the night, as I lay and silently cried, while Mr. Hexton slept beside
me.

"I soon found that he was entirely insensible to everything for which I
most cared. Before our marriage he had affected a sort of interest in
my pursuits, but in reality he was indifferent to them. He was cold,
hard, and impenetrable. His habits were precise and methodical, beyond
what is natural for a man of his years. I remember one evening--
strange that these small events should so burn themselves into me--that
some friends were at our house at tea. A tradesman in the town was
mentioned, a member of our congregation, who had become bankrupt, and
everybody began to abuse him. It was said that he had been
extravagant; that he had chosen to send his children to the grammar-
school, where the children of gentlefolk went; and finally, that only
last year he had let his wife go to the seaside.

"I knew what the real state of affairs was. He had perhaps been living
a little beyond his means, but as to the school, he had rather refined
tastes, and he longed to teach his children something more than the
ciphering, as it was called, and bookkeeping which they would have
learned at the academy at which men in his position usually educated
their boys; and as to the seaside, his wife was ill, and he could not
bear to see her suffering in the smoky street, when he knew that a
little fresh air and change of scene would restore her.

"So I said that I was sorry to hear the poor man attacked; that he had
done wrong, no doubt, but so had the woman who was brought before
Jesus; and that with me, charity or a large heart covered a multitude
of sins. I added that there was something dreadful in the way in which
everybody always seemed to agree in deserting the unfortunate. I was a