The young lady had very fine conversational powers and was very fond of displaying them; she soon obtained and held the attention of all the older people at the table, and Zoe felt herself more and more aggrieved.  Edward was positively careless of her wants, leaving her to be waited upon by the servants.

When they returned to the drawing-room he seated himself beside Miss Deane again, and the flow of talk recommenced, he continuing a delighted listener.

Zoe feigned not to notice or care, but it was a very transparent pretence.  Edward had devoted himself so almost exclusively to her ever since their marriage, that she could scarce endure to have it otherwise.

She could not refrain from watching him furtively and trying to catch his every look, word and tone.

After a little she stole quietly from the room and went up to her own.

“He will miss me presently,” she thought, “remember about the lessons, and come up to hear them, and I’ll have him all to myself for at least a little while.”

He did not come, but at length Rosie looked in to say, “Won’t you come down to the music-room, Zoe?  Miss Fleming is going to play for us, and she is said to be quite a wonderful performer.”

Zoe accepted the invitation; she was fond of music, and it wasn’t Miss Fleming who had robbed her of Edward.  Yet, when she saw him standing beside her, a rapt and delighted listener, and assiduously turning her music, she began to almost hate her, too.

The advent of these two strangers seemed to have rendered ineffectual all the efforts she had put forth that day to gratify her husband; of what use was it that she had so carefully prepared the lessons he would not trouble himself to hear? or that she had spent hours of patient practice at the piano in learning the song she was given no opportunity to play and sing?

But womanly pride was awaking within her, and she made a tolerably successful effort to control and hide her feelings.

When at length she found herself alone with Edward in their own apartments, she moved silently about making her preparations for retiring, seeming to have nothing to say.

He burst into enthusiastic praises of the talents of their guests—­the conversational gift of the one, the musical genius of the other.

Zoe, standing before the mirror, brushing out her soft shining tresses, made no response.

“Why are you so silent, little woman?” Edward asked presently.

“Because I have nothing to say that you would want to hear.”

“Nothing that I would want to hear? why, I am fond of the very sound of your voice.  But what’s the matter?” for he had come to her side, and perceived with surprise and concern that her eyes were full of tears.

“Oh, nothing! except that I’d looked forward to a delightful evening with my husband, after being parted from him all day, and didn’t get it.”