to the dictates of his will or not I moved as if under a pivot; when
away my natural elasticity prevailed, and I held the same relation to
others that I should have held if I had not known him. This continued
till the secret was divined, and then his influence was better
remembered.

I discovered that there was little love between him and Alice. I never
heard from either an expression denoting that each felt an interest
in the other's individual life; neither was there any of that conjugal
freemasonry which bores one so to witness. But Alice was not unhappy.
Her ideas of love ended with marriage; what came afterward--children,
housekeeping, and the claims of society--sufficed her needs. If she
had any surplus of feeling it was expended upon her children, who had
much from her already, for she was devoted and indulgent to them.
In their management she allowed no interference, on this point only
thwarting her husband. In one respect she and Charles harmonized; both
were worldly, and in all the material of living there was sympathy.
Their relation was no unhappiness to him; he thought, I dare say,
if he thought at all, that it was a natural one. The men of his
acquaintance called him a lucky man, for Alice was handsome,
kind-hearted, intelligent, and popular.

Whether Cousin Alice would have found it difficult to fulfill
the promise she made mother regarding me, if I had been a plain,
unnoticeable girl, I cannot say, or whether her anxiety that I should
make an agreeable impression would have continued beyond a few days.
She looked after my dress and my acquaintances. When she found that
I was sought by the young people of her set and the Academy, she was
gratified, and opened her house for them, giving little parties and
large ones, which were pleasant to everybody except Cousin Charles,