with her happiness were the elegancies with which she was surrounded. Ever and anon the thought of what her husband had said would pass through her mind, and produce the most acute pain.

At length she was alone again. It was past four o'clock, the hour for dining, but Mr Riston had not yet returned. She dreaded to see him come in, and yet felt anxious about his prolonged absence, for it did not seem a precursor of good. The clock was striking five when she heard his footsteps in the hall. He went into the parlour, but remained there only a moment. She next heard him ascending the stairs with a more deliberate step than usual. She looked up into his face with an anxious and inquiring eye as he entered the chamber where she was sitting. Its expression startled her. There was something about it that she could not understand. She was not long in suspense.

"The worst has come to the worst, Ellen," he said, in a calm, cold voice, taking a chair by her side, and looking fixedly at her. "As I feared it would be, so it has turned out. I could hear of nothing, go where I would, but the splendid party, and the amount it must have, or really did cost; but nobody had any money to lend. Men who trusted me freely last week, and even yesterday, and who could have done it as easily to-day, had nothing to spare. From ten o'clock until four I strove, with all the power I possessed, to get the amount of money néeded to keep me from bankruptcy, but in vain. I am now a dishonoured and broken merchant." A cry of anguish burst from the lips of his unhappy wife as he said this.

K

"I do not upbraid you as the cause of my misfortune," he resumed, as soon as the excitement of Mrs Riston's feelings had in some measure subsided. "That would avail nothing. But it is only right for you to know that but for this house, and the style in which it is furnished, and the extravagant display made last night, my credit would have remained untarnished. The money needed to meet my payments to-day would have been easily procured, and in a few weeks my feet would have been on firm ground again. As it is, I shall have to give up all to my creditors, who will place my effects in the hands of trustees. Forced settlements will involve sacrifices, and the end will be that I shall turn out an insolvent debtor, and be thrown penniless upon the world to begin life again."

Mrs Riston was stunned so much by this announcement that she could not speak. Her face was pale as ashes, her hands clenched, and her eyes fixed like one in a spasm. So paralyzed was she that she had to be carried to bed, scarcely sensible of anything that was passing around her.

A downward tendency is always rapid. Mr Riston called a meeting of his creditors, and submitted, in a manly spirit, a statement of his affairs. Trustees were appointed, and all his effects placed in their hands. His elegant furniture was sold at public sale, within three weeks of the date of its purchase, and the cabinetmaker, upholsterer, and others, as well as the wine-merchant and confectioner, were compelled to await some ten or twelve months before receiving their final dividend on the bankrupt's assets.

Mrs Riston retired to an obscure boarding-house, in the upper part of the city, in ten days after she had taken possession of her palace, as she had called it, with such lofty feelings. She retired a broken-spirited woman. Her husband's conduct in the trying ordeal through which he was compelled to pass, gained him the respect and regard of many who were ready to assist him. He resumed business, after the lapse of two months, in a small way, and commenced again his upward struggle, fully resolved that his wife should never again have any con trol over him that was not the control of reason.

"If I feel able at any future time to go to housekeeping in a quiet, economical way, I shall not regard her objections," he said to himself, while thinking over his plans for the future. "She will have to be governed by my wishes now. I have yielded to hers long enough. I am willing to devote myself to business early and late, and to take upon myself all its attendant cares and anxieties for our mutual good. It is but right that she should fill the domestic sphere as fully as I do that of business. Had I insisted upon her doing so at first, her mind would never have become warped, nor her desires so extravagant. I might still have retained my good name,—have still been engaged in a prosperous business. But the time past shall suffice. My clear convictions of right shall never yield one iota to her whims, passions, or caprices."

Riston was as good as his word.

He held, so to speak,
She, it must be said,

a tight rein on his wife ever after. was a more passive subject than before, and yielded to his wishes much easier. But she was not happy. She hardly ever went out, and scarcely any of her old friends

cared about retaining her acquaintance. At home, she drooped about, and went through whatever domestic duties she had to perform, as if she were an automaton. She had no genuine love for her husband, and he felt it. Their meetings were cold, and their intercourse limited to a few commonplace remarks, or questions and answers necessary to be made. Thus passed their days, neither of them caring how soon the time came for separation.

CHAPTER XIV. TRUE LOVE TRIED AND PROVED.

two reasons,

IN presenting a contrast to the wise and prudent conduct of Mrs Hartley, we have kept our leading character in the background for some time. We have done so for ,—in order to present the contrast; and, because we did not think it possible to give picture after picture of the quiet life of Mr and Mrs Hartley and preserve sufficient interest to compensate the reader. Anna, it has been seen, acted in the very commencement of her married life with an unselfish regard to the good of her husband. She could have yielded passively to his wishes, and become the mistress of an elegant house; and she had temptations to do so that few women so situated would have thought of resisting. But she did not love her husband blindly nor selfishly, but wisely. She thought of her duty as a wife, and manifested the quality of her love by the right performance of her duties from the first day of her marriage.

But it was not alone in a due regard to external things that Anna manifested the quality of her love. She sought

to regulate the affections of her mind, and bring them into due subordination to the highest and purest principles. Her husband had his weaknesses, as have all men; his prejudices and his passions. And she was not free from imperfections. Reason told her, that if evil overcame evil in a contention between husband and wife, victory would be as destructive to happiness as defeat. But that if evil were overcome of good, both the victor and the vanquished would be wiser and better, and therefore happier for the contest.

In acting from this clear sense of right, Anna had many hard contentions with herself. When any thing like an arbitrary, self-willed, or unamiable trait in her husband's character presented itself, her heart felt wounded, or inclined to meet self-will with self-will, or arbitrary words and conduct with stern opposition. But reflection, and a struggle with herself for the mastery over the tendencies of a naturally evil heart, would soon make her vision clear, and her mind calm. And then she could act the wife's true part well and wisely.

Hartley was not so blind but that he could see all this in Anna. It made him feel humble in spirit, when, after some slight difference, in which he had spoken with a warmth bordering on unkindness, she would answer in gentle terms, that were redolent of a sweet forbearing spirit; or, when he had opposed his wishes to hers, she would yield to his desires with a cheerful grace, that rebuked his own eager selfishness. He saw that, in every contention, she gained the real victory, even though he, in appearance, carried the point at issue,