid. Then let the fair lady and her admirer turn to our little stage, and give us their undivided attention.