most effectively the character of a resigned saint, persevering in her sad declaration that nothing had happened—nothing! She had no complaints to make. It would all be over soon; and what was her happiness, if he were only happy!
Smilax went to his office the next day, a thoroughly wretched man; but his duties were too engrossing to permit him to dwell on his domestic troubles. He had tried in vain to imagine the cause of his wife's griefs, but he could not call to mind any circumstance which could, in any manner, have awakened her jealousy, or given her reason to shed a tear. What added to his distress was his inability to consult with any of his friends in regard to the matter, or ask advice as to the proper mode of procedure in such cases. The spirit of discontent had entered his paradise, and he was unhappy, and that was all he knew about it.
The mail had brought him heaps of letters and manuscripts, all of them requiring immediate attention; the printer had sent him bundles of proofs, which must be read and returned at once; and O'Mulligan had threatened him with a scorching, in a rival magazine, for not deciding on his manuscript sooner; and two clergymen, a lady, a Polish lecturer, and half-a-dozen suspicious-looking men of a very miscellaneous character, were waiting in his ante-room, some to learn his decision in regard to communications already sent, and some to offer him essays and poems. It was a melting hot day; all the rest of the world had gone to the country or the sea-side; but he was forced to remain to make up his next number. The perspiration rolled from his clouded brow, as he seated himself at his overburdened desk, and thought of his duties. With a kind of grim desperation, he took up the roll of manuscript which the lady had left him the day before, and smiled scornfully, as he read the title, "A Pledge of Affection. By Pattie Passionflower."
"Another vegetable name in literature!" he said to himself; "Poppyflower would be better. I thought, when I received a poem from Carry Cauliflower, that that particular form of literary disease had come to an end; but here is another." He ran his eye rapidly over a few leaves of the manuscript—for he had learned the art of judging of the character of a literary performance without reading it all
