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Woodville, you and I are new friends and I pray God, Valeria, it may turn out that you have chosen well. Our house will be dreary enough without you; but I don't complain, my dear. On the contrary, if this change in your life makes you happier, I rejoice. Come, come! don't cry, or you will set your aunt off and it's no joke at her time of life. Besides, crying will spoil your beauty.
He told me that you had met with his mother, by an unlucky accident, and that you had discovered the family name. He declared that he had traveled to London for the express purpose of speaking to me personally on this serious subject. 'I know your weakness, he said, 'where women are concerned. Valeria is aware that you are my old friend.
Valeria went on with an outburst of energy, "I was doomed to doom others to similar loss; others have felt for me, in vain, what I, in vain, felt for him! I sent them all away, because I could not bring myself to endure the thought of marrying any other man, and so I pass my days alone a waif and stray, without anything or anyone to live for."
The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has something to tell me something that I am dying to hear. If she is not too tired after her journey, and if you will let her tell it, I promise to have myself taken away when she has done. Dear Mr. Benjamin, you look like the refuge of the afflicted. I am afflicted.
He seemed to be pursuing some pleasant train of thought just started in his mind. "So like my mother!" he exclaimed, with the air of a man who felt irresistibly diverted by some humorous idea of his own. "Tell me all about it, Valeria!" "Tell you!" I repeated. "After what has happened, surely it is your duty to enlighten me." "You don't see the joke," he said.
"Then eat this," and she passed me a tin pannikin full of cold macaroni, which would just go through the opening. "Dear Valeria," I said, with my mouth full, "how good and thoughtful you are!" "Hush! he'll hear." "Who?" "Croppo." "Where is he?" "Asleep in the bed just behind me." "How do you come to be in his bedroom?" "Because I'm his wife." "Oh!"
The mischief is done, and the next thing is to mend it as well as we can. If I could only get within arm's-length of that husband of yours, Valeria There! there! God forgive me, I am forgetting that I am a clergyman. What shall I forget next, I wonder? By-the-by, your aunt sends you her dearest love. She is more superstitious than ever. This miserable business doesn't surprise her a bit.
"There is something truly unmanageable about you, my dear!" cried Valeria, much amused. "Well, I too have had just that sort of instinct, just that imperious demand, just that impatience of restraint. I too regarded myself and my powers as mine to use as I would, responsible only to my own conscience. I decided to have freedom though the heavens should fall.
What he did not know, however, but had been manoeuvring to discover, was how far I was known at the Court of Valeria. Well, he was welcome to what he had got. Now, as a matter of fact, it was quite likely that the Dalbergs of Dornlitz had totally forgotten the Dalbergs of America.
"You wrong me, you insult me, in thinking it possible!" He put down my hand from him, and drew back a step, with a bitter smile. "We have only been married a few days, Valeria. Your love for me is new and young. Time, which wears away all things, will wear away the first fervor of that love." "Never! never!" He drew back from me a little further still. "Look at the world around you," he said.
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