And so the patient, thoughtful, loving wife and mother, doing her daily work for human souls and bodies, though her intellectual powers be humble, and her taste but poorly cultivated, fills more honorably her sphere than any of her more brilliant sisters, who cast off what they consider the shackles by which custom and tyranny have bound them down to mere home duties and the drudgery of household care.  If down into these they would bring their superior powers, their cultivated tastes, their larger knowledge, how quickly would some desert homes in our land put on refreshing greenness, and desolate gardens blossom like the rose!  We should have, instead of vast imaginary Utopias in the future, model homes in the present, the light and beauty of which, shining abroad, would give higher types of social life for common emulation.

Ah, if the Genius of Social Reform would only take her stand centrally!  If she would make the regeneration of homes the great achievement of our day, then would she indeed come with promise and blessing.  But, alas! she is so far vagrant in her habits—­a fortune-telling gipsy, not a true, loving, useful woman.

Unhappily for Mrs. Emerson, it was the weird-eyed, fortune-telling gipsy whose Delphic utterances had bewildered her mind.

The reconciliation which followed the Christmas-time troubles of Irene and her husband had given both more prudent self-control.  They guarded themselves with a care that threw around the manner of each a certain reserve which was often felt by the other as coldness.  To both this was, in a degree, painful.  There was tender love in their hearts, but it was overshadowed by self-will and false ideas of independence on the one side, and by a brooding spirit of accusation and unaccustomed restraint on the other.  Many times, each day of their lives, did words and sentiments, just about to be uttered by Hartley Emerson, die unspoken, lest in them something might appear which would stir the quick feelings of Irene into antagonism.

There was no guarantee of happiness in such a state of things.  Mutual forbearance existed, not from self-discipline and tender love, but from fear of consequences.  They were burnt children, and dreaded, as well they might, the fire.

With little change in their relations to each other, and few events worthy of notice, a year went by.  Mr. Delancy came down to New York several times during this period, spending a few days at each visit, while Irene went frequently to Ivy Cliff, and stayed there, occasionally, as long as two or three weeks.  Hartley always came up from the city while Irene was at her father’s, but never stayed longer than a single day, business requiring him to be at his office or in court.  Mr. Delancy never saw them together without closely observing their manner, tone of speaking and language.  Both, he could see, were maturing rapidly.  Irene had changed most.  There was a style of thinking, a familiarity with popular themes