rebuked myself for believing that it was a fault. We see many who neglect
the minor duties of life, who lack watchful forethought and considerate
care for others, and we recognize the cause of this failing in levity or
egotism. Certainly, neither of those tendencies of character could be
ascribed to Lilian. Yet still in daily trifles there was something of
that neglect, some lack of that care and forethought. She loved her
mother with fondness and devotion, yet it never occurred to her to aid in
those petty household cares in which her mother centred so much of
habitual interest. She was full of tenderness and pity to all want and
suffering, yet many a young lady on the Hill was more actively
beneficent,--visiting the poor in their sickness, or instructing their
children in the Infant Schools. I was persuaded that her love for me was
deep and truthful; it was clearly void of all ambition; doubtless she
would have borne, unflinching and contented, whatever the world considers
to be a sacrifice and privation,--yet I should never have expected her to
take her share in the troubles of ordinary life. I could never have
applied to her the homely but significant name of helpmate. I reproach
myself while I write for noticing such defect--if defect it were--in what
may be called the practical routine of our positive, trivial, human
existence. No doubt it was this that had caused Mrs. Poyntz's harsh
judgment against the wisdom of my choice. But such chiller shade upon
Lilian's charming nature was reflected from no inert, unamiable self-love.
It was but the consequence of that self-absorption which the habit of
revery had fostered. I cautiously abstained from all allusion to those
visionary deceptions, which she had confided to me as the truthful
impressions of spirit, if not of sense. To me any approach to what I
termed "superstition" was displeasing; any indulgence of fantasies not
within the measured and beaten track of healthful imagination more than
displeased me in her,--it alarmed. I would not by a word encourage her in
persuasions which I felt it would be at present premature to reason