"Yes, mamma, but--oh, I wish he never had to go away without me! And why couldn't I have gone with him this time?" she sobbed, beginning to feel herself quite aggrieved, though the idea of going with Edward had but just occurred to her.

"Well, dear, there really was not time to arrange that," Elsie said, embracing her with motherly affection. "But come now and get some breakfast. You must be hungry after your ride."

"Is Grandpa vexed because I was not here in season?" Zoe asked, following her mother-in-law on her way to the breakfast-room.

"He has not shown any vexation," Elsie answered lightly; "and you are not much behind time; they are all still at the table. Edward took his breakfast early in order to catch his train."

Zoe's apprehensions were relieved immediately on entering the breakfast-room, as Mr. Dinsmore and all the others greeted her with the usual pleasant "Good-morning."

Reconciled to her husband and smiled upon by all the rest of the family, she grew quite happy.

In saying she was not to be driven, but would do anything for love and coaxing, she had spoken truly; and now her great desire was to do something to please Edward.

She had been rather remiss in her studies of late, and though he had administered no reproof, she knew that he felt discouraged over it. She determined to surprise him on his return with carefully prepared lessons.

After giving due attention to them, she spent hours at the piano learning a song he admired and had lately bought for her, saying he thought it suited to her voice, and wanted to hear her play and sing it.

"What a dear, industrious little woman," Elsie said, meeting her in the hall as she left the music-room, and bestowing upon her a motherly smile and caress. "I know whom you are trying so hard to please, and if he does not show appreciation of your efforts, I shall think him unworthy of so good a little wife."

Zoe colored with pleasure. "O mamma," she said, "though I have been cross and wilful sometimes, I would do anything in the world to please my husband when he is loving and kind to me. But do you know, I can't bear to be driven. I won't; if anybody tries it with me, it just rouses all that is evil in me."

"Well, dear, I don't think any one in this house wants to drive you,"

Elsie said, repeating her caress, "not even your husband; though he is, perhaps, a trifle masterful by nature. You and he will need to take the two bears into your counsels," she added sportively.

"Two bears, mamma?" and Zoe looked up in surprise and perplexity.

"Yes, dear; bear and forbear, as the poet sings--

"'The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear, And something every day they live To pity and perhaps forgive.'"

Zoe went slowly up to her own rooms and sat down to meditate upon her mother-in-law's words.

"'Bear and forbear.' Well, when Edward reproves me as if he were my father instead of my husband, and talks about what he will and won't allow, I must bear with him, I suppose; and when I want to answer back that I'm my own mistress and not under his control, I must forbear and deny myself the pleasure. Hard for me to do, but then it isn't to be all on one side; and if he will only forbear lecturing me in the beginning, all will go right.

"I mean to tell him so. If he wants me to be very good, he should set me the example. Good! when he scolds me again, I'll just remind him that example is better than precept.

"No, I won't either; I'll forbear. Ned is good to me, and I don't want to provoke him. I mean to be a good little wife to him, and I know he wants to be the best of husbands to me.

"Oh, how kind and good he was to me when papa died, and I hadn't another friend in the world! how he took me to his heart and comforted and loved me! I must never make him wish he hadn't. I'll do everything I can to prove that I'm not ungrateful for all his love and kindness."

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was seized with a longing desire for his presence, for an opportunity to pour out her love and grat.i.tude, and have him clasp her to his heart with tenderest caresses, as was his wont.

She glanced at the clock. Oh joy! he might, he probably would, return in an hour or perhaps a trifle sooner.

She sprang up and began her toilet for the evening, paying close attention to his taste in the arrangement of her hair and the selection of her dress and ornaments.

"I want to look just as beautiful in his sight as I possibly can, that he may be pleased with me and love me better than ever," was the thought in her heart. "I am his own wife, and who has a better right to his love than I? Dear Ned! I hope we'll never quarrel, but always keep the two bears with us in our home."

