At least once a week Emerson left the city, and his books and cases,
to spend a day with Irene in her tasteful home; and sometimes he
lingered there for two or three days at a time. It happened, almost
invariably, that some harsh notes jarred in the music of their lives
during these pleasant seasons, and left on both their hearts a
feeling of oppression, or, worse, a brooding sense of injustice.
Then there grew up between them an affected opposition and
indifference, and a kind of half-sportive, half-earnest wrangling
about trifles, which too often grew serious.

Mr. Delancy saw this with a feeling of regret, and often interposed
to restore some broken links in the chain of harmony.

"You must be more conciliating, Irene," he would often say to his
daughter. "Hartley is earnest and impulsive, and you should yield to
him gracefully, even when you do not always see and feel as he does.
This constant opposition and standing on your dignity about trifles
is fretting both of you, and bodes evil in the future."

"Would you have me assent if he said black was white?" she answered
to her father's remonstrance one day, balancing her little head
firmly and setting her lips together in a resolute way.

"It might be wiser to say nothing than to utter dissent, if, in so
doing, both were made unhappy," returned her father.

"And so let him think me a passive fool?" she asked.

"No; a prudent girl, shaming his unreasonableness by her