When the replies to them had lingered on their way she had, it is true, watched eagerly ', for the postman, and had lived restlessly between the arrivals of the mails, but she had taught herself resignation to the inevitable.

Now life had altered its aspect and its significance.

She had tried, with the aid of an untried imagination, to paint to herself the moments in which her husband would read the letter which told him what she had told.

She had wondered if he would start, if he would look amazed, if his grey-brown eyes would light with pleasure! Might he not want to see her?
Might he not perhaps write at once?
She never could advance farther in her imagined reading of this reply than the first lines: "MY DEAR EMILY,--The unexpected good news your letter contains has given me the greatest satisfaction.

You do not perhaps know how strong my desire has been--" She used to sit and flush with happiness when she reached this point.
She so wished that she was capable of depicting to herself what the rest would be.
She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle's arrival.