sweet was the promise of my wedding-day!  Of my husband I was very fond.  Handsome, educated, and with talents of a high order, there was every thing about him to make the heart of a young wife proud.  Tenderly we loved each other.  Like days in Elysium passed the first few months of our wedded life.  Our thoughts and wishes were one.  After that, gradually a change appeared to come over my husband.  He deferred less readily to my wishes.  His own will was more frequently opposed to mine, and his contentions for victory longer and longer continued.  This surprised and pained me.  But it did not occur to me, that my tenaciousness of opinion might seem as strange to him as did his to me.  It did not occur to me, that there would be a propriety in my deferring to him—­at least so far as to give up opposition.  I never for a moment reflected that a proud, firm-spirited man, might be driven off from an opposing wife, rather than drawn closer and united in tenderer bonds.  I only perceived my rights as an equal assailed.  And, from that point of view, saw his conduct as dogmatical and overbearing, whenever he resolutely set himself against me, as was far too frequently the case.

“One day,—­we had then been married about six months,—­he said to me, a little seriously, yet smiling as he spoke, ’Jane, did not I see you on the street, this morning?’ ‘You did,’ I replied.  ’And with Mrs. Corbin?’ ‘Yes.’  My answer to this last question was not given in a very pleasant tone.  The reason was this.  Mrs. Corbin, a recent acquaintance, was no favourite with my husband; and he had more than once mildly suggested that she was not, in his view, a fit associate for me.  This rather touched my pride.  It occurred to me, that I ought to be the best judge of my female associates, and that for my husband to make any objections was an assumption on his part, that, as a wife, I was called upon to resist.  I did not, on previous occasions, say any thing very decided, contenting myself with parrying his objections laughingly.  This time, however, I was in a less forbearing mood.  ’I wish you would not make that woman your friend’ he said, after I had admitted that he was right in his observation.  ‘And why not, pray?’ I asked, looking at him quite steadily.  ‘For reasons before given, Jane,’ he replied, mildly, but firmly.  ’There are reports in circulation touching her character, that I fear are’—­’They are false!’ I interrupted him.  ’I know they are false!’ I spoke with a sudden excitement.  My voice trembled, my cheek burned, and I was conscious that my eye shot forth no mild light.  ‘They are true—­I know they are true!’ Mr. Cleaveland said, sternly, but apparently unruffled.  ‘I don’t believe it,’ I retorted.  ‘I know her far better.  She is an injured woman.’

“‘Jane,’ my husband now said, his voice slightly trembling, ’you are my wife.  As such, your reputation is as dear to me as the apple of my eye.  Suspicion has been cast upon Mrs. Corbin, and that suspicion I have good reason for believing well founded.  If you associate with her—­if you are seen upon the street with her, your fair fame will receive a taint.  This I cannot permit.’