 the small details, the words, tones,
and looks, in the critical scenes which had opened a new epoch for her by giving
her a deeper insight into the relations and trials of life, or which had called
on her for some little effort of forbearance, or of painful adherence to an
imagined or real duty - asking herself continually whether she had been in any
respect blamable. This excessive rumination and self-questioning is perhaps a
morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensibility when shut out from
its due share of outward activity and of practical claims on its affections -
inevitable to a noble-hearted, childless woman, when her lot is narrow. »I can
do so little - have I done it all well?« is the perpetually recurring thought;
and there are no voices calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory
demands to divert energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple.
    There was one main thread of painful experience in Nancy's married life, and
on it hung certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the oftenest revived in
retrospect. The short dialogue with Priscilla in the garden had determined the
current of retrospect in that frequent direction this particular Sunday
afternoon. The first wandering of her thought from the text, which she still
attempted dutifully to follow with her eyes and silent lips, was into an
imaginary enlargement of the defence she had set up for her husband against
Priscilla's implied blame The vindication of the loved object is the best balm
affection can find for its wounds: - »A man must have so much on his mind,« is
the belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough answers
and unfeeling words. And Nancy's deepest wounds had all come from the perception
that the absence of children from their hearth was dwelt on in her husband's
mind as a privation to which he could not reconcile himself.
    Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to feel still more keenly the
denial of a blessing to which she had looked forward with all the varied
expectations and preparations, solemn and prettily trivial, which fill the mind
of a loving woman when she expects to become a mother. Was there not a drawer
filled with the neat work of her hands, all unworn and untouched, just as she
had arranged it there fourteen years ago - just, but for one little dress, which
had been made the burial-dress? But under this immediate personal trial Nancy
was so firmly unmurmuring, that years ago she had suddenly renounced the habit
of visiting this drawer, lest she should in this way be cherishing a longing for
