CHAPTER XI.
A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
_BOTH_ Emerson and his wife came up from this experience changed in themselves and toward each other.

A few days had matured them beyond what might have been looked for in as many years.

Life suddenly put on more sober hues, and the future laid off its smiles and beckonings onward to greener fields and mountain-heights of felicity.

There was a certain air of manly self-confidence, a firmer, more deliberate way of expressing himself on all subjects, and an evidence of mental clearness and strength, which gave to Irene the impression of power and superiority not wholly agreeable to her self-love, yet awakening emotions of pride in her husband when she contrasted him with other men.

As a man among men, he was, as he had ever been, her beau ideal; but as a husband, she felt a daily increasing spirit of resistance and antagonism, and it required constant watchfulness over herself to prevent this feeling from exhibiting itself in act.
On the part of Emerson, the more he thought about this subject of the husband's relative duties and prerogatives--thought as a man and as a lawyer--the more strongly did he feel about it, and the more tenacious of his assumed rights did he become.