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.