Her labors completed, she turned herself about before the pier-gla.s.s, mentally p.r.o.nounced her attire faultless from the knot of ribbon in her hair to the dainty boots on the shapely little feet, and her cheek flushed with pleasure as the mirror told her that face and form were even prettier than the dress and ornaments that formed a fit setting to their charms.

The hour was almost up. She glanced from the window to see if he were yet in sight.

He was not, but she wanted a walk, so would go to meet him; he would dismount at sight of her, and they would walk home together.

Tying on a garden hat and throwing a light shawl about her shoulders, she hastened down-stairs and out into the grounds.

She had walked more than half the length of the avenue, when she saw the family carriage turning in at the gates, Edward riding beside it.

The flutter of a veil from its window caused her to change her plans. He was not returning alone, but bringing lady visitors; therefore, she would not go to meet him.

And no one had told her visitors were expected. She felt aggrieved, and somehow, unreasonable as she knew it to be, she was angry at Edward's look of interest and pleasure as he leaned from the saddle in a listening att.i.tude, as if hearkening to the talk of some one within the carriage.

Zoe had stepped behind a clump of bushes, whose leafy screen hid her from the view of the approaching party, while through its interstices she could see them very plainly.

As they drew nearer, she saw that the carriage contained two young, pretty, ladylike girls, one of whom was talking to Edward with much animation and earnestness, he listening with evident interest and amus.e.m.e.nt.

When the carriage had pa.s.sed her, Zoe glided away through the shrubbery, gained the house by a circuitous route and a side entrance, and her own rooms by a back stairway.

She fully expected to find Edward there, but he was not.

"Where can he be?" she asked herself half aloud, then sat down and waited for him--not very patiently.

After some little time, which, to Zoe's impatience, seemed very long, she heard the opening and shutting of a door, then the voices of Mr. Dinsmore, his daughter, and Edward in conversation, as they came down the hall together.

"He has been to see his mother first," she pouted. "I think a man ought always to put his wife first." And turning her back to the door, she took up a book and made a pretence of being deeply interested in its perusal.

Edward's step, however, pa.s.sed on into the dressing-room, and as she heard him moving about there, she grew more and more vexed. It seemed that he was in no great haste to greet her after this their first day's separation; he could put it off, not only for a visit to his mother in her private apartments, but also until he had gone through the somewhat lengthened duties of the toilet.

Well, she would show him that she, too, could wait--could be as cool and indifferent as himself. She a.s.sumed a graceful att.i.tude in an easy-chair, her pretty little feet upon a velvet-cushioned stool, and with her book lying in her lap listened intently to every sound coming from the adjoining room.

At last she heard his step approach the door, then his hand upon the k.n.o.b, when she instantly took up her book and fixed her eyes upon its open page, as though unconscious of everything but what was printed there, yet really not taking in the meaning of a single word.

Edward came in, came close to her side. Still she neither moved nor lifted her eyes. But she could not control her color, and he saw through her pretences.

He knelt down beside her chair, bent his head and looked up into her face with laughing eyes.

"What can it be that so interests my little wife that she does not even know that her husband has come home, after this their first day of separation? Have you no kiss of welcome for him, little woman?"

The book was thrust hastily aside, and in an instant her arms were about his neck, her lips pressed again and again to his.

"O Ned, I do love you!" she said softly, "but I began to think you didn't care for me--going to see mamma first, and then waiting to dress."

"Mamma and grandpa were concerned in the business that took me away to-day, and I owed them a prompt report upon it; yet I looked in here first for my wife, but couldn't find her; then I asked for her, and was told that she had been seen going out for a walk. So I thought I would dress and be ready for her when she came in."

"Was that it?" she asked, looking a little ashamed. "But," regarding him with critical eyes, "you'd better always let me help with your dressing; your cravat isn't tied nicely, and your hair doesn't look half so well as when I brush it for you."

"Can't you set matters straight, then?" he asked, releasing her from the close embrace in which he had held her for the last few minutes.