MARRIED BENEATH HIM. CHAPTER I. NOT A HAPPY FAMILY. SOME time has elapsed since the period of the last chapter, which, however, can scarcely be reckoned by years. But what does it matter? Human life is like an Alpenstock, the length of which is as nothing to its proprietor, compared with its notches, each the record of some remarkable event. For who but one who has vegetated rather than lived, cares for the date upon which this and that may have occurred to him? "It was in '34-no, let me see; yes, it must have been in '34, or was it in '35?" &c. Who cares? Man grows old, ay, and young, too, in a day; and the London street-child, who dies so early, lives a longer life-with all respect to the calendar-than the gray-haired sire of the village. Since the actors in life's drama, rapt in the event, are themselves so careless of the epoch, how strange it seems that we, the spectators, should be so solicitous about the matter! If I err in time, however, by a month or two, let me at least be particular about the place. Scene, a little house, frightfully dear, abutting on Park Lane; hour, early morning, or, in other words, 10.30; dramatis persona, a girl with all about her that youth, and beauty, and wealth can give, and yet who is evidently not happy. It is not the pale cast of thought alone (although hers is a very thoughtful face) which, reversing Pygmalion's miracle, makes alabaster of that noble brow. If her figure were not so admirably proportioned, showing no trace of the ravage of sickness, one would say she had been suffering for years from physical pain. Her features have that concentrated calm about them, which is not resignation, although it shows the determination to bear. Her morning attire |