he was minded to write her of the opportunity now given him to serve his country, and the power he might some day attain to promote peace and avert rash legislation.
Never once did he allow an inadvertent word to slip from his pen, whereby she could suspect that she, as his wife, might be a cause of embarrassment to him, or a clog in the wheel of the chariot which from now on was to bear him triumphantly among his social friends or political enemies. Never would he disturb the sweet serenity that encompassed her. Yet well he knew what an incongruity she would appear should he present her now—as she had stood by her loom, or in the ploughed field at his side—to the company he would find in his mother's home.
Simple and direct as she was, she would walk over their conventions and proprieties, and never know it. How strange many of those customs of theirs would appear to her, and how unnecessary! He feared for her most in her utter ignorance of everything pertaining to the daily existence of the over-civilized circle to which the changed conditions of his life would bring her.
Much, he knew, would pass unseen by her, but soon she would begin to understand, and to wince under their exclamations of "How extraordinary!" The masklike expression would steal over her face, her pride would encase her spirit in the deep reserve he himself had found so hard to penetrate, and he could see her withdrawing more and more from all, until at last— Ah! it must not be. He must manage very carefully, lest Doctor