dear,” or “Yes, my love,” which makes the usual matrimonial vocabulary, and which does not reward study.  But he always looked at her with a calm delight, perfectly satisfied with all she said and did, and with a Southern indolence of mind and body, that precluded effort.  I think he never once lost entire confidence in her, or was jealous of the hand that had unlocked such mental treasures for her.

Meanwhile her eager lip quaffed the bright cup so cautiously presented, and drained it with ever new delight.  If it was mingled with delicate flattery, it only sparkled more merrily; and if there were poison there, I am sure she never guessed it, even when it burnt in her cheek or thrilled in her dancing veins.

XII.

The Lewises, with Mr. Remington and a large party of pleasure-seekers, went about this time on a tour to Quebec and the Falls of Montmorency.  They decided to shut their house in Boston, and Lulu asked me if I would employ and look after a protegee of hers, in whom she took some interest.  The woman was a tolerable seamstress, she said, and would come to me the next day.  She knew nothing about her except that she was poor and could sew.

When the woman came in, I was puzzled to think where I could have seen her, which I was sure I had done somewhere, though I could not recall the where or when.  In answer to my particular inquiries, as she could give me no references, she told me her husband was living, but was sick and could do nothing for his family,—­in fact, that she and three children were kept alive by her efforts of various sorts.  These were, sewing when she could get it, washing and scrubbing when she could not.  She was very poorly dressed, but had a Yankee, go-ahead expression, as if she would get a living on the top of a bare rock.

Still puzzling over the likeness in her face to somebody I had known, I continued to ask questions and to observe face, manner, and voice, in hope to catch the clue of which I was in search.  When she admitted that her husband’s intemperance had lost him his place and forbade his getting another, and said his name was Jim Ruggles, “a light broke in upon my brain.”  I remembered my vision of the fresh young girl who had sprung out on our path like a morning-glory, on our way to New York seven years before.  The poor morning-glory was sadly trodden in the dust.  It hadn’t done “no good,” as the driver had remarked, to forewarn her of the consequences of marrying a sponge.  She had accepted her lot, and, strangely enough, was quite happy in it.  There could be no mistake in the cheerful expression of her worn face.  Whatever Jim might be to other people, she said, he was always good to her and the children; and she pitied him, loved him, and took care of him.  It wasn’t at all in the fashion the Temperance Society would have liked; for when I first went to the house, I found her pouring out a glass of strong waters for him, and handing it to his pale and trembling lips herself.  As soon as I was seated, she locked bottle and glass carefully.  Before I left her, she had given him stimulants of various sorts from the same source, which he received with grateful smiles, and then went on coughing as before.