“Oh, nothing in reality more than usual.  Men in business are exposed to a thousand annoyances.  If all the world were honest, trade would be pleasant enough.  But you have to watch every one you deal with as closely as if he were a rogue.  A man, whom I had confided in and befriended, tried to overreach me today, and it has hurt me a good deal.  I couldn’t have believed it of him.”

Nothing more was said on either side for several minutes.  Leslie, absorbed in thoughts of business, so far forgot the presence of his wife, as to withdraw the hand upon which her’s was laid.  How palpable to her was the coldness of his heart!  She felt it as an atmosphere around him.

After tea, Leslie remarked, as he arose from the table, that he wished to see a friend on some matter of business; but would be home early.  Not even a kiss did he leave with Madeline to cheer her during his absence.  His selfish dignity could not stoop to such childishness.

The young bride passed the evening with no companionship but her tears.  When Leslie came home, and looked upon her sober face, he was not struck with its aspect as being unusual.  It did not enter his imagination that she could be otherwise than happy.  Was she not his wife?  And had she not, around her, every thing to make the heart satisfied?  He verily believed that she had.  He spoke to her kindly, yet, as she felt, indifferently, while her heart was pining for words of warm affection.

This was the first shadow that fell, darkly, across the young wife’s path.  For hours after her husband’s senses were locked in slumber, she lay wakeful and weeping.  He understood not, if he remarked the fact, why her cheeks had less color and her eyes less brightness on the morning that succeeded to this, on Madeline’s part, never forgotten evening.

We need not present a scene from the sixth, the seventh, or even the twentieth day of Madeline’s married life.  All moved on with a kind of even tenor.  Order—­we might almost say, mercantile order—­reigned throughout the household.  And yet, shadows were filling more and more heavily over the young wife’s feelings.  To be loved, was an element of her existence—­to be loved with expression.  But, expressive fondness was not one of the cold, dignified Mr. Leslie’s weaknesses.  He loved Madeline—­as much as he was capable of loving anything out of himself.  And he had given her the highest possible evidence of this love, by making her his wife.—­What more could she ask?  It never occurred to his unsentimental thought, that words and acts of endearment were absolutely essential to her happiness.  That her world of interest was a world of affections, and that without his companionship in this world, her heart would feel an aching void.

Who will wonder that, as weeks and months went by, shadows were more apparent on the sunny face of Madeline?  Yet, such shadows, when they became visible to casual eyes, did excite wonder.  What was there to break the play of sunshine on her countenance?