little moved, and unluckily upset a teacup. No harm was done; and if
my husband, who sat next to me, had chosen to take no notice, there
need have been no disturbance whatever. But he made a great fuss,
crying, 'Oh, my dear, pray mind! Ring the bell instantly, or it will
all be through the tablecloth.' In getting up hastily to obey him, I
happened to drag the cloth, as it lay on my lap; a plate fell down and
was broken; everything was in confusion; I was ashamed and degraded.

"I do not believe there was a single point in Mr. Hexton's character in
which he touched the universal; not a single chink, however narrow,
through which his soul looked out of itself upon the great world
around. If he had kept bees, or collected butterflies or beetles, I
could have found some avenue of approach.--But he had no taste for
anything of the kind. He had his breakfast at eight regularly every
morning, and read his letters at breakfast. He came home to dinner at
two, looked at the newspaper for a little while after dinner, and then
went to sleep. At six he had his tea, and in half-an-hour went back to
his counting-house, which he did not leave till eight. Supper at nine,
and bed at ten, closed the day.

"It was a habit of mine to read a little after supper, and occasionally
I read aloud to him passages which struck me, but I soon gave it up,
for once or twice he said to me, 'Now you've got to the bottom of that
page, I think you had better go to bed,' although perhaps the page did
not end a sentence. But why weary you with all this? I pass over all
the rest of the hateful details which made life insupportable to me.
Suffice to say, that one wet Sunday evening, when we could not go to
chapel and were in the dining-room alone, the climax was reached. My
husband had a religious magazine before him, and I sat still, doing
nothing. At last, after an hour had passed without a word, I could