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Rh her emotions, no one took note of her thoughts. The atmosphere of indifference clipped her round like a prison, but from which there was no escape. No imagination could defy the dull monotony in which days upon days wore away. It was some relief to go and see Lucy, who was practising domestic felicity as it is practised at first. It is not in the deep passion, the keen feeling, the thoughtful mind, that are sown the seeds of earthly enjoyments. They are flowers that take root best in the light soil.

Lucy was the beau ideal of simple content—delighted with her husband, delighted with her house, finding a little accession of dignity in the idea of being married, and having already discovered that servants were a great trouble, it being scarcely possible to get good ones—a complaint which, we believe, is the usual after-dinner talk of all married ladies even in own time.

Francesca thought Charles Aubyn a little more wearisome in his capacity of husband than he had been in that of lover; perhaps because he addressed more of his discourse to herself. He had now to do the honours of his house; and he conceived that he supported the dignity of the clerical character by long statements of his own opinions, exaggerated and confused enough, but listened to