Page 448 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

‘Enough! Why, I’m going to make my living out of ‘em,’
said Maurice, with his most natural manner.
Sylvia sighed.
‘Play something, darling,’ said her father; and so the
girl, sitting down to the piano, trilled and warbled in her
pure young voice, until the Port Arthur question floated it-
self away upon waves of melody, and was heard of no more
for that time. But upon pursuing the subject, Sylvia found
her husband firm. He wanted to go, and he would go. Hav-
ing once assured himself that it was advantageous to him
to do a certain thing, the native obstinacy of the animal
urged him to do it despite all opposition from others, and
Sylvia, having had her first ‘cry’ over the question of the
visit, gave up the point. This was the first difference of their
short married life, and she hastened to condone it. In the
sunshine of Love and Marriage—for Maurice at first really
loved her; and love, curbing the worst part of him, brought
to him, as it brings to all of us, that gentleness and abne-
gation of self which is the only token and assurance of a
love aught but animal—Sylvia’s fears and doubts melted
away, as the mists melt in the beams of morning. A young
girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspira-
tion, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness
brooding upon her childlike nature, Marriage made her a
woman, by developing in her a woman’s trust and pride in
the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. Yet by-
and-by out of this sentiment arose a new and strange source
of anxiety. Having accepted her position as a wife, and put
away from her all doubts as to her own capacity for lov-