Lizzy made no answer to this, nor did she display any feeling,
although, as she afterwards owned, she felt as if she would have
sunk through the floor, and sorely repented having said that she
would not go with her husband to America.

The week that intervened between that time and the sailing of the
Shamrock passed swiftly away. Lizzy wished a hundred times that her
husband would refer to his intended voyage across the sea, and ask
her again if she would not go with him. But Thomas Ward had no more
to say upon the subject. At least as often as three times had his
wife refused to accompany him to a land where there was plenty of
work and good wages, and he was firm in his resolution not to ask
her again.

As the time approached nearer and nearer, Lizzy's heart sank lower
and lower in her bosom; still she cherished all possible justifying
reasons for her conduct, and sometimes had bitter thoughts against
her husband. She called him, in her mind, arbitrary and tyrannical,
and charged him with wishing to make her the mere slave of his will.
As for Ward he also indulged in mental criminations, and tried his
best to believe that Lizzy had no true affection for him, that she
was selfish, self-willed, and the dear knows what all.

Thus stood affairs when the day came upon which the Shamrock was to
sail, and Ward must leave in the early train of cars for Liverpool,
to be on board at the hour of starting. Lizzy had done little but
cry all night, and Thomas had lain awake thinking of the unnatural
separation, and listening to his wife's but half-stifled sobs that
ever and anon broke the deep silence of their chamber. At last
daylight came, and Ward left his sleepless pillow to make hurried