But he was too much absorbed in his efforts to get along in the world to be able to see clearly the true condition of his wife, or, if he at all understood it, to be aware of the cause.
Their new location proved to be an unhealthy one, and the loss of another child drove them away, after a residence of a year.

Mrs.
Parker suffered here severely from intermittent fever.

She was just able to go about when her husband declared his intention to leave the place on account of its being sickly.
"Where do you think of going ?" she asked, raising to his her large pensive eyes.
"I have hardly made up my mind yet," he replied.

"But I was thinking of R--." Rachel's eyes fell to the floor, and a gentle sigh escaped from her bosom.

This was noticed by her husband.
"Have you any objection to R-- ?" he asked.
"Why not go back to the old place ?" Rachel ventured to say, while her eyes were again fixed upon him, but now earnestly and tearfully.
"Would you rather live there ?" he asked, with more than usual tenderness in his voice.
"I have never been happy since we left there," the poor wife replied, sinking forward and biding her tearful face on his breast.
Parker was confounded.