What could I do but tell a fib, and say I had none? So you perceive I am doomed to take my meals with this strange biped. How I shall bear it I cannot say. No one in this world I am sure would stand surety for my good behavior. Three times a day, for an hour at a time I must see her. I know nothing of her character, for she merely throws out her words as the automaton chess player says "échec." If she would only turn out a piece of machinery now, how relieved I should be; but I fear she has some kind of a soul, though I have not found out yet what is its character.

"Are

And now I dare say you would ask; you happy Fanny? and do you behave yourself well?" All the world would suppose that there was but one answer to both questions. Yes, to the first, and no, to the last. But it often happens that the world answers questions for us that we should find it hard to answer for ourselves. Am I happy? I ought to be; I do thirst for happiness; what human being does not? I cannot tell why I am not. No woman was ever blessed with a better husband; my precious baby looks like an emanation of joy. All the world without, smiles upon me. Where are the clouds,

whence are they, that hang round my heart sometimes? I know not. When my husband sees them he does every thing that patient kindness can do to chase them away; but then I try his temper sadly; I know I do, though he never finds fault with me now. He is even more silent than he used to be, or he takes a book, or he goes to walk. If he would only speak; if he would only scold at me, as you do; if he would but just get into a passion, ever so little of a passion, I should feel better than to see him so quiet when I know I have done wrong, and that he is not pleased. You see that I am a little hipped, dear Amy, or I should not run on so, as if there was anything real in it. Burn this. It is all nonsense. It is the strange housekeeper that makes me so vaporish, I doubt not. My husband always sends his love to you; and as for my baby if it does not love you I will disown it. Ever yours,

FANNY ROBERTS.

Amy sighed heavily as she finished reading Fanny's letter. "Alas, poor Fanny!" said she to herself, "there is a canker at the root of all her joys.

'And forward though I cannot look,
I guess and fear.'

I must be faithful to her now.

I must tell her all I think. I must warn her against the dangers that beset her."

With Amy, to resolve and to act, were the same thing. She immediately wrote the following letter to her friend.

Dearest Fanny,

You are a really good correspondent; you tell everything just as it occurs, as you promised. I could not but laugh heartily at your description of Mrs. Hawkins; and yet Fanny, I cannot think such things quite right. You have injured that woman, I doubt not. I cannot believe that she is such a strange mortal as you have described her. But, dear Fanny, though I began your letter with laughing, I ended with the heart-ache, for I saw in it that you were not happy; and, at the risk of giving you pain, I must speak frankly and fearlessly to you, all that is in my heart. I must tell you all the apprehensions which your letter has called up in my mind. with regard to the happiness of your future life.

You are unhappy. You must not attempt

to hide it from me; you cannot; you are unhappy. Now, what is the cause of it? You have not taken that fatal step, you have not brought upon yourself that life-long blight, of marrying a man that you do not love; you have not so desecrated your own soul. No, dear Fanny, you love Mr. Roberts better than aught else in this wide world, and yet you are not happy as his wife. What is the reason? You must put this

heart with the most

question to your own solemn earnestness. Have you not supposed that a union with him you loved was to make you happy in itself, and by itself; and that it involved no appropriate duties, and called for no unusual virtue? There are no external causes of your unhappiness. You have all that the most craving heart can reasonably ask of outward good. The children of poverty, and sickness, and oppression, might well cry out against you, that with so many of God's richest blessings on your head, your every breath is not a song of praise and thankfulness. Whence, then, as you yourself ask, are these clouds that hang over your heart?

Is it not, Fanny, that, instead of going with your craving thirst for happiness, to the Eter

nal Fountain, you are still standing unsatisfied by the broken cisterns that hold no water? You allow your thoughts and affections to dwell on the outward; you do not cultivate the principle of faith.

"Very like," you will say; "I know this well, but how am I to do this? Show me the way." They who strive after the highest must begin with the nearest. Go to your husband, and ask his help, and seek to aid him in the same great purpose of a perfect understanding between you. You must tell him all that is in your heart; you must turn it inside out to him. You must be perfectly true yourself, and you must insist upon truth from him in return. You must confess to your husband every weakness and sin of your own, as well as tell him every fault you find in him, and every pain that he gives you. You must pour out into his bosom every hope, every fear, every trembling doubt, every mysterious longing that you can find words, or sighs, or tears to communicate; just as you would to God himself. Do not answer, "My husband is so reserved that I cannot speak to him on these subjects; he never speaks to me upon them." Speak to him