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Thus he sat for some ten or fifteen minutes. At the end of this time, he heard light footsteps coming down the stairs. He knew them to be those of his wife. He did not move nor make a sound, but rather crouched lower in his chair, the back of which was turned toward the door. But his thought was on his wife. He saw her with the eyes of his mind–saw her with her clouded countenance. His heart throbbed heavily against his side, and he partially held his breath.

Now her footsteps moved along the passage, and now he was conscious that she had entered the room where he sat. Not the slightest movement did he make–not a sign did he give of his presence. There he sat, shrinking down in his chair, moody, gloomy, and angry with Kate in his heart.

Was she aware of his presence? Had she heard him enter the house? Such were the questioning thoughts that were in his mind.

Footsteps moved across the room. Now Kate was at the mantel-piece, a few feet from the chair he occupied, for he heard her lay a book thereon. Now she passed to the back window, and throwing it up, pushed open the shutters, giving freer entrance to the waning light.

A deep silence followed. Now the stillness is broken by a gentle sigh that floats faintly through the room. How rebukingly smote that sigh upon the ears of Lee! How it softened his heart toward Kate, the young and loving wife of his bosom! A slower movement in the current of his angry feelings succeeds to this. Then it becomes still. There is a pause.

But where is Kate? Has she left the room? He listens for some movement, but not the slightest sound meets his ear.

“Kate!” No, he did not utter the word aloud, in tender accents, though it was in his heart and on his tongue. Nor did he start up or move. No, as if spell-bound, he remained crouching down in his chair.

All at once he is conscious that some one is bending above him, and, in the next moment, warm lips touch his forehead, gently, hesitatingly, yet with a lingering pressure.

“Kate! Dear Kate!”

He has sprung to his feet, and his arms are flung around his wife.

“Forgive me, Frederick, if I seemed unkind to you,” sobbed Kate, as soon as she could command her voice. “There was no unkindness in my heart–only love.”

“It is I who most need to ask forgiveness,” replied Lee. “I who have–“

“Hush! Not a word of that now,” quickly returned Kate, placing her hand upon his mouth. “Let the past be forgotten.”

“And forgiven, too,” said Lee, as he pressed his lips eagerly to those of his wife.

How happy they were at this moment of reconciliation! How light seemed the causes which had risen up to mar the beautiful harmony of their lives! Haw weak and foolish both had been, as their acts now appeared in eyes from which had fallen the scales of passion!

Both were wiser than in the aforetime. Kate tried to look away, as much as possible, from the little faults which at first so much annoyed her; while her husband turned his thoughts more narrowly upon himself, at the same time that he made observation of other men, and was soon well convinced that sundry changes in his habits and manners might be made with great advantage. The more his eyes were opened to these little personal defects, the more fully did he forgive Kate for having in the beginning laid her hand upon them, though not in the gentlest manner.

“Six months have passed since you were married,” said Mrs. Morton one day to Kate.

“Yes, six months have flown on wings of perfume,” replied the happy wife.

“I saw Frederick yesterday.”

“Did you?”

“Yes; and I knew him the moment my eyes rested upon him.”

“Knew him! Why shouldn’t you know him?”

Kate looked a little surprised.

“I thought he was to be so changed under your hands in six months, that I would hardly recognise him.”

There was an arch look in Mrs. Morton’s eyes, and a merry flutter in her voice.

“Mrs. Morton! Now that is too bad!”

“Your experiment failed, did it not, dear?”

The door of the room in which the ladies were sitting opened at the moment, and Frederick Lee entered.

“Not entirely,” whispered Kate, as she bent to the ear of her friend. “He is vastly improved–at least, in my eyes.”

“And in others’ eyes, too,” thought Mrs. Morton, as she arose and returned the young man’s smiling salutation.