CHAPTER VI--A SECOND ATTEMPT.
Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr.and Mrs.Lodge's married experience sank into prosiness, and worse.

The farmer was usually gloomy and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought him no child, which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family who had occupied that valley for some two hundred years.

He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be a judgment from heaven upon him.
The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across.
She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least of her personal beauty.

Hence it arose that her closet was lined with bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of every description--nay, bunches of mystic herbs, charms, and books of necromancy, which in her schoolgirl time she would have ridiculed as folly.
'Damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes and witch mixtures some time or other,' said her husband, when his eye chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array.
She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such heart- swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, 'I only meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.' 'I'll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,' said she huskily, 'and try such remedies no more!' 'You want somebody to cheer you,' he observed.

'I once thought of adopting a boy; but he is too old now.