“I have mentioned the fact, fifty times at least, to everybody here!” said Mrs. Markleham.
(“Then hold your tongue, for the Lord’s sake, and don’t mention it any more!” muttered my aunt.)
“It was so great a change: so great a loss, I felt it, at first,” said Annie, still preserving the same look and tone, “that I was agitated and distressed. I was but a girl; and when so great a change came in the character in which I had so long looked up to him, I think I was sorry. But nothing could have made him what he used to be again; and I was proud that he should think me so worthy, and we were married.”
“—At Saint Alphage, Canterbury,” observed Mrs. Markleham.
(“Confound the woman!” said my aunt, “she won’t be quiet!”)
“I never thought,” proceeded Annie, with a heightened colour, “of any worldly gain that my husband would bring to me. My young heart had no room in its homage for any such poor reference. Mama, forgive me when I say that it was you who first presented to my mind the thought that anyone could wrong me, and wrong him, by such a cruel suspicion.”
“Me!” cried Mrs. Markleham.
(“Ah! You, to be sure!” observed my aunt, “and you can’t fan it away, my military friend!”)
“It was the first unhappiness of my new life,” said Annie. “It was the first occasion of every unhappy moment I have known. These moments have been more, of late, than I can count; but not—my generous husband!—not for the reason you suppose; for in my heart there is not a thought, a recollection, or a hope, that any power could separate from you!”