attitude, we settled ourselves to listen
attentively. Nurse Parket commenced:

The story, my dears, is about a beautiful lady
that I once lived with—first, when she was a
young lady, as her maid, and afterwards, when
she was married and a mother, as her baby's
nurse. She was always very fond of me, and I
of her. She lived in a large town before she
married, and, her father and mother being
company-keepin' people, and she being so very
pretty, there was a great many gentlemen
admired her, and she might have married well, as
they call it, at least a dozen times. I'm an old
woman, and an old maid, but I think there is
only one way of marryin' well, and that is when
a woman, or a lady, marries a man, or a gentleman,
really suited to her, and when there is real
true love on both sides. I told you, Miss Alice,
the other night, that I had seen mistakes in
marriage, made in my time, and the marriage
this young lady made was no doubt one of
them.

Bella looked up, and seemed to fancy that
nurse and I might have been talking of her on
the night alluded to. Nurse went on:

Well; I never could tell how my young lady
came to marry the gentleman she did choose
after all. He was older a good deal than she.
She was gay and sprightly like—he was still and
grave. She liked life, and stir, and change—he
liked nothin' but readin' and sittin' still. She
was as fond of music as a bird—he couldn't tell
one tune from another. Often and often I have
seen her sittin', singin' and playin', song after
song and piece after piece, at the piano in the
drawin'-room, and him sittin' over a book by the
lamp, never listenin' to a single note. She had
been used to praise and company, and every one
to love and listen to her, and she must have felt
it a great change.

She did feel it a great change—as you shall
presently hear—though she tried not to show it,
or even to think about it, for a length of time.

When they first married, her husband used
mostly to sit in the same room with her, though
he never hardly noticed what she was doin'; but,
after a while, he took to keepin' in another, by
himself, and only comin' in to meals with her;
and, at night, he sat up hours, poring over his
learning and his books. Well, then was the
first of my lady's showin' of herself cast down
and melancholy. One day as I passed my
master's study door, which was half open, I saw
her, all in tears, kneelin' down by his chair, and
sayin' somethin' to him which I could not hear.
But I heard him answer, in his grave, even voice,
"'Well, my dear, if you feel dull, send for your
mother and sister, and any one else you like, to
make the place gayer to you."

I was nearer guessin' what they had been
talkin' about, I thought, than he was what was
grievin' her aching heart. He was a good sort
of a man, but he couldn't understand it.

In a week or two's time after that, however,
the house was full of company. My lady's
mother, her sister, her brother, some of their
cousins, and others besides. The house seemed
turned almost upside down after the still life
we'd led; but lookin' at my lady's pale face—
which was like a June rose once, but, at this
time, only flushed with excitement now and then
—I didn't believe she was much the happier for
all the company.

However, amongst them there was a great
friend of my lady's brother, who was thought to
be thinkin' of her sister, and who was one of the
cleverest, handsomest, and most accomplished
gentlemen I ever saw. There didn't seem to be
anything that he couldn't do, or didn't know.
He was as much a favourite with all the servants
in the house as he was with all the ladies and
gentlemen, and appeared as amiable as he was
clever and handsome. Even my master would
sometimes leave his books and talk to him, but
not very often.

He was a beautiful rider on horseback, and
broke in a horse for my lady which nobody else
could manage. My lady was very fond of ridin',
and had gone out in a dull way with the groom,
because my master didn't use himself to horses,
very often for the mere pleasure she had in the
exercise. This handsome gentleman and her
brother, however, rode with her now, and the
handsome gentleman always helped her to her
saddle. Of an evenin' he sung duets with her,
or read aloud for the benefit of the whole
company, except my master, who would slip away to
his study and his books. When he left, the
house seemed very dull, and my mistress too,
but especially her sister, though that was for
another reason which I didn't think of then, but
she found out something long before any one else
would have done. It was only natural, for she
loved him very much, and had hoped he loved
her. She died, poor thing! in a deep decline,
two or three years afterwards.

Well, the handsome gentleman knew some of
the families in the neighbourhood, and from our
house he went to stay with one of them, and so,
occasionally, we saw him still; but at last he
went away altogether, and so did all our
company, and we were very quiet again for some
months.

One day, some time after this, something
came to my mistress, which I hoped would make
her happy after all: a dear little baby, and I was
its nurse: but it did not. Something else had
come to her, I suppose. We are all weak
creatures, my dears, and the best of us cannot stand
in our own strength, and if we let wrong wishes
and thoughts come into our minds without
strivin' against them with more than our poor
might, they mostly will come, and make sure
prey of us. Something of this sort had warped
my poor dear lady's mind, I fear. She was very
young—had been praised, petted, and almost
spoiled from her childhood—and her husband,
though not unkind, neglected of her.

Nurse stopped a moment, and I, getting
strangely excited, moved closer to her on the