but did not say. He handed up his cup, as his wife desired. After
filling it with coffee, she handed it back, and then reached him the
sugar and cream.

"Sweeten it to your own taste," she said, a little fretfully; "I'm
sure I tried to make it right."

Canning did as he was desired, and then drank the coffee, but it was
with the utmost difficulty that he could do so.

This was the first little cloud that darkened the sky of their
wedded life; And it did not fairly pass away for nearly a week. Nor
then did the days seem as bright as before. The cause was
slight--very slight--but how small a thing will sometimes make the
heart unhappy. How trifling are the occurrences upon which we often
lay, as upon a foundation, a superstructure of misery! Had the
earnestly urged precept of Aunt Hannah been regarded,--had the
lesson--"Bear and Forbear," been well learned and understood by
Margaret, this cloud had never dimmed the sun of their early love. A
pleasant word, in answer to her husband's momentary impatience,
would have made him sensible that he had not spoken with propriety,
and caused him to be more careful in future. As it was, both were
more circumspect, but it was from pride instead of love,--and more
to protect self than from a tender regard for each other.

Only a month or two passed before there was another slight
collision. It made them both more unhappy than they were before. But
the breach was quickly healed. Still scars remained, and there were
times when the blood flowed into these cicatrices so feverishly as
to cause pain. Alas! wounds of the spirit do not close any more