And thus it was that Blanche Montgomery entered upon her new life.  Death’s shadow fell upon the torch of Hymen.  There was a rain of grief just as the sun of love poured forth his brightest beams, and the bow which spanned the horizon gave, in that hour of grief, sweet promise for the future.

These exciting events in the experience of our young friends had come upon us so suddenly, that our minds were half bewildered.  A few weeks served, however, to bring all things into a right adjustment with our own daily life and thought, and Ivy Cottage became one of the places that grew dearer to us for the accumulating memories of pleasant hours spent there with true-hearted ones who were living for something more than the unreal things of this world.

How many times was the life that beat so feverishly in the Allen House, and that which moved to such even pulsings in Ivy Cottage, contrasted in my observation!  Ten years of a marriage such as Delia Floyd so unwisely consummated, had not served for the development of her inner life to any right purpose.  She had kept on in the wrong way taken by her feet in the beginning, growing purse proud, vain, ambitious of external pre-eminence, worldly-minded, and self-indulgent.  She had four children, who were given up almost wholly to the care of hirelings.  There was, consequent upon neglect, ignorance, and bad regimen, a great deal of sickness among them, and I was frequently called in to interpose my skill for their relief.  Poor little suffering ones! how often I pitied them An occasional warning was thrown in, but it was scarcely heeded by the mother, who had put on towards me a reserved stateliness, that precluded all friendly remonstrance.

At least two months of every summer Mrs. Dewey was absent from S——­, intermitting between Saratoga and Newport, where she abandoned herself to all the excitements of fashionable dissipation.  Regularly each year we saw her name in the New York correspondence of the Herald, as the “fascinating Mrs. D——­;” the “charming wife of Mr. D——­;” or in some like style of reference.  At last, coupled with one of these allusions, was an intimation that “it might be well if some discreet friend would whisper in the lady’s ear that she was a little too intimate with men of doubtful reputation; particularly in the absence of her husband.”

This paragraph was pointed out to me by one of my patients.  I read it with a throb of pain.  A little while afterwards I passed Mr. Floyd and Mr. Dewey in the street.  They were walking rapidly, and conversing in an excited manner.  I saw them take the direction of the depot.

“Here is trouble!” I said, sighing to myself.  “Trouble that gold cannot gild, nor the sparkle of diamonds hide.  Alas! alas! that a human soul, in which was so fair a promise, should get so far astray!”

I met Mr. Floyd half an hour later.  His face was pale and troubled, and his eyes upon the ground.  He did not see me—­or care to see me—­and so we passed without recognition.