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22 It is surprising, clever as Elizabeth was, that she should have remained so long blind to the fact that Mrs William's life was built up of small deceptions as regarded her husband. The first lie the girl detected smote her like a blow in the face. It was a thing of no importance, as it seemed to her at that time. Afterwards she remembered that its effect was to prevent her uncle's going to a certain place, on a certain day. He was devoted to his wife, and the least suspicious of men. She, on her side, though bent on amusement, was never unmindful of her husband's comfort, and when she discouraged his accompanying her to a ball, some miles distant, and said she was sure he would be happier remaining at home with Bessie, he regarded it as an instance of her unselfish consideration for him. Elizabeth did not believe that—no. Her eyes had been gradually opened to the possibility of her aunt being actuated by other motives. Admiration was the breath of her nostrils; and though there was no harm in this—for does not every human being enjoy "appreciation," as we call it, by a graceful euphuism?—perhaps Uncle William's presence might render the atmosphere a little heavy; the incense would not rise so freely. Elizabeth had never taken her aunt very seriously; she did not do so now. Mrs. William was a bright butterfly, fluttering through life, without the moral sense of the housewifely bee; but, also, without its sting. Elizabeth was sorry her aunt told white lies—it shook the girl's faith in her: but she ought never to have looked for figs from thistles; and there was no real harm in her uncle's wife, she felt sure.

One day in April Mrs. William announced to her niece