After visiting Anna for a short time, he offered his hand.  If it had not been that her sixteenth birthday was so near, Anna would have declined the offer, for Thomas Elliott did not grow dearer to her every day.  There were young men whom she liked much better; and if they had only come forward and presented their claims to favour, she would have declined the offer.  But time was rapidly passing away.  Anna was ambitious of being engaged before she was sixteen, and married, if possible.  Her mother had rejected two offers, and she was anxious to do as much.  Here was a chance for one rejection—­but was she sure of another offer in time?  No!  There was the difficulty.  For some days she debated the question, and then laid it before her mother.  Mrs. Wyman consulted her husband, who did not much like Elliott; but the mother felt the necessity of an early marriage, and overruled all objections.  Her advice to Anna was to accept the offer, and it was accepted, accordingly.

A fond, wayward child of sixteen may chance to marry and do well, spite of all the drawbacks she will meet; but this is only in case she happen to marry a man of good sense, warm affections, and great kindness, who can bear with her as a father bears with a capricious child; can forgive much and love much.  But give the happiness of such a creature into the keeping of a cold, narrow-minded, selfish, petulant man, and her cup will soon run over.  Bitter, indeed, will be her lot in life.

Just such a man was Thomas Elliott.  He had sought only his own pleasures, and had owned no law but his own will.  For more than ten years he had been living without other external restraints than those social laws that all must observe who desire to keep a fair reputation.  He came in when he pleased and went out when he pleased.  He required service from all, and gave it to none—­that is, so far as he needed service, he exacted it from those under him, but was not in the habit of making personal sacrifices for the sake of others.  Thus, his natural selfishness was confirmed.  When he married, it was with an end to the good he should derive from the union—­not from a generous desire to make another happy in himself.  Anna was young, vivacious, and more than ordinarily intelligent and pretty.  There was much about her that was attractive, and Elliott really imagined that he loved her; but it was himself that he loved in her fascinating qualities.  These were all to minister to his pleasure.  He never once thought of devoting himself to her happiness.

On the night of the wedding, which took place soon after Anna’s sixteenth birthday, the bride was in that bewildered state of mind which destroys all the rational perceptions of the mind.  Her whole soul was in a pleasing tumult, and yet she did not feel happy; and why?  Spite of the solemn promise she had made to love and honour her husband above all men, she felt that there were others whom she could have loved and honoured more than him, were they