“Now, however, he dismissed them all, and surrounded me with strangers.  My remonstrances were unheeded.  ‘This is my house, Mrs. Westbourne,’ he would say.  ’Henceforth everything shall go as I wish, and if not agreeable to you, I can gladly dispense with your company altogether.’

“I soon found that this was the one object dear to him.  My presence grew, every day, seemingly more intolerable.  This new trouble nearly overwhelmed me.  I learned now that the means that were denied me, was daily lavished upon others among whom my name was a by-word.  One day the postman brought me a letter, in an unknown hand.  It ran thus: 

MADAM:—­Why do you look so frightfully ill?  Every one is remarking upon your altered appearance.  You have everything to make you happy.  Your husband is handsome, and generous as a prince.  To prove it:  yesterday he gave me five hundred dollars, and to-day I clasped upon my arm a splendid bracelet, flashing with beautiful gems, also his gift.  The wheel of fortune turns, and those who were poor and obscure but yesterday, are rich to-day. Your day of power is over.  Do not be the last to see it.  Show some spirit.  Be up and doing.  Your society has lost its charm for your husband, and he finds his only happiness in the love of another who can appreciate him better than you have ever done.  Very well! seek your own affinity, and find a new Eden.  Don’t fret and cry till your eyes are red and swollen, and your whole appearance hideous.  It will only recoil on your own head.  Nobody will pity you, and the world will pass on and forget you.  Live while you live, and leave to-morrow to take care of to-morrow.  Remember, “It is a folly to no other second, to wish to correct the world.—­CAROLINE.”

“This was followed by others of the same nature.  It finally became an understood thing that Geoffrey should pass nearly all of the time he could snatch from business, with women of this class.  If I questioned him, he would laugh rudely, and ask me how I was going to help myself.

“There was, indeed, but one way, either to bear all this quietly, without murmur or reproach, or else obtain a legal separation.  I knew that this was his sole object, and would have complied with it, for my soul sickened of this life; but, I had a child, a delicate girl, and he forbade me to take her away.  I could not part with my baby daughter; better even this wretched existence, and so I continued to watch and wait, and pray God not to forget me in my dire extremity.  As time passed, and my husband saw that he could not move me, he grew impatient, and took still harsher measures.