Married Life

For a short time after their marriage, John Jr. treated Mabel with at
least a show of attention, but he was not one to act long as he did
not feel. Had Nellie been, indeed, the wife of another, he might in
time have learned to love Mabel as she deserved, but now her presence
only served to remind him of what he had lost, and at last he began
to shun her society, never seeming willing to be left with her alone,
and either repulsing or treating with indifference the many little
acts of kindness which her affectionate nature prompted. To all this
Mabel was not blind, and when once she began to suspect her true
position, it was easy for her to fancy slights where none were
intended.

Thus, ere she had been two months a wife, her life was one of
constant unhappiness, and, as a matter of course, her health, which
had been much improved, began to fail. Her old racking headaches
returned with renewed force, confining her for whole days to her
room, where she lay listening in vain for the footsteps which never
came, and tended only by 'Lena, who in proportion as the others
neglected her, clung to her more and more. The trip to Saratoga was
given up, John Jr. in the bitterness of his disappointment bitterly
refusing to go, and saying there was nothing sillier than for a
newly-married couple to go riding around the country, disgusting
sensible people with their fooleries. So with a burst of tears Mabel
yielded and her bridal tour extended no further than Frankfort,
whither her husband _did_ once accompany her, dining out even then
with an old schoolmate whom he chanced to meet, and almost forgetting
to call at Mr. Douglass's for Mabel when it was time to return home.