occasionally parties to the full-bodied wine, and the lie, excused

him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he

believed it himselfwhich is surely such an incorrigible

aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such

offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and

there hanged out of the way.

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes

pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing

corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her

heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, and those of her own

dear father’s, always active and self-possessed, and those of her

dear husband’s, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of

their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and

elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was

music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet in

her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found

her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and

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of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and

duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and

asked her “What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being

everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never