A week before the promised month was up, Moll and her husband came back to the Court, and lest I should imagine that her pleasures had been curtailed by his caprice, she was at great pains to convince me that he had yielded to her insistence in this matter, declaring she was sick of theatres, ridottos, masquerades, and sight-seeing, and had sighed to be home ere she had been in London a week.  This surprised me exceedingly, knowing how passionate fond she had ever been of the playhouse and diversions of any kind, and remembering how eager she was to go to town with her husband; and I perceived there was more significance in the present distaste for diversion than she would have known.  And I observed further (when the joy of return and ordering her household subsided) that she herself had changed in these past three weeks, more than was to be expected in so short a time.  For, though she seemed to love her husband more than ever she had loved him as her lover, and could not be happy two minutes out of his company, ’twas not that glad, joyous love of the earlier days, but a yearning, clinging passion, that made me sad to see, for I could not look upon the strained, anxious tenderness in her young face without bethinking me of my poor sister, as she knelt praying by her babe’s cot for God to spare its frail life.

Yet her husband never looked more hearty and strong, and every look and word of his bespoke increasing love.  The change in her was not unperceived by him, and often he would look down into her wistful, craving eyes as if he would ask of her, “What is it, love? tell me all.”  And she, as understanding this appeal, would answer nothing, but only shake her head, still gazing into his kind eyes as if she would have him believe she had nought to tell.

These things made me very thoughtful and urgent to find some satisfactory explanation.  To be sure, thinks I, marriage is but the beginning of a woman’s real life, and so one may not reasonably expect her to be what she was as a thoughtless child.  And ’tis no less natural that a young wife should love to be alone with her husband, rather than in the midst of people who must distract his thoughts from her; as also it is right and proper she should wish to be in her own home, directing her domestic affairs and tending to her husband—­showing him withal she is a good and thoughtful housewife.  But why these pensive tristful looks, now she hath her heart’s desire?  Then, finding I must seek some better explanation of her case, I bethought me she must have had a very hard, difficult task in London to conceal from one, who was now a part of herself, her knowledge of so many things it was unbefitting she should reveal.  At the playhouse she must feign astonishment at all she saw, as having never visited one before, and keep constant guard upon herself lest some word slipped her lips to reveal her acquaintance with the players and their art.  At the ridotto she must equally feign ignorance of modish dancing—­she