"That is my niece! The Gilbert Roe you speak of must be her husband."
"Husband? Ah! that may explain the cruelty of what he did next. And it was cruel and humiliating to me! And there need have been no occasion for it, if he had told me at the first that he was married. She taunted him with my friendship. I heard her. And he--was it manly of him?--he actually proposed to bring her to me, to ask if there was anything between us more than old acquaintanceship!" Maida's voice rose into a cry as she said it. She clenched her hands; and cheeks, brow, neck, grew scarlet, and then she buried her face in her handkerchief and sobbed.
"It must be Rose, my niece, and her husband. I would believe anything that could be told me of them. There never were two such ill-regulated young things brought together, I do believe--so fond, so foolish, so obstinate and wayward. There never was such a fiasco as their married life has proved. Both handsome, both clever, both well off, and each, I believe, most truly attached to the other; yet neither would forbear to gratify a whim, neither would submit to be crossed in the smallest trifle by the other. They squabbled away for not much over a year, and then the Divorce Court came in and parted them. A pair of unruly children! It was whipped they should have been, and made promise to kiss and be friends. Instead of that, they are divorced and discredited for life, and nothing good need be expected ever to happen to either of them any more. These ill-considered changes in our customs are deplorable. It is good to rescue the downtrodden from oppression, but only evil can come of confounding liberty with licence."
"Perhaps you may be mistaken," Maida answered, looking up and drying her eyes. It consoled her to hear her affronters soundly scolded, even in their absence. "Hillyard is no such uncommon name. This lady passed for unmarried at the hotel, and they say she is engaged to be married to a gentleman from Canada. Yes, by the by, it was to remonstrate about that, that Mr Roe spoke to her."
"So the Divorce Court, even, does not end their squabbles! Whom was she said to be engaged to?"
"A Mr Naylor--a real nice gentleman, and devoted to her. Every one was talking about the beautiful presents of jewellery he had ordered her from New York."