“The more some people have, the more dissatisfied they are,” remarked one superficial observer to another, in reply to some communication touching Mrs. Leslie’s want of spirits.

“Yes,” was answered.  “Nothing but real trouble ever brings such persons to their senses.”

Ah!  Is not heart-trouble the most real of all with which we are visited?  There comes to it, so rarely, a balm of healing.  To those external evils which merely affect the personal comfort, the mind quickly accommodates itself.  We may find happiness in either prosperity or adversity.  But, what true happiness is there for a loving heart, if, from the only source of reciprocation, there is but an imperfect response?  A strong mind may accommodate itself, in the exercise of a firm religious philosophy, to even these circumstances, and like the wisely discriminating bee, extract honey from even the most unpromising flower.  But, it is hard—­nay, almost impossible—­for one like Madeline, reared as she was in so warm an atmosphere of love, to fall back upon and find a sustaining power, in such a philosophy.  Her spirit first must droop.  There must be a passing through the fire, with painful purification.  Alas!  How many perish in the ordeal!—­How many gentle, loving ones, unequally mated, die, daily, around us; moving on to the grave, so far as the world knows, by the way of some fatal bodily ailment; yet, in truth, failing by a heart-sickness that has dried up the fountains of life.

And so it was with the wife of Edward Leslie.  Greatly her husband wondered at the shadows which fell, more and more heavily, on Madeline—­wondered as time wore on, at the paleness of her cheeks—­the sadness which, often, she could not repress when he was by; the variableness of her spirits—­all tending to destroy the balance of her nervous system, and, finally, ending in confirmed ill-health, that demanded, imperiously, the diversion of his thoughts from business and worldly schemes to the means of prolonging her life.

Alas!  What a sad picture to look upon, would it be, were we to sketch, even in outline, the passing events of the ten years that preceded this conviction on the part of Mr. Leslie.  To Madeline, his cold, hard, impatient, and, too frequently, cruel re-actions upon what he thought her unreasonable, captious, dissatisfied states of mind, having no ground but in her imagination, were heavy heart-strokes—­or, as a discordant hand dashed among her life-chords, putting them forever out of tune.  Oh!  The wretchedness, struggling with patience and concealment, of those weary years.  The days and days, during which her husband maintained towards her a moody silence, that it seemed would kill her.  And yet, so far as the world went, Mr. Leslie was among the best of husbands.  How little does the world, so called, look beneath the surface of things!

With the weakness of failing health, came, to Madeline, the loss of mental energy.  She had less and less self-control.  A brooding melancholy settled upon her feelings; and she often spent days in her chamber, refusing to see any one except members of her own family, and weeping if she were spoken to.