“You cannot make me believe that the high-born and wealthy are what you represent,” said her cousin.  “A class must not be condemned because of an individual; and though I never felt inclined to achieve rank, I honour many of its possessors.  It is the unsatisfied longing of your own heart that has made you miserable, dear Helen; and oh! let me entreat you, by the remembrance of our early years, to suffer yourself to enjoy what you possess.”

“What I possess!” she repeated; “the dread and dislike of my husband’s relatives—­the reputation of ’she was very handsome’—­a broken constitution—­nothing to lean upon or love—­a worn and weary heart!”

“You have a mine of happiness in your husband’s affection.”

“Not now,” she answered bitterly; “not now—­not now.”  And she was right.

The next day she left the farm, where peace and prosperity dwelt together; despite herself, it pained her to witness such happiness.  It is possible that the practical and practised theories she had witnessed might have changed her, had she not foolishly thought it too late.  Her disappointment had been great; from the adoption of that child she had expected much of what, after all, is the creating and existing principle of woman’s nature—­natural affection; but this was refused by its mother’s wisdom.  Her worldly prospects had been doomed to disappointment, because she hungered and thirsted after vanities and distinctions, which never can afford sustenance to an immortal spirit; and even when she desired to cultivate attachment, it did not proceed from the pure love of woman—­the natural stream was corrupted by an unworthy motive.

Again years rolled on.  In the records of fashionable life, the movements and fetes of Lady ——­ continued to be occasionally noted as the most brilliant of the season; then rumours became rife that Lord and Lady ——­ did not live as affectionately as heretofore; then, after twenty years of union, separation ensued upon the public ground of “incompatibility of temper”—­his friends expressing their astonishment how his lordship could have so long endured the pride and caprice of one so lowly born, while hers—­but friends! she had no friends!—­a few partizans of the “rights of women” there were, who, for the sake of “the cause,” defended the woman.  She had been all her life too restless for friendship, and when the sensation caused by her separation from her husband had passed away, none of the gay world seemed to remember her existence.  Rose and her husband lived, loved, and laboured together.  It was astonishing how much good they did, and how much they were beloved by their neighbours.  Their names had never been noted in any fashionable register, but it was engraved upon every peasant heart in the district.  “As happy as Edward and Rose Lynne,” became a proverb; and if any thing was needed to increase the love the one felt for the other, it was perfected by the affection of their children.