Zoe colored with pleasure.  “O mamma,” she said, “though I have been cross and wilful sometimes, I would do anything in the world to please my husband when he is loving and kind to me.  But do you know, I can’t bear to be driven.  I won’t; if anybody tries it with me, it just rouses all that is evil in me.”

“Well, dear, I don’t think any one in this house wants to drive you,” Elsie said, repeating her caress, “not even your husband; though he is, perhaps, a trifle masterful by nature.  You and he will need to take the two bears into your counsels,” she added sportively.

“Two bears, mamma?” and Zoe looked up in surprise and perplexity.

“Yes, dear; bear and forbear, as the poet sings—­

    “’The kindest and the happiest pair
        Will find occasion to forbear,
      And something every day they live
        To pity and perhaps forgive.’”

Zoe went slowly up to her own rooms and sat down to meditate upon her mother-in-law’s words.

“‘Bear and forbear.’  Well, when Edward reproves me as if he were my father instead of my husband, and talks about what he will and won’t allow, I must bear with him, I suppose; and when I want to answer back that I’m my own mistress and not under his control, I must forbear and deny myself the pleasure.  Hard for me to do, but then it isn’t to be all on one side; and if he will only forbear lecturing me in the beginning, all will go right.

“I mean to tell him so.  If he wants me to be very good, he should set me the example.  Good! when he scolds me again, I’ll just remind him that example is better than precept.

“No, I won’t either; I’ll forbear.  Ned is good to me, and I don’t want to provoke him.  I mean to be a good little wife to him, and I know he wants to be the best of husbands to me.

“Oh, how kind and good he was to me when papa died, and I hadn’t another friend in the world! how he took me to his heart and comforted and loved me!  I must never make him wish he hadn’t.  I’ll do everything I can to prove that I’m not ungrateful for all his love and kindness.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was seized with a longing desire for his presence, for an opportunity to pour out her love and gratitude, and have him clasp her to his heart with tenderest caresses, as was his wont.

She glanced at the clock.  Oh joy! he might, he probably would, return in an hour or perhaps a trifle sooner.

She sprang up and began her toilet for the evening, paying close attention to his taste in the arrangement of her hair and the selection of her dress and ornaments.

“I want to look just as beautiful in his sight as I possibly can, that he may be pleased with me and love me better than ever,” was the thought in her heart.  “I am his own wife, and who has a better right to his love than I?  Dear Ned!  I hope we’ll never quarrel, but always keep the two bears with us in our home.”