Mr. Lewis’s business in Cuba was prolonged into May.  He had estates there, and desired to dispose of them, Lulu said, so that they might for the future live entirely at the North, which they both liked better.

I could not help seeing that her affections drifted farther and farther every week from their lawful haven, and I wished Mr. Lewis safe back again and overlooking his Northern estates.  I guessed how, through her pride of awakened intellect, Lulu’s gratitude had wrought a deep interest in her cousin.  He had rescued her from the idleness and inanity of her daily life, pointed out to her the broad fields of literary enjoyment and excellence, and inevitably associated his own image with all the new and varied occupations with which her now busy days were filled.  The poetry she read he brought to her; the songs she sang were of his selection.  His mind and taste, his observations and reflections, were all written over every page she read, over every hour of her life.  She had been on a desert island in her intellectual loneliness.  She could hardly help loving the hand that had guided her to the palm-tree and the fountain, especially when she glanced back at the long sandy reach of her life.

Naturally enough, I watched and distrusted Mr. Remington, who was a man of the world, and knew very well what he was about.  Of all things, he dearly loved to be excited, occupied, and amused.  Of course, I was not disturbed about his heart, nor seriously supposed he would get into any entanglement of the affections and the duties of life, but I thought he might do a great deal of harm for all that.

At last, in the middle of May, Mr. Lewis returned, having failed in his desired arrangement for a permanent residence in New England.  The first evening I saw them together without company, I perceived that he was struck with the new life in Lulu’s manner and conversation.  He watched and listened to her with an astonishment which he could not conceal.

I never saw anything like jealousy in Mr. Lewis’s manner, either at this time, or before.  He was always tender and dignified, when speaking to or of her.  If he felt any uneasiness now, he did not betray it.  In looking back, I am sure of this.  Afterwards, in company, where he might be supposed to be proud of his wife, he often looked at her with the same astonishment, and sometimes with unaffected admiration.  He could not help seeing the great change in her,—­that the days were taken up with rational and elegant pursuits, and that the hours were vocal with poetry and taste.  The illuminating mind had brought her tulip beauty into a brighter and more gorgeous glow, and her movements were full of graceful meaning.  Everything was touched and inspired but the heart.  I don’t know that he felt this, or that he missed anything.  She had the same easy self-possession in his presence which she had always had,—­the same pet names of endearment.  It was always “Willie,