Year: 1877




Banks was never at the club-rarely
away from home after night-fall.


Many sad misgivings had Mrs.
Mervin as she contrasted the perfect
mutual interchange between the hus-
band and wife whose guest she was,
and her life with her husband; and,
as she reviewed the years, little by
little light dawned upon her mind.
She saw how gradually she had al
lowed unnecessary industries to EN-
croach on time that might so much
better have been devoted to inteIlec-
tual culture. What availed it now
that MOllie and Henry and Willie
| had been so elabortely dressed in
their babyhood? If they had worn
plain attire instead of that on which
she had spent so much time and
thought, how many hours she might
have given to keep up with her hus-
band!


To be sure, her parlOrs were .ex-
quisitely Ornamented with variety
of fancy work wrought by her
hands; but when she listened to the
utterances of her friends, rich as
they were with the varied accumula-
tlons of those intellectual treasures.
the law of whose existence is incre-
ment, she felt poor indeed in all the
resources most earnestly TO be de-
sired. Was it not possible that
Frank and she might be all to each
other that these two friends were?
At any rate she would talk with
Mrs. Banks and find out, if she
could, just how she had so perfectly
won and kept her husbands heart,
and how, with all the cares of a
growing family she had managed to
keep her mind bright and full.


So, one day as they sat together
she introduced the subject cautious
ly, lest Mrs. Banks might suspect
that she and Frank were not so near
to each other as they might be.


81 don't see where you get so
much time to read and find out ev-
erything," said Mrs. Mervin; "you
seem to be as fresh as if you had Just
left school, while l have forgotten
almost everything l ever knew, and
yet don't see but that you have as
many cares as l have"


81 neglect a good many things"
said Mrs. Banks; "my tides are all
bought, while dare say you knit
yours yourself; my children's clothes
are perfectly plain, and so are my
own. I've often wanted TO ask you
where you got so much time to make
all the pretty clothes Minnie wears"


"Oh, make them at night, after
the children are quiet; Frank is
away at the club and l have all the
evening to sew"


"Mr. Banks doesn't like to have
me sew or knit when he is at home;
he says it doesn't seem as. though l
was entertaining him when I was in
tent on the needle, and so Pve never
done it except when compelled to
by stress of circumstances" "


"And you always devote yourself
to him, as you have done since l
have been here?"


eyes, always; | talk to him or pet
him till he's rested, and then he
talks to me, tells me all the news,
and everything that has happened
during the day; sometimes talks
over his cases with me- l often
find on the envelopes of his letters a
memorandum of items to tell her;
and half feel as thought have been
wherever he has been during the
day. If he sees a new picture he de-
scribes it so vividly to me that it's
really better than seeing it with my
own eyes; If he reads new book he
goes over the points of it with HE,
and it has been this way ever since
we were married, so that l do feel
that my mind has grown almost as
much as his, though | have been so
full of household and family cares"


Mrs. MervIn sighed audibly, and
there came up in memory many a
day when Frank had come home
weary, and evidently longing for
Just this interchange of sympathy
with his wife. How had it been met?
Was there not something better
than this laborious superhuity of
ornamentation? Could not the
tongue and the eye have knitted
finer and more valuable fabrics than
the busy fingers had done? 1t was
not too late to hope that even now
she could win him back again and
enjoy the pure content that had
made her friends life so blessed.
Now was, indeed, the golden oppor-
tunity, and how diligently she i'm
proved it. Laying aside the en-
broideries on which she had in end
ed to spend so much time, she spent
all her leisure time in reading the
choice volumes which were discussed
in the evening conversations, IN re-
newing her acquaintance with the
classics she and Frank had read to-
gether, and in writing him long let
ters, full of wifcly sympathy in his
labors and successes, and of antlcl-
pations of the happy associations
they would have when she got home
again.


To Mr.. Mervin the occasional Sab
baths he spent with Mary in Yer
mont seemed like oases Ill the desert.
Together as in the days of their
courtship and early marriage, with
little to interrupt, they slipped back
into the old easy interchange OF
thought and feeling which clothed
those bright days with sunshine and
| iov. Mary could not rest until she
| had told her husband all her heart,
and how she longed to be to him all
that a wife could be, keeping step
with him in his intellectual growth
as well as sharing in the hOnors
which it brought him.


.'Do you remember" she said,
''the letter in which you asked me
to be your wife? | committed it to
memory at the time, and since !
have been here it has come back to
me, especially the passage; 1,2 on
would be a companion for me. " {
could surely spend our evenings III
beautiful readings, in mutual com,