After a little, opening the door in answer to a rap, she found Agnes standing there with a delightful breakfast on a silver waiter--hot coffee, delicate rolls and m.u.f.fins, tender beefsteak, and omelet.

"Good-mornin', Miss Zoe," said the girl, walking in and setting her burden down on a stand. "Miss Elsie she tole me for to fotch up dis yere. She tink, Miss Elsie do, dat p'raps you'd rather eat yo' breakfus up yere dis mornin'."

"Yes, so I would, Agnes, though I'm not very hungry. Tell mamma she's very kind, and I'm much obliged."

"Ya'as, Miss Zoe," and Agnes courtesied and withdrew.

Zoe took a sip of the coffee, tasted the omelet, found a coming appet.i.te, and went on to make a tolerably hearty meal, growing more cheerful and hopeful as she ate.

But grief overcame her again as she went about the solitary rooms; it seemed as if her husband's presence lingered everywhere, and yet as if he were dead and buried, and she never to see him more.

Not quite a year had elapsed since her father's death, and the scenes of that day and night and many succeeding ones came vividly before her; the utter forlornness of her condition, alone in a strange land with a dying parent, with no earthly comforter at hand, no friend or helper in all the wide world, and how Edward then flew to her a.s.sistance, how kindly he ministered to her dying father, how tenderly he took her in his arms, whispering words of love and sympathy, and asking her to become his wife and give him the right to protect and care for her.

And how he had lavished favors and endearments upon her all these months; how patiently he had borne with petulance and frequent disregard of his known wishes, nor ever once reminded her that she owed her home and every earthly blessing to him.

How he had sympathized with her in her bursts of grief for her father, soothing her with tenderest caresses and a.s.surances of the bliss of the departed, and reminding her of the blessed hope of reunion in the better land.

After all this, she surely might have borne a little from him--a trifling neglect or reproof, a slight exertion of authority, especially as she could not deny that she was very young and foolish to be left to her own guidance.

And perhaps he had a right to claim her obedience, for she knew that she had promised to give it.

She found she loved him with a depth and pa.s.sion she had not been aware of. But he had gone away without a good-by to her, in anger, and with Miss Deane. He would never have done that if there had been a spark of love left in his heart.

Where and how was he going to spend that week or ten days? At the house of Miss Deane's parents, sitting beside her, hearing her talk and enjoying it, though he knew his little wife at home must be breaking her heart because of his absence?

Was he doing this instead of carrying out his half threat of locking her up? Did he know that this was a punishment ten times worse?

But if he wasn't going to love her any more, if he was tired of her and wanted to be rid of her, how could she ever bear to stay and be a burden and constant annoyance to him?

Elsie, coming up a little later, found her in her boudoir crying very bitterly.

"Dear child, my dear little daughter," she said, taking her in her kind arms, "don't grieve so; a week or even ten days will soon roll round, and Edward will be with you again."

"O mamma, it is a long, long while!" she sobbed. "You know we've never been parted for a whole day since we were married, and he's all I have."

"Yes, dear, I know; and I felt sure you were crying up here and didn't want to show your tell-tale face at the table, so I sent your breakfast up. I hope you paid it proper attention--did not treat it with neglect?"

she added sportively.

"It tasted very good, mamma, and you were very kind," Zoe said.

She longed to ask where and on what errand Edward had gone, but did not want to expose her ignorance of his plans.

"I did not know the ladies were going to-day," she remarked.

"It was very sudden," was the reply; "a telegram received this morning summoned them home because of the alarming illness of Miss Deane's father, and as Edward had business to attend to that would make it necessary for him to take a train leaving only an hour later than theirs, he thought it best to see them on their way as far as our city. He could not do more, as their destination and his lie in exactly opposite directions."

Though Edward had kept his own counsel, the kind mother had her suspicions, and was anxious to relieve Zoe's mind as far as lay in her power.

Zoe's brightening countenance and sigh of relief showed her that her efforts were not altogether in vain.

"I think Edward was sorry to leave his little wife for so long," she went on. "He committed her to my care. What will you do with yourself this morning, dear, while I am busy with the children in the school-room?"

"I don't know, mamma; perhaps learn some lessons. Edward would wish me to attend to my studies while he is away, and I want to please him."

"I haven't a doubt of that, dear. I know there is very strong love between you, and the knowledge makes me very happy."

"Mamma," said Zoe, "may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, dear, as many as you please."

"Did you obey your husband?"

Elsie looked surprise, almost startled; the query seemed to throw new light on the state of affairs between Edward and his young wife; but she answered promptly in her own sweet, gentle tones. "My dear, I often wished he would only give me the opportunity; it would have been so great a pleasure to give up my wishes for one I loved so dearly."

"Then he never ordered you?"

"Yes, once--very soon after our marriage--he laid his commands upon me to cease calling him Mr. Travilla and say Edward," Elsie said, with a dreamy smile and a far-away look in her soft brown eyes.

"He was very much older than I, and knowing him from very early childhood, as a grown-up gentleman and my father's friend, I had been used to calling him Mr. Travilla, and could hardly feel it respectful to drop the t.i.tle.

"The only other order he ever gave me was not to exert myself to lift my little Elsie before I had recovered my strength after her birth. He was very tenderly careful of his little wife, as he delighted to call her."

"I wish I had known him," said Zoe. "Is my husband much like him?"

"More in looks than disposition. I sometimes think he resembles my father more than his own in the latter regard.

"Yes," thought Zoe, "that's where he gets his disposition to domineer over me and order me about. I always knew Grandpa Dinsmore was of that sort."

Aloud she said, with a watery smile, "And my Edward has been very tenderly careful of me."

"And always will be, I trust," said his mother, smiling more cheerily. "If he does not prove so, he is less like my father than I think. Mamma will tell you, I am sure, that she has been the happiest of wives."

"I suppose it depends a good deal upon the two dispositions how a couple get on together," remarked Zoe, sagely. "But, mamma, do you think the man should always rule and have his way in everything?"

"I think a wife's best plan, if she desires to have her own way, is always to be or to seem ready to give up to her husband. Don't deny or oppose their claim to authority, and they are not likely to care to exert it."

"If I were only as wise and good as you, mamma!" murmured Zoe with a sigh.

"Ah, dear, I am not at all good; and as to the wisdom, I trust it will come to you with years; there is an old saying that we cannot expect to find gray heads on green shoulders."

CHAPTER XXI.

"And if division come, it soon is past, Too sharp, too strange an agony to last.

And like some river's bright, abundant tide, Which art or accident had forc'd aside, The well-springs of affection gushing o'er, Back to their natural channels flow once more."

--Mrs. Norton.