“Are my wishes, feelings, and taste to be of no account whatever?” said Kate, warmly.  “Frederick is to be and do just what he pleases, and I must say nothing, do nothing, and bear every thing.  Was this the contract between us?  No, Mrs. Morton!”

The bright eyes of Mrs. Lee flashed with indignant fire.

“Come, come, Katy, dear!  Don’t let that impulsive heart of thine lead thee too far aside from the path of prudence and safety.  I am sure that Frederick Lee is no self-willed, exacting, domestic tyrant.  I could not have been so deceived in him.  But tell me the particular cause of your trouble.  What has been said and done?  You have given offence, and he has become offended.  Tell me the whole story, Kate, and then I’ll know what to say and do for the restoration of your peace.”

“You are aware,” said Kate, after a brief pause, and with a deepening flush on her cheeks, “how awkward and untidy Frederick is at times,—­how he lounges in his chair, and throws his body into all manner of ungraceful attitudes.”

“Well?”

“This, as you know, has always annoyed me sadly.  Night before last, I felt so worried with him, that I could not help speaking right out.”

“Ah! when you were worried?”

“Of course.  If I hadn’t felt worried, I wouldn’t have said any thing.”

“Indeed!  Well, what did you say?  Was your tone of voice low and full of love, and your words as gentle as the falling dew?”

“Mrs. Morton!”

There was a half-angry, indignant expression in the voice of Kate.

“Did you lay your hand lightly, like the touch of a feather, upon the fault you designed to correct, or did you grasp it rudely and angrily?”

Kate’s eyes drooped beneath those of her friend.

“You were annoyed and excited,” continued Mrs. Morton.  “This by your own acknowledgment, and, in such a frame of mind, you charged with faults the one who had vainly thought himself, at least in your eyes, perfect.  And he, as a natural consequence, was hurt and offended.  But what did you say to him?”

“I hardly know what I said, now,” returned Kate.  “But I know I used the words ungraceful, undignified, and country clod-hopper.”

“Why, Kate!  I am surprised at you!  And this to so excellent a man as Frederick, who, from all the fair and gentle ones around him, chose you to be his bosom friend and life companion.  Kate, Kate!  That was unworthy of you.  That was unkind to him.  I do not wonder that he was hurt and offended.”

“Perhaps I was wrong, Mrs. Morton,” said Kate, as tears began to flow again.  “But Frederick’s want of order, grace, and neatness, is dreadful.  I cannot tell you how much it annoys me.”

“You saw all this before you were married.”

“Not all of it.”

“You saw enough to enable you to judge of the rest.”

“True; but then I always meant to correct these things in him.  They were but blemishes on a jewel of surpassing value.”