38 BERTHA. 



she suspected not her need of sympathy and support. But 

 gradually the truth dawned upon her. There was something 

 in her nature which called for utterance. She was a creature 

 of lofty impulses, and, as her intellect expanded, these demand- 

 ed expression and appreciation. Her mind had remained fold- 

 ed like a flower within its sheath, but suddenly it had unclosed, 

 like the evening primrose whose buds burst into blossoms be- 

 neath the gazer's eye. Her husband was a man of common- 

 place ideas, without one elevated thought or one refined 

 fancy. He could love her in his own way, and lavish his money 

 upon her ; but he could not understand her character. He had 

 found her a child, he had married her as a child, and as such 

 he continued to regard her. She was his pet, a creature to be 

 fondled in his own cold manner ; — to be patted under the chin, 

 and coolly kissed, as a matter of right, with about as much 

 feeling as would have induced him to stroke the head of his 

 favorite pointer. 



Bertha had nothing of which to complain, nothing that the 

 world would recognize as a source of unhappiness ; for the 

 world see only the surface of things. But there was such a 

 total incongruity of character, such a wide difference between 

 the tender and imaginative woman, and the cold, narrow-mind- 

 ed, matter-of-fact man, that it was utterly impossible happiness 

 should grow up beneath such influences. Mr. Van Aulen was 

 exact in all the minute observances of duty and attention ; but 

 his obtuse mind was incapable of discovering the pining thirst 

 which might be felt by a woman's soul for something grander 

 and nobler. He dreamed not that his wife could be other than 



