THE MOTHER-IN-LAW


WHEN Harry returned home, he found his wife seated at the window,
awaiting his approach. Secret grief was gnawing at her heart.
Her sad, pale cheeks and swollen eyes showed too well that agony,
far deeper than her speech portrayed, filled her heart.
A dull and death-like silence prevailed on his entrance.
His pale face and brow, dishevelled hair, and the feeling
that he manifested on finding Gertrude still up, told Henry
in plainer words than she could have used that his wife
was aware that her love had never been held sacred by him.
The window-blinds were still unclosed, and the full-orbed moon
shed her soft refulgence over the unrivalled scene, and gave
it a silvery lustre which sweetly harmonized with the silence
of the night. The clock's iron tongue, in a neighboring belfry,
proclaimed the hour of twelve, as the truant and unfaithful
husband seated himself by the side of his devoted and loving wife,
and inquired if she was not well.

"I am, dear Henry," replied Gertrude; "but I feat *you* are not.
If well in body, I fear you are not at peace in mind."

"Why?" inquired he.

"Because," she replied, "you are so pale and have such a wild look
in your eyes."

Again he protested his innocence, and vowed she was the only woman