vent shyness and girlish bashfulness, which she thought it her duty to assume; and on that account he endured her obstinacy quite patiently. It was something new and often even amusing for the Count, who had been petted by all the ladies, to see his young wife hasten away from him to her prayers for consolation. But seeing at length from what source the supposed shyness came, the Count ceased to smile. The Countess, after some time, felt it her duty to return to the rigorous ways of the convent and reproach her husband for his faults; and this she did with the inconsiderate stiffness and arrogance of conscious virtue which marks both the old and the young bigot. She showed no respect for him, either before strangers or servants, and regarded him more and more as a lost sheep. Such conduct a man of even less violent temper than Count Felsenburk certainly would not have endured. His attachment to his wife was no more than a mere liking, and that disappeared as quickly as he took a deeper view of her inward self. She
