`Oh - ho - I like that!' said Troy, recovering himself. `Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it loose, which has not been long. It is beautiful hair. People used to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!'

`Pooh! that's nothing!' she exclaimed, in incipient accents of pique. `If I cared for your love as much as I used to I could say people had turned to look at mine.'

`Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous. You knew what married life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these contingencies.'

Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full. Ashamed as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:--

`This is all I get for loving you so well! Ah! when I married you your life was dearer to me than my own. I would have died for you - how truly I can say that I would have died for you! And now you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you. O! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my face? Whatever opinion you may have of my wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in your power.'

`I can't help how things fall out,' said Troy; `upon my heart, women will be the death of me!'

`Well, you shouldn't keep people's hair. You'll burn it, won't you, Frank?'

Frank went on as if he had not heard her. `There are considerations even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made - ties you know nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I.'

Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled tones of wretchedness and coaxing, `I only repent it if you don't love me better than any woman in the world! I don't otherwise, Frank. You don't repent because you already love somebody better than you love me, do you?'

`I don't know. Why do you say that?'

`You won't burn that curl. You like the woman who owns that pretty hair - yes; it is pretty - more beautiful than my miserable black mane! Well, it is no use; I can't help being ugly. You must like her best, if you will!'

`Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon that bit of hair for several months - that I am ready to swear.'

`But just now you said "ties"; and then - that woman we met?'

`'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair.'

`Is it hers, then?'

`Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are content.

`And what are the ties?'

`Oh! that meant nothing - a mere jest.'

`A mere jest!' she said, in mournful astonishment. `Can you jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest? Tell me the truth, Frank. I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's moments. Come! treat me fairly,' she said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his face. `I don't want much; bare justice - that's all! Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from the husband I should choose. Now, anything short of cruelty will content me. Yes! the independent and spirited Bathsheba is come to this!'