notice them--but by leading him to see them himself. But this course
I did not pursue. I was proud; I was self-willed; I was unyielding.
Elements like these can never come into opposition without a victory
on either side being as disastrous as the defeats. We were married.
Oh, how sweet was the promise of my wedding-day! Of my husband I was
very fond. Handsome, educated, and with talents of a high order,
there was every thing about him to make the heart of a young wife
proud. Tenderly we loved each other. Like days in Elysium passed the
first few months of our wedded life. Our thoughts and wishes were
one. After that, gradually a change appeared to come over my
husband. He deferred less readily to my wishes. His own will was
more frequently opposed to mine, and his contentions for victory
longer and longer continued. This surprised and pained me. But it
did not occur to me, that my tenaciousness of opinion might seem as
strange to him as did his to me. It did not occur to me, that there
would be a propriety in my deferring to him--at least so far as to
give up opposition. I never for a moment reflected that a proud,
firm-spirited man, might be driven off from an opposing wife, rather
than drawn closer and united in tenderer bonds. I only perceived my
rights as an equal assailed. And, from that point of view, saw his
conduct as dogmatical and overbearing, whenever he resolutely set
himself against me, as was far too frequently the case.

"One day,--we had then been married about six months,--he said to
me, a little seriously, yet smiling as he spoke, 'Jane, did not I
see you on the street, this morning?' 'You did,' I replied. 'And
with Mrs. Corbin?' 'Yes.' My answer to this last question was not
given in a very pleasant tone. The reason was this. Mrs. Corbin, a
recent acquaintance, was no favourite with my husband; and he had
more than once mildly suggested that she was not, in his view, a fit