“It is the condition of these young friends, aunt, that causes me to feel serious.  I am to be married in a few weeks.  Can it be possible that my union with Henry Armour will be no happier, no more perfect than theirs?  This I cannot believe.  And yet, the relation that Alice and Frances hold to their husbands, troubles me whenever I think of it.  Henry, as far as I have been able to understand him, has strong points in his character.  From a right course of action,—­or, from a course of action that he thinks right,—­no consideration, I am sure, would turn him.  I, too, have mental characteristics somewhat similar.  There is, likewise, about me, a leaven of stubbornness.  I tremble when the thought of opposition between us, upon any subject, crosses my mind.  I would rather die—­so I feel about it—­than ever have a misunderstanding with my husband.”

Laura ceased, and her aunt, who was, she now perceived, much agitated, arose and left the room without speaking.  The reason of this to Laura was altogether unaccountable.  Her aunt Cleaveland, always so mild, so calm, to be thus strongly disturbed!  What could it mean?  What could there be in her maidenly fears to excite the feelings of one so good, and wise, and gentle?  An hour afterwards, and while she yet sat, sober and perplexed in mind, in the same place where Mrs. Cleaveland had left her, a domestic came in and said that her aunt wished to see her in her own room.  Laura attended her immediately.  She found her calm and self-possessed, but paler than usual.  “Sit down beside me, dear,” Mrs. Cleaveland said, smiling faintly, as her niece came in.

“What you said this morning, Laura,” she began, after a few moments, “recalled my own early years so vividly, that I could not keep down emotions I had deemed long since powerless.  The cause of those emotions it is now, I clearly see, my duty to reveal—­that is, to you.  For years I have carefully avoided permitting my mind to go back to the past, in vain musings over scenes that bring no pleasant thoughts, no glad feelings.  I have, rather, looked into the future with a steady hope, a calm reliance.  But, for your sake, I will draw aside the veil.  May the relation I am now about to give you have the effect I desire!  Then shall I not suffer in vain.  How vividly, at this moment, do I remember the joyful feelings that pervaded my bosom, when, like you, a maiden, I looked forward to my wedding-day.  Mr. Cleaveland was a man, in many respects, like Henry Armour.  Proud, firm, yet gentle and amiable when not opposed;—­a man with whom I might have been supremely happy;—­a man whose faults I might have corrected—­not by open opposition to them—­not by seeming to notice them—­but by leading him to see them himself.  But this course I did not pursue.  I was proud; I was self-willed; I was unyielding.  Elements like these can never come into opposition without a victory on either side being as disastrous as the defeats.  We were married.  Oh, how