The horses were exercised, the servants managed, the children kept within bounds; nothing in the formula of our daily life was ever dropped, and yet I scarcely ever saw him! When we met, I shared his attentions.

He gave me flowers; noticed my dress; spoke of the affairs of the day; but all in so public and matter-of-fact a way that I thought I must be the victim of a vicious sentimentality, or that he had amused himself with me.

Either way, the sooner I cured myself of my vice the better.
But my dreams continued.
"I miss something in your letters," father complained.

"What is it?
Would you like to come home?
Your mother is failing in health--she may need you, though she says not." I wrote him that I should come home.
"Are you prepared," he asked in return, "to remain at home for the future?
Have you laid the foundation of anything by which you can abide contented, and employed?
Veronica has been spending two months in New York, with the family of one of my business friends.

All that she brings back serves to embellish her quiet life, not to change it.
Will it be so with you ?" I wrote back, "No; but I am coming." He wrote again of changes in Surrey.